The two questions have been staring us in the HR Industry for years, but seem to be moving up our collective industry consciousness ladder very rapidly.

The Questions are these:

• What’s the better model for filling roles in the UK and the US – Agency Recruiting or Corporate Recruiting – and which approach is more strategic and relevant?
• Should talent professionals report into HR or should HR report into talent?

I’m not going to tell you her answers – you can go to her blog here and find them.  But I will tell you this: her answers are as stimulating and thought-provoking as the questions.

And her punch-line is killer.

About Laurie Ruettimann

With over a decade of Human Resources experience in Fortune 500 organizations, Laurie Ruettimann is an influential speaker, writer and social media expert who now works with The Starr Conspiracy.  In addition to creating Punk Rock HR, which was recognized by Forbes as one of the Top 100 blogs for women, Ruettimann was the co-founder of several HR start-ups including New Media Services LLC and HRM Today — the first social network for HR professionals.  She is a columnist for The Conference Board Review, an advisor to SmartBrief, and her advice has been featured in various publications such as The New York Times, Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, CFO magazine, Shape Magazine, and Men’s Health.  Listed as one of the Top 5 career advice websites by CareerBuilder and CNN, her work has also been featured on the Suicide Girls, AOL, and Lemondrop websites.

Tags:

Answers, HR, Questions, Recruiting, Talent. Laurie Ruettiman

Photo credit:

Quel Talent by gwenboul on flickr

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View at Work

Last month, jobmob.com reposted an article by Dave Thomas with 5 tips for Safe Job Searching at Work.

Among his suggestions were; your stock is higher presently employed; utilize former employers as references; keep your routine the same; and don’t send out resumes when you do not know the source

This is all great advice, and there is a very good bonus tip for job seekers in this article too, that is well worth the read.  Dave’s post can be seen in its entirety here…

But extreme caution is necessary when gambling with your current job stability.  As Dave puts it, “The last thing you want is to really need to search for a job because you just lost your current job due to wasting the employer’s time.”

I think only one tip is needed:   DON’T SEARCH FOR A NEW JOB AT WORK!

Here’s a few more don’ts that are related:

• Don’t job search on the company computer or the company phone – it’s your employer’s equipment and they receive the traffic logs from their suppliers.
• Don’t send e-mails from your company computer or the company’s mobile phone – again, it’s their equipment and they receive the traffic logs from their suppliers.
• Don’t browse job boards on your company computer or the company’s mobile phone – ditto, the same as the first two ‘Don’ts’.
• Don’t store your resume on your company computer – all the information is stored on the company servers and is accessible to your managers if they have reason or suspicion of abuse.  Why would you want to risk having your resume, bank statements or any other personal information available to your employer?

And whether you are at work or not, check these out:

• Don’t click the box on your LinkedIn profile that states you are interested in “Career Opportunities” – many sourcing recruiters (some hired by your own company) are constantly searching for new talent on LinkedIn.  How awkward would it be to have a recruiter approach you for an opportunity to have your exact job at the same company?
• Don’t tweet that you are looking for a job – employers and recruiters are using social media more and more to find referrals for open (or soon to be opening) positions.  Don’t let your current employer have confirmation that you are already looking for your next job.  To Dave’s point, that will put a whole lot of pressure on you to find another job fast.
• Don’t put on your Facebook page that you are unhappy at your present job or are looking for a new job – for the same reason as for twitter, Facebook is mined daily for new (read: “other”) talent for every job.
• Don’t post your resume on any public job board – and they are all public – News flash – all job boards supplement their online fees with ad revenue.  All of them sell your data to advertisers.  And once you are on a job board, just try to remove your name from their list – its damned near impossible!

There is a reason for all of these “DON’T’s.”  Every one of these activities is possible grounds for your immediate dismissal from your current job.

In this economic environment, neither you nor your family can afford for you to lose your current job.  Until there is a confidential online sourcing and recruiting network available, be as smart as you want your new employer to think you are – and DON’T !

For things you SHOULD DO when looking for a job, check out these posts:

• 7 Life-Changing Job Trends You Need to Know About
• Mastering the New Freelance Economy
• 52% of US Companies Will Add Jobs in the Next Year

Tags:

Company, Current, Computer, Don’t, Employer, Job, Job Board, Search, Resume, Employment

Photo Credit:

View at Work on Flickr by Slightlynorth

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This weekend I was reading through several articles and noticed this common theme.

For example, Dan Waldschmidt wrote about it this morning in his article titled “It’s not about what you do,” in which he speaks of success not being a series of actions, “but rather an obsession.”

He writes:

Business experts will tell you that if you think hard enough and plan long enough that you can generate ideas and strategies that avoid obstacles and end up leading to your success.  But that’s just not reality. And you shouldn’t waste a second believing it.  The hard truth is that success isn’t a series of actions. It is an attitude.  It’s not about what you do. It’s about who you are.

Recently, inspired by Dan Waldschmidt and Seth Godin, Business Insider’s Vivian Giang recently posted, “This is Why Everything You Have Ever Accomplished Doesn’t Mean a Thing,” in which she writes:

 If brains aren’t going to solve your problems, the only chance you have is developing an obsession for your career that will make you consume, live, and breathe it. It’s “raw courage and guts that allows you to bend elbows and knees and lift yourself from the bloodied canvas you’re lying on.” The more you do this, the more diligent you’ll become at overcoming those road blocks and the faster you’ll get to this thing called “success.”

And the go-to guy himself, Seth Godin recently stated in a live interview:

“Here’s the thing – the recession is a Forever Recession… and here’s the other thing – it’s the end of the industrial age.  It lasted for 80 years” …and now its over.

According to Godin, for years working people were taught to ‘do what you are told’ and an average worker could make an above average income.  That era is gone forever.

Now, in order to be successful, you can’t be an average guy doing average work.  The company will use technology to find someone or something to do it faster, better and cheaper.  “…never mind the race to the top, you’ll be racing to the bottom.”  Or you can look at it this way - if you are an average worker, you’re going nowhere.

However, “if you’re different somehow and have made yourself unique, people will find you and pay you more,” Godin says.  Godin has written 13 books on his observations that can help us understand this position, including, Poke the Box, Linchpin and his latest effort We Are All Weird.

Giang sums it up with this:

Instead of waiting around for someone to tell you that you matter, take your career into your own hands. In other words, don’t wait for someone else to pick you and pick yourself!  If you have a book, you don’t need a publisher to approve you, you can publish it yourself. It’s no longer about waiting for some big corporation to choose you. We’ve arrived at an age where you choose yourself.

Or, I like the way Godin concluded a recent blog post saying, “Once the water is deep enough that you must swim to stay afloat, does it really matter how deep the pool is?”

I look at it this way:

It takes grit and courage to be successful.  It takes guts and fortitude to persevere in the face of change.  And it takes obsession to become the better than the rest and extremely valuable to most.

About Dan Waldschmidt

Dan Waldschmidt is a speaker, author and strategist.  Dan has been refusing since birth to accept business as usual.   He got the usual entry-level job right of college, but then he changed the sales process, earned millions of dollars for the company, and became CEO by the time he was 25.  These days, Dan is a people strategist, a conversation changer and an ultra-athlete.  The Wall Street Journal calls his blog, Edgy Conversations, one of the Top 7 sales blogs anywhere on the internet and hundreds of his articles on unconventional sales tactics have been published.

About Vivian Giang

Vivian Giang is a writer for Business Insider, one of my favorite sources of information on the web.  Previously she was with CBS News Investigative Unit.  She graduated from NYU in 2011 with a Master’s Degree in Business and Economic Reporting.

About Seth Godin

Seth Godin has written thirteen books that have been translated into more than thirty languages. Every one has been a bestseller. He writes about the post-industrial revolution, the way ideas spread, marketing, quitting, leadership and most of all, changing everything.  American Way Magazine calls him, “America’s Greatest Marketer,” and his blog is perhaps the most popular in the world written by a single individual. His latest book, Poke The Box is a call to action about the initiative you’re taking – in your job or in your life, and Seth once again breaks the traditional publishing model by releasing it through The Domino Project.

Links:

Dan Waldrschmidt:  here

Vivian Giang:  here

Seth Godin:  here

Tags:

Average, Career, Godin, Grit, Guts, Obsession, People, Success, Work

Photo Credits:

On the Brink by eprescott on flickr

Change or Die by colros on flickr

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Now Hiring!

With research from Talent Technology (www.talenttech.com), Jessica Miller-Merrell summarized the finding of the State of Recruiting Survey for 2012.  In her summary, Jessica states that online recruiting and  Job Boards are the most effective means of hiring – but she (and Talent Technology) includes the professional networking site LinkedIn.com into this category…

Some of her findings:

All signs are pointing towards an improving economy and yesterday’s release of Talent Technology’s State of Recruiting for 2012 supports what many in the industry are seeing. Business is happening. Hiring and adding new staff is in the works with 52% of companies planning on adding jobs in the next 12 months making the importance of a solid recruiting strategy even more important. In case you were wondering, the survey which had 1,100 respondents offered insights mostly from the US and Canada with the majority of respondents coming from US companies between 100-999 employees.

Open positions are taking 45 days to fill with job boards still serving as the primary candidate source. These findings are further supported by SHRM’s announcement that hiring in January will remain weak, and that makes since many organization’s new fiscal years started January 1 and if new positions are taking 45 days to onboard new employees, it’s likely that we will not see an upswing in hiring until March of this year.

Talent Technology provides an interesting look at the state of recruiting in their infographic show below. Their entire findings can be found here. While the data doesn’t provide any earth shattering revolutions it does point to the increase in demand of talent and a likelihood that companies will experience a longer time to fill as the job and candidate market becomes more competitive. In fact, this surge in jobs growth is expected to exceed 12% this year. According to their findings job boards, followed by referrals and internal candidates, and career sites prove to be the top three online recruiting candidate sources. Social media follows resulting in 12.5% of candidates. Let the war for talent in 2012 begin.

See the pictorial infographic and the complete article with active links here.

Tags:

internet recruiting, job board recruiting, online recruiting, recruiting 2012, recruiting strategies, recruiting strategy, recruiting trends 2012, war for talent

Photo Credit:

Now Hiring, Zach Klein on Flickr

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You at your BEST

We’ve been taught to sell ourselves at our average

We learned most of our body of knowledge of job search from placement and career offices, starting with our College/Grad school placement office – even High School placement offices teach much of the same stuff.

From the Great Depression up until the end of 2007, there was a valid assumption about job markets – candidate shortages. Even in prior recessions, there were shortages of qualified candidates.

During candidate shortages, employers have a tough time finding candidates with the basic skills they are searching for … so employers search for skills and experience. Doesn’t this sound much like the way we were all taught to write a resume – focusing on skills and experience?

Today’s job market doesn’t describe candidate shortages – it describes job shortages. The current job market features about 5 unemployed workers for every advertised job and 84% of currently employed workers looking for a new job (CareerBuilder estimates) … this means that there are more than 25 times more candidates than jobs.

… but we weren’t taught how to job search during job shortages, remember? We were taught how to job search assuming candidate shortages.  And employers choose who to interview and hire in a very different way during job shortages.

Employers expect candidates to sell themselves at their best

During times of job shortages, especially when so many currently employed workers are competing for openings, employers find plenty of candidates who meet their basic requirements of skills and experience.

Since employers find many candidates with matching skill sets, HR reps/recruiters pre-screen for skills but hiring managers look for superior candidates. When there are many candidates who meet basic criteria, hiring managers look for candidates who have already solved the problems they face today.

How can you show an employer that you’re a superior candidate?

1. Personal Branding Statement: A well-crafted personal branding statement gives a      crystal clear first impression that you are a superior candidate, who has already solved the priority problems the hiring manager faces. Creating a great personal branding statement requires research (beyond publicly available information) and inside information into the hot buttons of the hiring manager. (See here for more information on personal branding statements)
2. Don’t focus on job responsibilities: Focusing your reader on your job responsibilities tells your reader that you think the most important thing about you is that you met the minimum requirements of the job – that you’re an average performer. Focus your reader’s attention on examples of how you’ve already solved their priority problems and how you’ve delivered value to your past employers.
3. Show Subject Matter Expertise: When an employer expects to find many qualified candidates, employers look for candidates with a subject matter expertise that can help solve their most pressing issues. Generalist skills are secondary, even for generalist positions – employers first look for subject matter expertise to determine who they will interview, and then determine ability to apply skills to new situations during the interview. In today’s job market, branding yourself as a generalist is a great way to get overlooked … because it’s impossible to see what makes you superior when you describe yourself as a generalist.

So what do you think happens to your resume when you describe yourself at your average, but your target employer is expecting candidates to describe themselves at their best?

Tags:

Average, Branding, Candidates, Describe, Employers, Job, Search, Shortages, Skills, Superior, Taught

Photo Credits:

Courtesy CareerCentral.com and reCareered.com

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Helping to Put Magic in Your Job Search

It’s the end of the year and the calendar tells us we have the opportunity for a fresh start, a new beginning and a clean slate for the New Year.  For new job seekers and for people still searching for that right position, this can be daunting.

At Booyango, we are dedicated to helping job seekers find meaningful employment, and helping companies find better talent solutions.

We have put a lot of time and effort into bringing our reader’s valuable content that can help them find a better job, hone their interviewing skills, find resources for their job search and have brought them the wisdom of the experts through our blog postings.

In 2011, we posted 86 articles – our own and others’ – of outstanding content addressing Trends, Tools, Tips and Preparation around employment.  Here is a compilation of the 5 most popular articles is each category:

TRENDS

1. 7 Life-Changing Job Trends You Need to Know About
2. The Relationship of Greed, Slow Growth and High Unemployment
3. A Talent Exodus for the Rest of Us
4. Mastering the New Freelance Economy
5. Beyond the Resume – A Different Approach to Job Search

TOOLS

1. 6 Tips for Using the SIGNAL Feature on LinkedIn
2. How to Prepare a 30 Second Elevator Speech
3. The Long and Short of Personal Branding and Work
4. 9 Key Elements of a Smart Game Plan When Changing Professions Mid-Career
5. Loving your Doubts: Alert, Humble and Hungry

TIPS

1. Three Keys to Success for Job Seekers Born in the 50s or 60s
2. What Information Should NOT be Shared with HR
3. Hidden Gems – Cold Calling and How to Improve a Job Search
4. The Swimming Pool Rules of Networking
5. 15 Basic Resume Tips

PREPARATION

1. 3 Secrets to Holding the Attention of a Hiring Manager
2. The 1^st Step in Landing a New Job – Ignite Your Network
3. The 7 Career Commandments of Dilbert
4. 6 Steps and Recommendations for your Job Search
5. 10 Sure-fire Ways to Boost Your Job Search

We hope you have enjoyed these articles and have found them useful, stimulating or entertaining.  We encourage you to wander around on our site and find other articles that will help you and guide you to a successful search and placement.  And we will continue to bring more articles to our readers in 2012, along with a new Online Talent and Opportunity Network that is different from all others.  We can’t wait to share it with you early next year.

We wish you all health, happiness and prosperity in 2012.

Tags:

Employment, Jobs, Work, Advice, Tips, Trends, Research, Resource, Career, Search, Resume, Interview, Network

Photo Credit:

Top Hat by jcarwash31 on Flickr

©2011 Booyango LLC

Hope Floats

Can we find Economic stability; Career stability, Family stability; Spiritual stability?

We’ve all suffered from the bumps and jostles to our finances, our careers and our egos in the last year – from ridiculously high-unemployment, to the Wall Street Occupation; from the Arab Spring to the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami; from flat take-home-pay, to slight increases in personal spending; from gridlocked government, to the resurrection of the .com venture-capital and IPO boom.  And let’s not forget the failure of trickle-down economics and the demise of the American Dream.

This last year, we have had to accept that the global economy is not coming back to what it used to be.  It will never again be the ‘good old days.’  Things will not get better in the ways that we once knew.  Uncle Sam’s pockets do have limitations, there is no such thing as a free lunch for anyone, and the only freedom that is universally accepted is economic freedom.

But that doesn’t mean things can’t get better in the future – it means that our definition of ‘better’ has to change with our new reality; it means that our ideas of ‘success’ have to evolve to our new circumstances; and it means that our expectations of the performance of others have to be altered to more timely and currently appropriate levels.

We have a new, long-term normal that we all must learn to live within, learn to navigate, and learn how to master our own destinies.  A new, long-term normal means all the rules have changed.  What was once familiar is now be obsolete.  What we once thought were concrete icons now lie in pieces.

With change comes amazing opportunities for each individual, each community, each nation and all the world.  In the next few years there will be wonderful new opportunities to learn, to grow, to succeed and to flourish.  But we have to first learn to recognize those opportunities, and then we have to find different ways to make things happen.  We have to use different rulebooks, we have to invent new paradigms, we have to modify our attitudes, and - most of all – we have to adjust to our new inventory of tools and building materials.

Yes, Virginia there is still a Santa Claus.  He still lives in our hearts, just as he always has – he is the spirit of generosity.  And yes, America there is HOPE.  But that Hope now lives in our ability to accept change and live within it.

If we can accept the reality of what we once thought was solid is now a fluid, we can also accept that in order to succeed, to whatever our own definition of ‘success’ is, we must learn to float on the tides of our new reality.

Tags:

Accept, Change, Hope, Learn, Live, Opportunities, Reality, Stability, Success

Photo Credit:

Ocean Rainbow by puuikibeach on Flickr

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Thad Kubis

As a business owner today, you need a clear and concise perspective on offline and online media, interactive and interaction tools, and the latest communication trends and emerging technologies.

Also, you must be able to support your choices with measurable results. Today, in addition to achieving results, prerequisites for any marketer include tracking, return on investment (ROI), accountability, and marketing automation.

The media you select need to be media your customer will actually use. Placing ads, managing an e-mail effort, and running a blog will not guarantee a successful media or marketing effort.  What will turn your marketing effort into a profit center will be the response rates—the conversion-to-sales that will only occur when you have customer-centric media.

Recent data indicate that we have developed into a series of highly specialized demographic-driven segments, known to some as “tribes.” Even the Internet is now being called the “splinternet,” and new targeted social networking efforts like Imagine The Now^tm, Viadeo^tm, and others are being introduced, all designed to challenge the scope and scale of the pillars of social media.

In the past, it was understood that B2B and B2C ate from two plates. Today, demographic and psychographic segmentation has increased to a point that the type of demographics varies widely, as does the need for content to a specific vertical or market.

What does this have to do with you and your marketing effort?  Well, marketing plans that focus only on offline or online media will not provide the sales success needed to survive today. Integration based on your marketing segment or vertical is critical, as are the RIIM (Relevance, Interaction, Integration, and Measurement) of each and every contact made. Remember RIIM = ROI, but first you need to focus on customer-centric communications, by a detailed demographic customer segment.

Step One

Knowing your market is vital, but as your grade-school teacher told you time and time again, “Know your numbers.” Knowing your market is not valuable if you don’t know your numbers.

Numbers have evolved from just measuring results to actually driving the success of a business—profit/loss, cost/benefit, the bottom line, and perhaps the most important of all—ROI. In fact, perhaps the three most important letters in the marketing world today are ROI, closely followed by the four most important words Total Cost of Ownership. Recent surveys indicate that over 70 percent of CEOs do not find marketing to be a compelling need, claiming that the results of any marketing effort are difficult to prove.

Knowing your market will provide you with a great start to improving your sales, but understanding the ROI drivers within your target market is the true golden goose.

Know Your Numbers

Here is an example of determining a program’s ROI before the program is even developed. Let’s call it projected ROI, or PROI. PROI is also known as reverse return on investment, or RROI.

Program: New business generation

Vertical: Medical manufacturing

Estimated program cost: $175,000 (cross-media)

Traditional response rates to this type of program within this segment have run about 1.1 percent, and this rate includes all media used.  Through the use of cross-media, or integrated marketing, we can safely raise the estimated response rate to 3.5 percent.

Based on an average sale of $75,000 with a profit rate of 35 percent, or $26,250, the program would need to achieve 6.6 sales to break even.

Even with a reduced profit percentage—say 15 percent, not 35 percent—and extending the effort over the sales cycle of the program (which can be about 3–18 months, depending on the market/industry), the justification to move forward with this campaign is strong and well presented.

In short, marketing is a profit center.

Actual program results:

Final program cost: $187,500

• Response rate: 3.75 percent, or 562 leads
• Conversion of leads to meetings: 49*
• Sales after three months: 5
• Sales after six months: 4
• Sales after eight months: 2
• Total sales: 11
• Average value of sale: $135,750
• Actual ROI: $530,000-plus

*within a six-month period. During the eight-month sales cycle, there were actually 62 face-to-face sales meetings.

Step Two

Obtain more than a name and address.

Today, demographic and psychographic segmentation has increased to a point that the seller must capture more than the just a name and address. You need to capture information about lifestyle, buying cycle, marketing pinpoints, and potential marketing demographics using a variety of media. It does not matter whether you are a B2B or B2C marketing support firm.  Pieces of data drive the program, and you must control and maintain the data.

What do these new levels of data have to do with marketers?  Well, marketing plans that focus only on single-tier media will not provide the sales base needed to survive. Additional complexity is added to the marketing formula when you look to regional and usage patterns of newly targeted segments, such as the ethnic marketplace.

A marketer needs to address the segments by using the latest in integrated print technology linked with leading media outlets (magazines and traditional offline media). In addition, a marketer must provide a cross-media and multidimensional marketing strategy—a true customer-centric communications platform.  Personalization, versioning, and database management, along with Web 2.0+ technology (social network marketing and mobile marketing are coming of age) must be considered in any marketing plan, not only to generate viable and active leads but also to reduce marketing costs while increasing the ROI.

Aggressive programs tied to existing customers (vertical, horizontal, upselling, or add-on purchasing) must become part of the mix. Past program results and responses need to be data-mined and surveyed to determine whether they hold future potential sales (not leads). You may already have leads, but sales are the true holy grail of marketing.

The marketer must build a valid business case that provides the lowest cost per lead, linked to an after-lead program designed to convert each lead into a sale, followed by an after-sale effort to keep that customer satisfied.  Think sales cycle, not program cycle—think the slow dance at the end of the prom, not the twist.

Each marketing effort needs to start with and include the components of the acronym RIIMR.

• What is the RELEVANCE of the offer to the client?

• How will the program be INTEGRATED with other marketing spend?

• How can the customer INTERACT or start a dialogue?

• Can I MEASURE the success of the program?

• What was the ROI of the effort?

Step Three

Don’t cut the budget; change your strategy.

During times of severe financial stress, reduction of a marketing budget is the common response. What is needed is a shift from high-cost, unproven, or low-response media to targeted and focused programs that measure results online and immediately determine the success or failure of a program.  Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) may no longer be popular with ROI standing strongly on stage.

Examining data in real time, perhaps prior to a trade show or event or just after one, can only be handled effectively online while you’re linked to your website and sales, dealer, or distribution network. Do you get the idea? You want customer-centric communications and marketing focused on the needs, desires, and wants of your customer. You do not have customers—you have a customer—hopefully in the form of thousands of single-targeted individuals.

An old adage is that a firm that maintains or increases its marketing budget during an economic downturn will increase its market share;  research continues to prove this to be correct. Versioning, variable data printing, and personalization linked to an aggressive marketing effort are proven tools in the sales of high-end or luxury items. Traditional direct-mail
results are less than 1 percent, yet personalized direct mailings linked to a website are sailing in at 4.5 percent and higher. Ignore this sage advice and suffer the consequences of low-response rates and even lower conversion-to-sales rates.

It’s simple: The more you personalize, the higher the response. If you don’t like the term “personalize,” then use target or touch. Whatever term you use and feel comfortable with, be advised that your customer is looking for a content-driven, personal experience on nearly any level.

Cutting the marketing budget is a knee-jerk response, but the money spent down the line to rebuild the market-share loss (some say you can never gain the market back) will, in many cases, add more to your market spending without adding to the lead-to-conversion factor.

The smart money goes with a plan to allocate marketing dollars with a business case and a market-ready plan in hand. No one wishes to waste money, or rip into the profit base. Profit is hard to come by, but today you you must measure the cost against the return and start the plan with a profit-generating response rate in place.

Still don’t believe it? Call me! I will get you motivated and send you a “Marketing is a Profit Center” reminder.

About Thaddeus B. Kubis

Thad is an internationally acknowledged expert on integrated marketing and the inclusions of emerging technologies into the direct marketing mix. A strong supporter of linking print (offline) with digital (online) and other marketing techniques, Thad also sits on the Board of Directors of The Print Council, The Marine Marketers of America and is a trustee to the Graphic Communications Scholarship, Award and Career Advancement Foundation. Thad offers consulting services targeting new business generation and lead conversion programs, using the latest in metrics and emerging technologies. He is President of NAK Integrated Marketing in New York City.

Thad has been selected by the Direct Marketing Association (the-dma.org) to be one of two industry experts teaching and providing certification to marketing professional in the field of Integrated Marketing.  Thad will host the first training effort in late January 2012.  You can reach Thad at thad@nakinc.com or via telephone at 212.505.9290

Tags:

Customer, Effort, Marketing, Media, Percent, Profit, Program, Response, Results, Sales

Photo Credit:

Thad Kubis at dscoop provided by the subject.

Mac Byrd

I have a friend named Allison Green.  I don’t really know her and I’ve never met her, but I consider her my friend.  Alison is my friend because she doesn’t hesitate to tell me (and all of her subscribers) the cold hard truth from her perspective.

Don’t real friends do that – give you the truth even when you don’t want to hear it?

Well, I thought I knew a thing or two about Job Searching – I mean, heck, I’ve been writing about it here for Booyango, I have personally had over 17 different jobs in the last 40 years (I started working at a VERY early age!), interviewed and hired over 200 people, and helped develop in-house hiring procedures for 4 major multinational companies and a bunch of smaller ones.

Yep, I thought I knew a thing or two about Job Searching.  But then I saw Alison’s November 30 article on 10 Myths About Job Searching.  Some of these I already knew were myths, some of them I believed to be truths.  Let’s see how you do…

I’m not going to include her reasons for believing they are myths or truths – you will have to visit her website and read her complete article to find that out – but view the list below and see how many of these myths you believe to be truths…

1.    You need connections in order to get a job.

2.    No one reads cover letters.

3.    Employers will respond to you right away if they’re interested.

4.    In a crowded field, job seekers need to find creative ways to stand out.

5.    Don’t bother job hunting around the holidays.

6.    Your resume should only be one page.

7.    Lowering your salary expectations will make you a more attractive candidate.

8.    Your interviewer knows what he or she is doing.

9.    If you want to stand out, you need to call to follow up on your application.

10.  Employers will only call the references on the list you gave them.

Think you know which are truths and which are myths?  Visit Alison’s blog here and see how you scored.  I bet you will be surprised…

About Alison Green:

Tags:

Careers, Alison Green, Job Searching, Myths, Truths

Photo Credit:

Alison Green, USNews & World Report/Money/Careers

Danielle LaPorte

Danielle LaPorte has a blog called White Hot Truth.  In it, she writes about her experiences in such a style that it comes as revelations to her readers.

Last week’s blog, although not necessarily about Thanksgiving, did have the setting of a dinner party with a diverse group of people with different interests and different passions.  Kinda sounds like all of our families gathering around the dinner table for a Traditional Thanksgiving Dinner, right?

Well, if you read her story, I’ll bet you can relate back to her title very easily – “Respecting Your Natural Ability and Your Never, Never, Evers” and I’ll also bet you will make the same connection to Thanksgiving that I did.

Her story goes like this:

respecting your natural ability and your never, never, evers.

By Danielle LaPorte, November 25, 2011

So an extreme runner, a baker, and a writer walk in to a dinner party…

I didn’t even know there was such a thing as “extreme runners”. IronMen, yes, but extreme runners? People who run like, ONE HUNDRED MILES at a time. In a day. Over the course of 12 to 24 hours. Without, like, DIEING. I listened to the runner’s personal story, absolutely riveted. When I picked my jaw up off the table, I pummeled him with questions. How do you feel after a race like that, How long to train, How do you push through, What about injuries, How long have you been this insane?

And I think to myself: Never, never, ever. I have no concept of what that natural ability feels like.

And then came dessert.

A sixtroopled layered meringue masterpiece. Layers of cakey meringue propped up with gorgeous goopy lemon curd and fluffy whipped white goodness whispering out of the tiers of scrumptiousness. Blessed with raspberries. And mint leaves.  Placed on a heavy ceramic white rectangular platter. Sprinkled with edible fairy dust. I thought the co-hostess was joking when she said that she made it herself. I swear to the Gods of confectionery pleasure, this is what went
through my head: It would be easier for me to build a bridge then to bake that mother. I was mystified.

And I think to myself: Never, never, ever. I have no concept of what that natural ability feels like.

Then the conversation turned to writing. And the dinner guests say kind things about what I do, how I string words together. And without being smug (one of my least favorite human dispositions), I softly say that, Ya, it comes easily to me. Pure delight. And someone says something like, “I could never write as easily as you. Nope. Never.”

And it occurs to me that we each have our delicious natural joys and our Never, never, evers.

And how beautiful that is.

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About Danielle LaPorte:

Along with her coach and friend, Marie Forleo, Danielle LaPorte conducts workshops called SELLING YOUR SOUL. She also writes a magnificent blog called “White Hot Truth.” LaPorte is a career changer, advocate, guru and modern-day Sherpa for women (and men) to help us get out of our own way. See more from Danielle here…

Tags:

Ability, Blog, Danielle LaPorte, Dinner, Natural, Runner, Story, Thanksgiving, White Hot Truth,

Photo credit:

Danielle LaPorte – White Hot Truth

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