Unemployed in Des Moines

Harry Urschel is an independent recruiter with over 20 years of experience in the placement industry and operates as e-Executives in the Minneapolis, Minnesota area. His background has included over 7 years as a top producer world-wide as a recruiter and Director for the largest specialized placement firm internationally. He has hired and trained large staffs of recruiters and developed top teams. His experience has given him a strong understanding of hiring and job search processes, and writes a blog to help Job Seekers at http://www.thewisejobsearch.com/.

Harry Urschel has over 20 years experience as a technology recruiter in Minnesota. He currently operates as e-Executives, writes a blog for Job Seekers called The Wise Job Search, and can be found on Twitter as @eExecutives.

Twitter can be a tremendous, fast moving tool in your Job Search Toolbox. Here are 5 ways to get the most out of it.

1. Follow and read job search experts. The amount of excellent ideas, tips, leads, news, informative articles, and best practices going by all day long is amazing. Use Twellow’s directory for Employment > Career > Job Search to find excellent people to follow. You’ll find outstanding advice that applies to your situation… guaranteed.

2. Search for posted positions. Use Twitter’s search function to look for #jobs, or TwitterJobSearch to find a wealth of open positions that aren’t necessarily posted on job boards or company sites. Also search #splits for positions that recruiters use to split open searches with other recruiters. New positions are posted with excellent companies, large and small, every minute of every day. Get them in real time, early, and often.

3. Follow and read people in your field or industry. Industry chatter is incredible. News items, rumors, and trends get discussed daily. You can become much better versed in your field by ‘listening’. It can provide you with new and valuable information that can make you a better candidate in the interview process. Use Twellow to find appropriate people to follow.

4. Engage! Get in conversations with people. Ask questions, offer help, ReTweet (re-post) good information you see. Make sure to proofread everything you Tweet, and keep everything professional. Offering opinions about politics (unless you’re looking for a job in politics), or talking about your weekend at the bar will alienate half the people you want to connect to. Don’t sound discouraged or be a spreader of bad news. Keep your conversations focused on your area of expertise, or job search topics, and keep them positive.

5. Connect with people at your target companies. Many companies have an official presence on Twitter and post positions. There are also obviously many people on Twitter on their own that work at companies you many have an interest in. Professionally, ask questions, ask for referrals, offer information, and seek advice.

The reputation you build on Twitter, just like the image you create on any other site will either help or hurt your chances of finding the right position. Be positive, be professional, be helpful, be inquisitive, be engaging, be honest, and have fun!

Consistency is important. If you only Tweet once or twice per day, it won’t be enough for anyone to get to know you. Manage your time carefully, but do spend some time to build credibility and relationships. There are few places online where you can find so much information and develop so many contacts 24/7!

Pete Kistler is a leading Online Reputation Management expert for Generation Y, one of the Top 30 Definitive Personal Branding Experts on Twitter, a widely-read career development blogger for Brand-Yourself.com, and a Judge for the 2009 Personal Brand Awards. Pete is a young, enthusiastic and active entrepreneur. As CEO, he manages strategic vision for Brand‐Yourself.com, the world’s first online reputation management platform for job applicants, named one of the Top 100 Most Innovative College Startups in the U.S. He has won a number of top honors for his writing, presentations and business plans.

This is an adapted excerpt from Brand-Yourself.com’s new eBook, From Tweet to Hired: How to Leverage Twitter to Advance Your Career, by Pete Kistler and Patrick Ambron and including contributions from Chris Perry, Dan Schawbel and several other well-known career and social media experts.

How do you become someone worth following on Twitter?

Creating your profile is the easy part. The next step is to regularly push out tweets people will care about. This is where most people fail! Most tweeters join and don’t know what to do next. They end up following celebrities, tweeting about their day and the only people that follow them back are college buddies and spammers. Don’t worry: if you fall into this category, you are not alone. Only 5% of tweeters have more than 100 followers and only 8% of tweets are considered credible enough to be re-tweeted. Within this small percentage is where your opportunity lies.

The most important thing you can remember to be someone worth following is that Twitter is not about you – it’s about everyone. You can’t simply jump on Twitter and start shouting, “Look at me!” Twitter is a completely open, ongoing conversation, and unless you give people a reason to listen, no one will hear you. Adding value to someone’s day is not only the key to attracting followers, but also the foundation for building meaningful relationships. Here are some key techniques that can help you tweet the right stuff and earn relevant followers:
1. Tweet Helpful Links. People are not, and never will be, interested in what you ate for lunch. They are interested in tweets that yield a positive impact on their day. Take three minutes a day to post a relevant daily quote, tip or article. For example, at our @brandyourself account, we post daily job search tips that attract job seekers who have a use for our tools.To make daily tweets easier, use a tweet scheduler to build some of these up. This allows you to enter dozens of tweets at once and schedule them to post periodically at later dates. People in your field will begin to look for these valuable daily nuggets. If you’re in graphic design, tweet daily Photoshop tips. Your followers will remember you and be more willing to help you down the road because you helped them. To analyze the strength of your Twitter profile and get suggestions about who to connect to on Twitter, sign up for Brand-Yourself and visit the Twitter section of your dashboard.

2. Link to Interesting, Relevant Information. The best way to establish yourself as a valuable member of your community is to share new information on a regular basis. If you are consistently pushing out fresh, targeted content, people will begin to look to you as a source for industry trends. Since the information is valuable, you will earn a ton of re-tweets, and in turn, valuable followers. You will also gain the attention of those you promote. When an employer searches your profile, the hiring manager will see you are heavily involved in industry conversations. See the side bar (right) for a simple way to find, read and share interesting articles with your network.

3. Answer Relevant Questions. Another effective way to prove your worth is by providing help to people who need it. Take a little time each day to search for questions pertaining to your area of expertise using Twitter search tools (see eBook Appendix). Type in a specific keyword followed by a question mark to filter results, such as “graphic design?” or “civil engineer?” Make things easier by using monitoring tools that track these searches and people who need your help. For example, at Brand-Yourself we search for “resume tips?” to find people looking for help with their resume. We then answer their questions or point them to a helpful article we’ve written. This is an excellent way to attract more followers, and establish yourself as an authority in your line of work.

People remember when you go out of your way to help them, and will be happy to return the favor when called upon. If you are looking for freelance work, this is a great way to generate leads. There are hundreds of people looking for guidance, and Twitter allows you to build up credibility one answer at a time.

4. Engage Your Community. Make sure you are personable. Don’t hesitate to ask questions, reply to others using @replies, and ask for feedback. Offer your help for free, recommend products you love and contribute to topics. Use hashtag (#) trackers to find relevant topics and participate in related conversations.

To read more about using Twitter in your job search and personal branding efforts, download your free copy of From Tweet to Hired: How to Leverage Twitter to Advance Your Career today!

Phil Rosenberg is President of reCareered (http://www.recareered.blogspot.com/), a career coaching service, helping great people discover new career paths and beat the challenges of modern job searches. Phil runs the Career Change Central group (http://www.tinyurl.com/cccpost), recently named one of Linkedin’s top groups that job seekers must join. An active blogger about career change, Phil’s articles are republished by Business Week, The Wall Street Journal, ZDNet, CIO, FastCompany and dozens of job and recruiting sites. Phil can be contacted at phil.reCareered@gmail.com.

Linkedin just released a suite of premium tools targeted to help job seekers. Good news – they have some truly helpful features … Bad news – They aren’t free. For serious job seekers, I think it’s worth the small monthly cost, giving candidates better viability and increased job search efficiency.

Linkedin helps job seekers accomplish two basic tasks – Finding target company contacts, and social branding. Job Seeker Premium makes both of these tasks easier and more effective.

As part of this review, I interviewed Parker Barrile, Director of Product Management for Linkedin’s Jobs Business to get Linkedin’s views about how their new tools are intended to help candidates. Parker mentioned that Linkedin has 3 major goals in for its premium job search products:

1) Allow candidates to manage job search more efficiently
2) Give job seekers more ways to efficiently contact hiring managers and recruiters
3) Help job seekers stand out, making it easier to be noticed
Parker stated that Linkedin “wants to be the place that people go to find their next job. We’ll continue to provide free services, but Linkedin will also offer premium services for those who want greater connectivity and visibility in their search.”

From my review of the features and discussion with Parker, I was impressed that Linkedin has made a good start in providing value adds that will help candidates in three areas they pointed out above. Parker also gave hints that this is just a start, and that Linkedin plans to release future user capabilities in its job seekers premium tools (Sadly, he wouldn’t spill the beans to tell me what they would be).

Will Linkedin’s new tools find you a job? No. Will Linkedin’s new tools give you more ways to help yourself find a job? Definitely.

Linkedin offers 7-8 features fine tuned to the needs of job seekers, depending on the package offered. The three that can make the biggest difference are what make the service worthwhile. Other features may be helpful to job seekers as well, but these three are money.

Top of the list - This is the #1 reason for Job Seeker Premium, in my opinion. Businesses have been able to buy their way to the top of Google for years. Linkedin Job Seeker Premium allows candidates a way to get to the top of the list. When recruiters or hiring managers search for specific criteria they may get hundreds of results – Premium user results are listed at the top. Since recruiters and HR reps might only call the top 10-20 matches, being at the top of the list helps a job seeker stand out. If you’re a Java developer, trying to stand out from the thousands of other Java developers looking for a new position – Top of the list is a huge advantage.

InMail - Currently, Linkedin basic users can contact their first level connections. InMail is Linkedin’s version of special delivery, allowing candidates to contact any of Linkedin’s 60M users – even if they are not a connection. Linkedin’s website claims “You’re 30x more likely to get a response to an InMail than to a cold call. Why? Your profile is attached to your message; plus, it never ends up in a spam filter.” In addition, it may be challenging to find emails of people you want to reach – InMails make it quick and easy, saving you time. Depending on the premium package you choose you can get zero, five, or ten InMails with guaranteed response – or choose InMails a la carte at an additional $10 each. If you use them, InMails by themselves make the premium service worth while as packages are 1/2 the cost of individually purchased InMails. Use these for people you’ve just got to reach, or for those who keep their email private.

Gold Badge - Linkedin’s premium service allows anyone to view your full profile and message you, even if not connected to you without either one burning through expensive InMails or Introductions, allowing unlimited free inbound email. As many new candidates haven’t been as active in networking until their job search, having a small network means that few people can see your full profile or contact you freely. While this won’t replace building your network, the gold badge gives job seekers with a small network a quick jump start.

While these are the most valuable services in the package, additional features can help job seekers as well:

Introductions - As a free user, you have a limited number of free introductions that pass your info along through three degrees of separation. Job Seeker Premium gives you between 10 -25 introductions per month depending on the package you choose. Using introductions wisely can help you gain inside information to your target companies, reach hiring managers, informational interview sources, or hubs to help in your networking efforts.

Expanded Search - the two top Premium service levels allow you to expand your search results beyond the 100 results you currently get as a free user – expanded up to 5x as many results. This can be valuable when searching within large centralized departments at single locations within enterprise companies. For instance, if you search for project manager at Allstate Insurance, there are thousands of results – free users only see 100.

Who searched me? Premium users can see the titles and companies of everyone who initiated a search that your name turned up in. If you’ve turned up in a recruiter’s or company’s search, these may be companies you want to put on your target list, or recruiters you might want to work with.

Folders - Linkedin premium services allow folders that job seekers can use to save and organize profiles, and store notes. It’s not a contact management system, but it gives some capability to add some organization to your contacts.

These features have been needed for a while, and Linkedin has been offering premium services to businesses for over a year. When I first saw notices that Linkedin was offering premium services for job seekers I wondered … What took them so long? This makes so much sense.

Linkedin premium has 3 packages priced at $19.95, $29.95, and $49.95. If you want the convenience and direct contacts of InMail I’d recommend the more expensive packages (it’s an inexpensive way to use InMails). I don’t know of any job seekers who couldn’t benefit from being at the top of the list, included in even the least expensive package. That alone makes Linkedin Job Seeker Premium worth the price.

Please note: This is not a paid review, and Linkedin did not give me any free services (not even a lousy t-shirt). I wrote it because I think it’s a true advance for candidates.

Source: http://recareered.blogspot.com/