Temphunt

Employers Want Your What Now? Facebook Password?

Amir Lehrer — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 15:52:31 +0000

Would you give up your most private secrets for the job of your dreams?

Maybe Facebook doesn’t have your most private secrets but your private information and password are pretty private. Lately, some employers and recruiters have started asking job applicants for their Facebook usernames and passwords as part of the interviewing process.

Facebook has become public domain and if you leave your privacy settings open, recruiters and your future bosses can look through your profile to get a better feel for you. This is even more true if you friend them. They feel that people share more with their virtual networks than they do with their real life family and friends and by snooping around, they will get a better feel for you. Where I would draw the line is when a recruiter or potential boss asks for your username and password so that they can snoop around.

YES, this is happening and No, you should not give up your password.

First of all, it is against the Facebook Terms of Service to give anyone your password so if a company is asking you to do that, it’s probably not a place that you want to be working in the first place. Apparently it is legal to ask an interviewee to log in for your and shoulder surf while you scroll through your “friends only” posts. Besides the legalities, a recruiter or potential boss has no right to request access to any information that is “private”. If they are worried about how you will represent the company, which is a valid concern, they can look through your public profile and see what everyone else in the world sees. They can also get references from your past boss, co-workers, friends, neighbors and old professors. They already do criminal checks at many companies but once again, this is all public information. If you start getting into private information, they will want to look around your house, have access to your previous browsing history and private files on your personal computer. They’ll want to hook you up to a polygraph and interrogate you on your deepest secrets.

From the recruiter’s perspective, they are trying to make sure that you will not only fit in with the company but that you will also represent the company. Although you won’t be on the clock 24/7, you will be in some ways representing the company at all times in one form or another. If you do something stupid that gets you on the news, in jail or both, the company that you work for can be mentioned. That said, there is always a risk in hiring anyone but public is public and private is private and that line should not be crossed.

As a job applicant or an employee, you always have to be careful about what you post in your public timeline or even your private timeline that is open to friends of friends (or friends if you choose to connect with your boss or recruiter). There have been many cases of people who lost their jobs, got denied insurance claims or got passed over for jobs because of their Facebook activity. There have also been people who have been helped by their obsession of posting everything to their profile such as Rodney Bradford, who got off of a crime because he updated his status while the crime in question was taking place.

To sum it up, if the recruiter or potential boss asks you for your private information, it’s probably not the job of your dreams anyway. Be careful about what you post and invite them to take a look at your public profile.

How do you feel about Employers asking for your Password?

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

5 Difficult Steps to Find a Job

Amir Lehrer — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:26:24 +0000

Years ago, all you needed to be above average in the work force was a college degree. The fact that you went through a four year program from beginning to end showed that you were something special and it pretty much guaranteed you a job. Companies were fighting over the college graduates because they wanted the above average people to work for them. After all, they were building their businesses and wanted the best.

Today, there are more college graduates than ever before and the ratio of graduates to jobs has changed drastically. We now have a pool of incredibly educated and talented people who are unemployed. This is a terrible situation but we can see a pattern and we must learn from the pattern.

As we mentioned above, to get a job years ago, you needed a college degree. The degree didn’t necessarily make you into the perfect candidate for the position you were looking for but it did make you above average because less people went to college. Today when there are so many people that are college graduates, it no longer sets you apart as above average. If that’s the case, what can you do that will set you apart from all of your unemployed peers?

Here are some ideas on what you can do to set yourself apart. This list is far from complete so I would love to hear your ideas in the comments.

I think what can set you apart from everyone else is to go the extra mile. Always do more than everyone else that you are competing against.

If everyone writes in their cover letter about how they love the industry, you should write what you love about the company. It may take more time but it will make you stick out.
If everyone knows Microsoft Office, find a few more programs that you can use and add them to your skill set.
Instead of applying to write for newspapers or website with past articles that you have written, apply with an active blog that is up to date with great content.
Instead of telling a company what you can do for them, show them what you can do for them. When interviewing, don’t just say I have done x before and will do y for you, show them that you have put thought into their company and what their next campaign can look like.
Don’t volunteer for a large company just to keep busy. Find a place that you can work for free that will give you new skills and accomplishments to get you your next job.

Going the extra mile and putting in the extra effort is exactly that, “extra effort”. An extra effort that we may not have on top of what we are already doing for 15 hours each day. My suggestion is to cut back on the mediocre work and concentrate on making sure that everything you do is great.

It may be easy to push a button 100 times and have your resume sent to 100 employers but I would suggest narrowing down the employers to a handful at a time and really paying attention to detail and try to blow them away. Companies don’t know what to do with 100 resumes that look identical but they do know what to do with passion, thought and creativity that shine through.

What else can you do today to be above average? Let me know in the comments what has worked for you or any ideas you have.

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

“Unemployed? Stay Positive!” If I Had a Dollar for Every Time I Heard That

Amir Lehrer — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:10:52 +0000

“Don’t get depressed”, “cheer up”, “stay positive”, “things will look up and you’ll find a job”. Does any of this sound at all familiar to you? If you have been unemployed for a while, chances are that you have heard a couple of these before. When your friends and family use these saying to cheer you up, they just want you to be less of a bummer to be around.

Today, I am going to tell you to “Stay Positive” but for a very different reason. Studies have shown that when a person is anxious or tense, they lack the ability to notice the unexpected. When you are negative or bitter, you automatically seek out the negative and bitter in every situation. By staying positive, you open yourself up to many new opportunities that you never would see otherwise.

When someone is depressed or feeling down, they have blinders on that block out much of what is going on around them. I know from personal experience that when playing a game, taking a test or applying for a job, I always do better when I am in a good mood. Just think about your personal experience, do you agree? If you were to go to a party for a social obligation or fun, while you are in a bad mood, you will send off vibes that will make people want to stay away from you. If you are in a good mood though, you’ll be more fun to be around and who knows who you will meet or what connections you will make.

The same goes for the job search. Whether it is writing a cover letter, being interviewed or how I came up with this topic, posting in LinkedIn groups, you need to stay positive to attract positive. Believe it or not but positivity and bitterness are really hard to hide. They shine through in everything you do, write and say.

I’m not saying that switching over to “positive” mode will get you a job immediately but I am saying that it will start attracting new opportunities and the more new opportunities, the better.

How do you stay positive during the job search? Share your ideas in the comments.

Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Work Life Balance: Would You Rather Work or Live?

Amir Lehrer — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 21:59:30 +0000

How much effort do you put into your work verses your breathing? What about work versus your eating? Sleeping?

The question above doesn’t make much sense so why are people so interested in a work life balance? As Seth Godin pointed out in his post Time Doesn’t Scale, the work life balance is a relatively new one. Our parents and grandparents never had to worry about fitting their life into their work or their work into their life. It is only our generation that is worrying about this somewhat pointless phenomenon because we are trying to correct a path that many of us are taking down the wrong road.

Seth points out that people have realized that working longer hours can produce better results so people started working more hours. That is until they hit a wall. Not only are there only 24 hours in a day, but we need to physically recharge our bodies and minds each day to stay productive. Nobody can be as productive with no sleep or little sleep as they can with a full night’s sleep on a regular basis. Think about your smart phone. (you have a smart phone, right?) It works great until the battery gets really low and then it shuts off. You can plug it in for a few minutes to try and get some more juice but if you want it to work properly again, you need to give it a good charge. When the battery hits 20% left, the smart thing to do is to close any programs that you are not using and only use your phone when you absolutely need it so you don’t end up without a phone.

We need to close down some of our programs as well when our batteries are running low and we definitely need a good charge when the battery dies. We can recharge our batteries by resting, relaxing, having some fun, spending time with friends and family and believe it or not, shutting off our smart phones for a little while.

We have been going down the wrong path and thinking that working more will bring better results. What we should be doing is thinking about the next step. If there is no way to work more than 24 hours per day, how can we be more productive?

I’ve got some ideas but I’d like to hear some of your comments in the comment section below.

As a little bonus, if you like Don McLean’s American Pie, here’s a parody about work today.

Image: renjith krishnan / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I Just Don’t Have the Time to Read This

Amir Lehrer — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 05:01:26 +0000

Have you ever said “I’d love to but I just don’t have the time”?

As the new year of 2012 is approaching I was thinking back to a conversation that I had with a friend of mine, Michael, a few years ago which can sort of hit home with many of you at this time of year so I decided to share it with you. Michael and I at the time were pretty similar in many ways. We were the same age, at similar stages of life. We both had comparable jobs and just about the same amount of free time. The one thing that I learned that we didn’t have in common were our priorities.

Back in 2006, I starting learning about the online world a lot more in depth, I started a couple blogs and fell in love with blogging and the new world of social media which we were on the doorstep of. I was so excited about blogging that I told Michael all about my experiences and suggested that he start a blog of his own. I explained the benefits of clearing your head, getting your opinion out there, joining the conversation and recording your thoughts, insight and experiences.

Michael shared my enthusiasm but almost in the same breath said “it sounds great but I just don’t have the time for it”. During the same conversation, probably less than 10 minutes later, Michael told me about this great new TV series that he watched religiously (I can’t remember for the life of me what it was). He said that I absolutely have to watch it and without thinking, I answered back “it sounds great but I just don’t have the time for it”.

Bong!

At that moment, it struck me. Wait a second! We both have exactly the same amount of time. This wasn’t about time, it was about priorities. We often confuse “time” with “priorities”. I’ve heard so many people complain (myself included) that they just don’t have any time. What they (and I) really mean to say is “I just don’t want to make that a priority”.

Once you get to that point, you realize that everyone has the same 24 hours in their day and yet some people do have the time for horseback riding or blogging or traveling or anything else. They just make them a priority in life. It’s completely okay to not have horseback riding, blogging or traveling as priorities, but just be honest with yourself and realize that they are priorities and not the lack of time. You may say that you need to work 3 temp jobs to pay your bills and there is no way that you can make the time to do anything else. That is actually commendable but that too is a priority. Paying bills is higher on your list than “anything else”.

Everyone gets to make their own choices in life and there is always an opportunity cost to whatever we choose. If you want to live in Manhattan, you won’t be able to live in as big a place as if you would in New Jersey. Just figure out what your priority is and be happy with your decisions.

Every once in a while, it’s a good idea to take a step back and look at our priorities. Is the way you are living your life in line with your priorities? Do you have your priorities straight? Is there something in your life that can be changed to better suit your priorities?

The new year is coming up and we all have a chance for a fresh start. Take a look at your life and figure out what your priorities are. Do you make it a priority to eat healthy? to exercise? to learn new skills? to move forward in your career? to relax more? to travel more? to meet more people? Spend time with family and friends?

Sometimes you know what is right for you but you have never taken the time to make it a priority. Now with the new year coming up, you have a chance to re-examine your priorities and live by them in the new year.

Happy Holidays and a Happy New Year!

Image: Nutdanai Apikhomboonwaroot / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

4 Lessons Temp Workers Can Take From Hollywood Super Stars

Amir Lehrer — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 02:09:37 +0000

Do you ever wonder what all of the big actors did before they became famous? Besides the Olson twins, the Fanning sisters and a few others, most of the stars we know went unnoticed for most of their lives until they got their big breaks. They worked hard and did everything they could to move their careers in the direction that they wanted to go. They took jobs doing whatever they could find to pay the bills or potentially get noticed. It always thrills me to find some big time actor and then look them up on IMDB.com to find out what they did before becoming famous. For example, Jim Carrey was a starving comedian in Canada that took roles in shows that no one has ever heard of like The Duck Factory and dozens of other roles before he was discovered for his rubber face in Ace Ventura.

Some big time actors even got roles in classic movies that everyone has heard of but sort of blended into the background because nobody knew who they were. Did you know that George Clooney was on Roseanne? Or that Adam Sandler was on the Cosby Show? Here’s a list of 23 more celebrities that fell into the background of classic shows and movies.

Some actors got a big break just by being in a movie that become a hit and some actors worked their way up in one TV show. James Michael Tyler, better known as “Gunther” on Friends was supposed to be a nameless extra in the back of one of the scenes in the Central Perk coffee shop in the Friends TV series. They put him behind the counter because he was the only extra who knew how to use an espresso machine (who said a variety of experience never pays off?). The Gunther character was such a hit, they ended up making Tyler the most frequent appearing guest star with 131 appearances over 10 years.

So what can a temp worker learn from the big time Hollywood actors?

Everyone has to start somewhere – If you want to be the CEO, you have to climb your way up to the top. It takes hard work and whatever jobs you can get to move you forward in your career and give you that big break.
Even if you make it to the right place, it doesn’t mean that you will be discovered right away – We saw that many actors had roles in classic movies and TV shows but still weren’t discovered until much later.
It takes time to become and overnight success – Success doesn’t happen overnight. Success comes from hard work over long periods of time that finally pay off down the road.
You never know when the most random skills will boost your career – Gunther got his role because he knew how to use an espresso machine. As a temp worker, you may think that working in a coffee shop or in an industry not related to your career goals is a waste of time but as you can see, that’s not always the case. I temped as a waiter, bookkeeper, actor, and many other temp jobs and I feel that I gained something from each temp position that I was able to use for future jobs.

What else can you learn as a temp worker from the Hollywood stars? Have you gained any skills from a temp job that you thought you would never use but ended up needing it? Share in the comments.

Never Do A Job Yourself That Someone Else Can Do

Amir Lehrer — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 20:42:29 +0000

Yesterday I wrote a post telling you not to hire someone until you have done the job yourself. Today I want to play devil’s advocate and take the other side. Never do a job that you can hire someone else to do. You are very talented and have skills that you have built up throughout your schooling and career and you are trained to perform your job efficiently and well. The absolute best use of your time is to do what you are best at and let someone do everything else.

When something new comes up that you don’t know how to deal with, hire someone. If you start trying to do the job yourself, you can potentially waste countless hours and build unnecessary frustration.

We’re coming up to the end of the year and besides all the holidays and resolutions, we have to think about our taxes. If you want, you can do your taxes yourself and save yourself some money that you would have paid an accountant but you would end up spending many hours that could have been better spent elsewhere. By spending your time doing something that’s not what you are best at you could actually be losing money. There are two ways to have more money, either you make more money or spend less money but you have to be careful that you don’t save a dollar while losing two dollars that you could have made.

There’s a popular example of the top lawyer who takes a helicopter to baseball games to save money. He figures that if he drove, it would be cheaper but with traffic and the time he’d be spending commuting, her would lose over an hour of work. Since he makes $600 per hour, he can afford to take a helicopter to the game by working an extra hour.

The next time that a job comes up that does not fall into your expertise, think about hiring someone to take the trouble off of your hands.

What’s your style? Do you do the job yourself or hire someone to do it? Leave your answer in the comments.

Image: Ambro / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Don’t Hire Someone, Do the Job Yourself!

Amir Lehrer — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 17:21:44 +0000

When something needs to get done that is outside of anyone at the office’s domain, the first impulse is to hire someone to do the job. It makes perfect sense for so many reasons but I am going to give you a few reasons why you should forget about hiring someone until you have done the job yourself.

The Job Could be Really Easy

Once you do the job, you may realize that it is less work than you originally thought and with a tiny bit of extra effort, you or a co-worker can do the job without too much trouble.

The Job Could be Really Hard

The job may be really complicated and throwing someone new into the position can set him up for failure. By doing the job yourself, you’ll get a good feel if the job can be done by one new hire or more and at what skill and experience level.

You’ll Know how to be a Boss

It’s not easy to be someone’s boss if you don’t know exactly what he is supposed to be doing. The perfect example is a manger telling a computer developer to add something complicated to their webpage. The manager will think “it’s just a little box, it shouldn’t take too long” while in actuality, it may mean changing the entire code which can take weeks. It’s very easy to get impatient when you don’t know or understand what the other person is doing. By doing or at least attempting to do the job first, you’ll have a good idea of how to be a good boss.

Jason Fried, a co-founder of 37signals is a big advocate of hiring out of pain and not pleasure. He says to do the job yourself until you can’t handle it anymore. That way when you hire someone, you will know exactly what he is doing and will be able to evaluate the job he is doing based on your experience.

Now that you’ve gone through the steps and know what the job is all about, go and hire someone to do it.

Are there any other reasons to delay hiring someone while trying out the job? Do you disagree? Let us know in the comments.

Image: AscensionDigital / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Keep That First Day of Work Feeling

Amir Lehrer — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 18:37:20 +0000

I remember as a kid that we used to speak about how we didn’t like school or that we didn’t want to go and I can remember countless days where I acted sick so that I could stay home, but there was one day or group of days that I always looked forward to. It was the first day or week of school. We would show up with all of our brand new school supplies, get our new desk or locker that we’d be using for the rest of the year and meet our teachers. We were full of hope and determination that this was going to be a great year. On the first day of school, we didn’t really ever learn anything that would count for grades, we would just spend some time familiarizing ourselves with how this new school year was going to work.

On those days that I did end up being “sick” (I had a great doctor who always said I had an ear infection, even when I was faking), I would have a great time staying home and watching TV but I would dread going back to school because I would have to catch up on all of the work that I missed.

Fast forward a couple of decades when school is over and you have joined the real world. If you are a full time worker with a full time job, you’re back in the same situation as you were when you were a kid in school. The first day of a new job can be really exciting and you spend your time figuring things out and getting used to the new surroundings. As time goes on, the surroundings become familiar and then too familiar. Whether you love your job or not, you will probably need to take a sick day and will probably want to take a vacation. Just like a kid in grade school, you can enjoy your time off but you may dread going back to work since you know about how much work is probably waiting for you when you get back. When you do get back to the office, you spend your first day just trying to figure out what you missed and then starting to put the wheels in motion to catch up on all of the work you missed.

The Beauty of a Temp Job

The beauty of a temp job is that you don’t really have to worry about missing anything during sick days and vacations because you are moving around from job to job anyway. You may have a sick day or two during a temp job but what you will miss as a temp may not compare to what a full time worker will miss. Vacations are even better. As a temp worker, you can take a mini (or not so mini) vacation between every temp assignment if you want to. When you finish your vacation, there is no catching up to do because you’ll just be starting a new temp assignment from scratch anyway.

Temp Worker Vacations

Temp worker vacations are great because you can have as many of them as you want between temp jobs. If a temp assignment is really tough and takes a lot out of you, you can take a couple of days off before starting your next assignment and nobody is going to stop you.

How did you feel about going back to school and how do you feel about a first day at work? Leave your thoughts in the comment section below.

Image: photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Are You Part of the 99%? No, I’m Not Talking About Occupy Wall Street

Amir Lehrer — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 19:05:08 +0000

Why did you go to school? To get a degree? Why did you want a degree? To get a job? Why did you want a job? To make money? Why did you want to make money?

I can keep going and I am sure that you can keep answering what seem like a pointless stream of questions but there is a point. 99% of people asked these questions will come to the same conclusion and I am betting that you are one of them. Take the test, start answering the questions above and answer the questions with your own answers. When you come up with an answer, ask yourself why and keep going until you have no more answers. Now, the questions should keep on going for a few more rounds but if they didn’t, you might say that the answers are all the same answers we are fed from our parents who gave us the age old advice to “go to school, get a degree, get a job” and so on. If that was the case I’m not sure we would come to the same conclusions. At a certain point in the string of questions, we have to think because the answers are not prepared for us in our heads. That is the point that I want you to get to…

I’m just stalling a little so you can do this mini experiment and come up with your own final answer.

Was your final answer “HAPPINESS”? If you push a little and pull some teeth, most people come to that conclusion and I hope you did as well. If that’s the case though, shouldn’t there be an easier way to get there instead of going through the whole list of questions or in real life, the years of hard work? I’m not talking about the “rock star get your next fix” form of happiness, I’m talking about real happiness that lasts and lets you wake up each morning with a smile.

There is a famous story about a Mexican fisherman who meets a businessman visiting Mexico on vacation. The gist of the story is that the businessman being relaxed on vacation, feels generous and wants to help the Mexican fisherman out. He asks the Fisherman what he does with his time and the fisherman answers “I fish for two hours, sell the fish in the market, go home for siesta with my wife, play with my children and then in the evenings, I play music with my friends”. Getting excited, the businessman tells him that he can fish for an extra two hours, catch more fish, make more money and then buy a second boat, hire an employee to fish with him and then make even more money. Similar to the “why” we asked above, the fisherman asked “and then what?”. Getting even more excited, the businessman said that he can keep on going fishing longer hours, making more money, hiring more employees and so on. After a few more “and then whats”, the businessman told the fisherman that he could start importing the fish to the United States and build a huge empire across the border. He could then become a millionaire or even a billionaire. The fisherman finally came to his final “and then what?” when the businessman half in shock that the fisherman wasn’t impressed, told him, “then you can retire, go fishing, take a siesta with your wife, play with your children and hang out with your friends”.

I’m pretty sure you get the point of the story but many of us are doing the same thing in our own lives. We are looking to grow and increase everything not really paying attention to our ultimate goal. It’s as if we can’t see the forest because the trees are in the way. It is very easy to get lost in the details along the way.

Temp work gives you the ability and flexibility to really take your priorities and ultimate goals into account. If happiness to you means finding a job that you love, temp work can help you find that. If it means having many temp jobs doing what you love, you can do that too as a temp worker. If you want to create a lifestyle design around the non work related things outside of your career, temp work can help with that as well. Do yourself a favor and if you didn’t ask yourself the questions at the beginning of this post, ask them to yourself now and then be true to yourself.

How many questions did you ask yourself? Are you part of the 99% or the 1%?

Full disclosure, I have no idea what the percentage is but whether it is 99% or 1% or anything in between, the point of this post is to get you to think about what you truly want. There have been many studies done on happiness and people who want to be happy are a lot closer to the 99% number.