Networking with Kent and Scot

Networking with Kent and Scot Id like to divert you from the JibberJobber blog and invite you to follow two great series about networking. And if you dont feel like a power-connector, or a super networking, I encourage you to pick up Thom Singers Some Assembly Required book (which Ive already flipped through but will start reading today and review soon). First, Kent Blumberg had a great 3-post series last week on networking (each of these take about 90 seconds to read I dare you to invest the time): 1. Giving = Network Success have you ever heard this before? Very short read accumulating others information. 2. Giving to your network face to face need ideas on how to give? Here they are. Can you implement one of these? 3. Giving to your network virtually I do this a lot since I cut down my face-to-face network meetings (I still get out but hey, its like zero degrees here in Utah!!). Terrific ideas which YOU can implement. Next, hop on over to Scot Herricks Pimp Your Work blog, where he kicks of the first of a 5-post series about networking. Actually, I was honored to have this big blogger interview me about networking, and the results of the interview are broken up into different posts each day this week. Todays question was: In Jason Alba’s Best Networking Tip, you state that we should â€Å"Have a paradigm shift on what networking really is.† What are the 3-5 incorrect perceptions about networking that you’ve seen? Go check out Scots post to see my response, and his thoughts to round it out. Networking with Kent and Scot Id like to divert you from the JibberJobber blog and invite you to follow two great series about networking. And if you dont feel like a power-connector, or a super networking, I encourage you to pick up Thom Singers Some Assembly Required book (which Ive already flipped through but will start reading today and review soon). First, Kent Blumberg had a great 3-post series last week on networking (each of these take about 90 seconds to read I dare you to invest the time): 1. Giving = Network Success have you ever heard this before? Very short read accumulating others information. 2. Giving to your network face to face need ideas on how to give? Here they are. Can you implement one of these? 3. Giving to your network virtually I do this a lot since I cut down my face-to-face network meetings (I still get out but hey, its like zero degrees here in Utah!!). Terrific ideas which YOU can implement. Next, hop on over to Scot Herricks Pimp Your Work blog, where he kicks of the first of a 5-post series about networking. Actually, I was honored to have this big blogger interview me about networking, and the results of the interview are broken up into different posts each day this week. Todays question was: In Jason Alba’s Best Networking Tip, you state that we should â€Å"Have a paradigm shift on what networking really is.† What are the 3-5 incorrect perceptions about networking that you’ve seen? Go check out Scots post to see my response, and his thoughts to round it out.

Can You Tell These 10 Stories - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Can You Tell These 10 Stories - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Often times in a meeting with a prospective client or employer, you want to tell a success story. You want to speak about something that you have accomplished. You want to have it directly connect to their issues, products, services, or something they can relate to. What if you don’t have anything? What if you are talking to someone in an industry where you have no experience? What if you have never done anything great â€" or anything at all â€" that communicates how they could anticipate you would perform for them on their specific issues? When you freeze up and youve “got nothing,” what do you say? You tell the truth. You tell the truth about who you are and what you have done. No, you don’t say, “I got nothing.” You don’t have “nothing.” You have a lifetime of everything you have done. When I ask candidates a question about their experience, sometimes I see this wild, fearful look in their eyes. In that moment, I know they have forgotten the most important thing about everyone in the room (or on skype or by phone). They forget we are all just people. Real people, speaking to real people. Here’s the ideal thing to say. “I am concerned that I don’t have a direct example to give you. Would it be all right if I shared an experience that I think is relevant, and would you tell me if I am making a connection that makes sense, given this position (or project)?” You are going to get encouragement to share your experience. It’s up to you to have stories in mind, prepared in advance, that get to some core issues that are almost unavoidably involved in any type of work. This would be where your personal intelligence and personal brand development work will win the day (or the project or the position). What could be relevant? Your ability to Identify the root cause of a problem Sift through resources to find relevant data and findings Use information to develop different solutions Model implications or consequences, positive and negative Set up decision-making rules and use them Present choices to decision-makers Cooperate with others to implement a decision Test and measure results Capitalize on positive results and re-purpose successful programs Bounce back from failure and persevere by revisiting your initial work That’s ten stories youve got to have “on trigger,” ready to articulate with details that make your experience come alive, especially when you have no direct connection. Worst case, you might not be the fit they are looking for this time. However, you will have made an indelible impression, and be top of mind when you do fit.

5 Mistakes new grads should make

5 Mistakes new grads should make The advice Ive given to new grads in the past is to marry rich so you have more options. And dont go to grad school to get out of difficult choices. Consider moving home with your parents to save money and dont do what you love. This is all really good advice.   You should go read those posts, but this year, my message to new grads is that you should make the mistakes I made when I graduated. They were good mistakes to make. 1.   Ask for too much in the interview. The first job interview I ever had was for the number one childrens book publisher at the time, Harper Row. It was a long shot, but I sent my resume to their New York City headquarters, and I ended up getting an interview my ten years running our family childrens bookstore was worth a lot more than I realized. When I got to the interview I didnt understand that it was my job to sell myself.   I thought that had already been done, and thats why I got the interview. We talked about my familys bookstore and I wowed the interviewer with my encyclopedic knowledge of not only book titles, summaries, and authors, but also publisher imprints.   Growing up there was no computer system.   So my grandma and I, in an unintentional homage to our mutual Aspergers, memorized every single detail about the inventory so that we didnt need an inventory system. (Quiz me.   I know every single childrens book published from 1975 to 1990 and the publishers imprint.) It was clear in the interview that I was going to be offered the job and I got nervous.   I spent the rest of the interview worrying out loud that I would be stuck in a job where I didnt have time to play beach volleyball. Of course, I didnt get the job, but that was fine, because I really wanted just to play beach volleyball. 2.   Spend all your savings. The only beach I was familiar with was the North Avenue Beach in Chicago.   When I was in the mental ward during college I dated a doctor who played beach volleyball there, and after I got out I spent the rest of the summer playing with him. My best memories during college were of my time in the mental ward in North Avenue Beach.   So I tried to duplicate it by moving back to Chicago.   I got a stupid job as a bike messenger where I routinely got run over by taxicabs, and I came to the volleyball court bruised so many times that one of the players asked me to work for him at the Mercantile Exchange trading floor, another job that paid terribly, but one where I still got to play beach volleyball. It didnt take me long to realize that there were no professional beach volleyball players training in Chicago, and I had already spent my money getting an apartment in Chicago and working terrible jobs so that I could play beach volleyball in the afternoons. So I ran out of money.  I moved back in with my parents.  I did more terrible jobs until I saved enough money to go to California.   The process of running out of money and having to move back to my parents house was particularly awful.   I felt irresponsible and incapable. Its important to spend all your money when you graduate because when you graduate, its the only time you can experiment wildly while trying to figure out what you want to do. You can always move back to your parents house.   If I can do it, anybody can.   I hated my parents.   They lived in a terrible location for someone in their twenties.   I basically spent six months locked in my childhood bedroom, but it was a good:  that got me to my next step.   I moved to California. 3.   Date terrible people. Its hard to get a real sense of your value on the dating market while youre in college because all around you are other college people.   Once you get out into the real world its absolutely incredible how many men want to date a 23-year-old woman. So I experimented with a wide range: married men, rock stars, drug addicts, people who could pay my rent and people who could give me jobs. I would say that each of those relationships was hideous in its own way and could not be over fast enough, but if you dont date the terrible people really early, then you always wonder what it would be like. If you marry early someone stable and supportive and boring, you dont know how terrible it is to be with the super-exciting crazy people,and you will feel like you missed out. (Note: After you are done dating people who are bad for you, here is how to pick a husband, and heres how to pick a wife.) 4.   Try to look way more together than you are. One of the people I dated that I shouldnt have dated was someone who hired me.   In case youre wondering just how messed up it was, I had to withhold sex to get a job.   One we came to an agreement, I learned really quickly and rose fast in the Internet world. By 28, I was running companies and feeling a little awkward about it, especially because I still hadnt learned how to manage my money.   So I was making a ton, but I didnt have a ton. My board hired an executive coach to help me look more mature, and one of the things I did was buy grown-up diamond earings, but they were fake.     So in an all-company meeting when someone pointed out that I lost one of my earrings, I made a big deal about it, like I lost my expensive diamond earring, and made everybody look for it. We never found it, but someone told me, You shouldnt buy real diamonds anyway.   You should have bought fake ones.   Then you dont have to worry about losing them.  Almost everyone wears fake diamond earrings because  on your ear, people cant see a difference. Thats when I realized that I didnt have to pretend to be pulled together.   That being pulled together is relative, and I was doing much better than I realized. I didnt need to fake it. I started doing better when I was more comfortable with myself. But you have to try faking it because faking it seems so nice and easy that you should get past it when youre young. 5.   Ignore siblings. Its really hard to stay in touch with your siblings when youre struggling in your 20s.   Most people in their 20s dont know who they are or where theyre going, and its a time when youre trying to separate from family rather than connect. I grew up with a brother and did almost everything with him until our 20s when we pretty much stopped talking.   It wasnt planned.   It just happened.   It seemed at the time like a really sad result of fear or financial ruin or messed-up parenting.   Now I see it as natural for gaining my independence. But keep in mind the 70-year study of Harvard undergraduates to determine what really makes people happy.   The study came up with almost nothing.   There is nothing that they can show that makes a happy life, not even going to Harvard as an undergrad, except for one thing.   If youre friends with your siblings in your 40s, youll be happy from your 40s until you die. Now, if we could just figure out how to be happy for the twenty years after you graduate. The Harvard Study doesnt provide data for that, but other studies do, and the bottom line is that you should let yourself make mistakes, because the right path for a twentysomething is a tricky mix of intention and exploration and no one can move forward without making mistakes along the way.

Twentysomething Im in 17th grade

Twentysomething Im in 17th grade By Ryan Healy Most of my friends would love to run their own business some day. Me too. However, we believe the first logical step is to get a few years of work experience, make connections, and save money. A couple of months ago, my good friends from college, Matt, Cole and Adam, came to visit for the weekend. These three want none of that work experience Im talking about, so they are opening up a sandwich shop in a college town. The first thing Adam said when he saw me was, What does it feel like to be in 17th grade? He was referring to the fact that I live in an apartment complex with hundreds of other young professionals who are basically living the same boring (his words) lives. At first I laughed it off and told him that he was just jealous that I was making money and could afford to live in a nice place like this. But after thinking about it, I understand what he means. I more or less live in an adult dorm, albeit a super-sized and super-expensive dorm. Every morning I wake up and put on a suit, or as my buddies call it, a uniform. I walk to the subway with all the other young workers or students, and I take the subway or school bus to work, or as Adam would say, to 17 th grade. I have to admit, thinking about post-college years in this way can make me question why I am doing this instead of pursuing something I love. But I have chosen to take a different perspective about this whole 17th grade idea. Of my college friends, about half are in graduate school. They are in 17th grade much like me; however they are paying for it while I am being paid, and Im learning how to live in the real world at the same time. I do not consider myself to be an adult. Whether you think there is something wrong with this or not, its a fact. And I would say its safe to assume that if you took an inventory of recent college grads in the workplace or grad school, the majority would give you the same answer. I dont know when or if I am supposed to be an adult. Im thinking it will be around the time I start a family. Because of this, I guess you could say that my company has replaced my parents as my support system. They provide me with money to put a roof over my head, they pay the insurance companies to cover most of my medical needs, and instead of asking mom and dad for my weekly allowance, I just wait for that good old bi-weekly paycheck to appear in my bank account. I try to learn something from everything I do. This so-called 17th grade is just what it sounds like an educational opportunity for me to master before I graduate to the next phase of my life or the next grade. What that grade will be, I have no idea, but I hope to figure it out while Im here. It might be my own business, it might be a management position in a small company, or it may have absolutely nothing to do with business at all. My ideal 17th grade will teach me how a successful company runs, how to improve my public speaking skills, and how to work with and eventually manage a diverse group of people. The question I ask myself is, which company or school as my buddies would say, will provide me with the best education?

9 Easy Ways To De-Stress At Work

9 Easy Ways To De-Stress At Work The workplace can be an extremely stressful environment. It is not uncommon to experience sleepless night, worrying about work, it is a major part of your life, something you deal with every day. And there is always something to be stressed about, whether it is a deadline or a difficult client, or simply the Monday morning blues.And too much stress can be incredibly bad for you, causing not only psychological, but also physical problems. From emotional distress to back pains and headaches, all of these can be caused and amplified by high stress levels.And asides from the daily worries, elevated stress levels can have serious long term consequences on your heath, going as far as increasing the risk of heart problems.evalSo of course the best thing to do is to avoid stress altogether. While it would be nice to just stay home, that is hardly a solution, and it might just get you fired. And sure, the weekend is a great time to de-stress, and take you mind of your work and worries, but un fortunately that is not always enough to get through the week.At work there is always something to do, and it can be hard to find the time and place to relax and take a breather. Luckily there are ways to de-stress yourself at work, that will not cost you your job. This infographic shows 9 easy ways to de-stress at work that will lower your stress levels within minutes.Infographic Credit â€" market-inspector.co.uk

Avoiding TMC (Too Much Contact) as Well as TMI When Using Social Media for Job Searches - CareerEnlightenment.com

What’s the Right Amount of Social Media Contact?Finding the right balance of social media interaction with a hiring manager is similar to deciding how much interest to show in a date. Too much might make you look desperate, but too little might make the person decide you aren’t interested. Follow these general rules when using social media for your job search:Use the “Rule of Three.” Send a “thank you” tweet or message after any phone or in-person interviews. After that, check in a maximum of three times, and avoid checking in more than once every three weeks.Keep likeability at the forefront. Your contact at the company might navigate over to your feed to learn more about you, so shelve your controversial political opinions for another time. Also, nix the over-sharing about your relationship problems or about that mysterious rash you’ve been experiencing.Treat everyone like they’re important. In addition to having good social boundaries with the hiring influencer, tr eat everyone from the company as though you were interacting with the CEO. If you’re rude or unfriendly to the “little guy,” your behavior won’t endear you to the hiring manager.Know when to fold ‘em. If you’ve check in three times and you’ve heard nothing back, then it’s time to let go of this particular opportunity. A better opening usually comes along, so sit back and be ready when it happens.Using social media for the job search takes practice, and you might make some gaffes along the way. If you stay polite, avoid over-sharing and give the other person room to breathe, you’ll have a better shot at landing your dream job.

Writing a Resume For a Bank Teller Position

Writing a Resume For a Bank Teller PositionSo, you've just got the call from that bank teller to apply for a job with them. What do you have to do to create a resume for the bank teller position? First, you need to know what the requirements are for being hired by the bank. Then, you must know what's expected of you in creating a resume for a bank teller position.The first thing to be aware of is that you cannot be called a bank teller for more than three months. That is the stipulation of the bank. You need to write a resume for bank teller job for the three month period. You need to have a good job history and you should not have a felony on your record. In fact, if you are serious about applying for the bank teller position then you might want to consider getting a copy of your criminal record as well.Next, once you've filled out your application for the bank teller position, you need to turn in a complete resume that has everything included that the bank requires. Everything need s to be included on your resume including your education and experience, any certifications or training, special skills that you possess, any awards or honors you have received, and so on. Once you've gathered this information, you can begin to fill out the rest of the information about yourself.When you're creating a resume for the bank teller position, you need to include your qualifications to the fullest extent possible. Since you'll be working in a branch of the bank, you should put the words' bank teller on your resume. Other employers will want to see the most recent work experience that you have as well. If you have been working in any branch of the bank for three months then they will want to see a list of branches where you have worked, your job title, the number of hours you worked in each branch, and the types of jobs you held.Be sure to emphasize to your employer why you are the best candidate for the bank teller position. Your boss will probably have some say in what k ind of resume you can create for them, but don't forget to include details about your own strengths and weaknesses. For example, if you have excellent typing skills and if you are very organized, mention those qualities when you're writing a resume for a bank teller position.When you're writing a resume for a bank teller position, be sure to also include your 'why' as well. Why do you want to be a bank teller? If you have a specific reason why you want to be a bank teller, make sure to detail it all on your resume.Finally, when you are writing a resume for a bank teller position, you also need to write about the abilities you possess. Use your strengths to cover the areas that you may lack. For example, if you're very organized, mention that in your resume. When filling out your resume for the bank teller position, don't forget to mention the skills you possess as well.Resumes are just that - it's just a form of communication between the employer and the applicant. In order to be co nsidered for the job you need to write a resume that has all the necessary information. Make sure to include all the bases covered in your resume.