Is Your Job Search Opportunity Pipeline Big Enough?

I recommend to my candidates that they build an opportunity pipeline 3 times as large as their expectations ... or compared to their last job search. Why do candidates need such a large pipeline?

While we've seen a glimmer of hope in recent US Department Of Labor numbers, we're still in the middle of a lousy job market ... the worst in our lifetimes. What are you going to do about it?

Yet, most candidates I talk to are satisfied with about the same opportunity pipeline level that they built during their last job search - in the midst of a good job market. Even recent bad job markets (2001-2002) are good compared to today's hiring numbers.

Why does a candidate need a pipeline 3 times the pipeline initially expected?

1. If your opportunity pipeline isn't big enough, you aren't getting enough "at bats": As a candidate you're a salesman ... of your services. A good, experienced sales person is able to meet their goals, regardless of the market by increasing their pipeline when business gets tough. You can increase your pipeline by 1) adjusting the effort or 2) innovate to improve response rates.
   
   The sales person - or in this case, the candidate - can adjust by increasing the number of prospecting events (calls, resume sends, job applications, networking lunches, informational interviews).
   
   Alternatively, a candidate can innovate (change tactics) to improve response rates. In today's lousy job market, your response rate is about 1/3 of what you would expect in a normal job market. I recommend using both tactics to achieve the pipeline you'll need in today's market.


2. The "perfect storm" requires additional effort: Today's poor hiring economy has met the perfect storm - ease of applications, employer technology and increased employer expectations.
   
   
   • It's never been easier to apply for a job - So you have a huge number of competitors per job
   • Employer technology - Employers pre-screen with Applicant Tracking Systems (databases), so that HR reps or recruiters only look at resumes that may meet hiring manager criteria. These aren't intended to capture all applicants who are qualified - they are intended to short list a limited number that meet the minimum requirements, even if well qualified applicants are left unseen in the database.
   • Employer expectations - Today employers expect exact fits. When employers had fewer candidates due to strong job markets and the limitations of newspaper advertisements, they were forced to look at close matches and train to fill gaps. Not so today, when employers see many more candidates than jobs and when employers are forced to squeeze multiple roles into a single job with a minimal training budget. If it seems that employers are looking for a 3 headed monster, it's because they really are.
   
   
3. Here's where you can blame the economy: It's harder to find a job today. That means you'll have to work harder and work smarter than you're used to.

Why 3 times? In a normal market, if you got an interview the odds averaged 1 in 3 that you'd get an offer. In today's market, it's about 1 in 10. In some industries (construction, for instance) it's even worse. This doesn't mean that it's impossible to find a job - it means you have to change volume and tactics to beat the odds.

How do most candidates really respond to today's market? Sadly, I've found that most candidates drastically underestimate today's job market - this is unlike anything they have ever experienced and their adviser's suggestions are based on past job markets ... rather than the realities of today. I typically see candidates react in the following steps:

• Unrealistic timetables (see http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/02/how-long-will-my-job-search-take.html)
• Poor or no planning (see http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/02/are-you-planning-to-fail-in-your-job.html)
• Manage pipeline only by volume
• Start company research too late in the game and research low value information
• Putting all their eggs in one basket (see http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/04/5-job-search-lessons-from-easter-bunny.html)
• Hope
• Frustration
• Desperation

Contrast this list with what I see (and coach) successful candidates do:

• Realistic timeframes
• Understand how competitive the market is today
• Written job search planning - using project planning methodology
• Manage pipeline by innovating (increasing response rate) and slightly increasing volume
• Understand company and hiring manager needs - through intensive research and listening, before even sending a resume
• Put themselves in hiring manager's shoes - understand WIFT (see http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/03/job-seekers-tell-your-readers-wift.html)
• Using all tools available - using more than just job boards and company websites
• Active networking - used to gain information, not to ask for jobs or to pass resumes
• Social media to build Social Brand and thought leadership - Including Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and blogs
• Not depending on any single opportunity - because their opportunity pipeline is large enough that they know something will come through. They stack the odds in their favor

Job seekers - How many opportunities are in your pipeline today?

Original Article

In the Search for a Hot Job Title, Enter the Ninja These Silicon Valley Warriors Write Computer Code; 'Guru Is So Web 1.0'

I guess I'll have to give myself a new title.....

By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER

Nicole Sullivan's job used to involve promoting the latest technology, so her résumé described her as an "evangelist." But after starting her own company, she needed to emphasize a different skill set.

Now, she likes to be known as a "ninja."

Ms. Sullivan isn't a black-hooded martial artist in Japan. She's a 32-year-old computer programmer in San Francisco who says she applies the sly skills of feudal Japanese warriors to writing software. "In the way you approach the code, you have a ton of tools available: throwing stars, knives, darts," says Ms. Sullivan, who founded Stubbornella Consulting in 2008. "The key is knowing which one will do some damage."

In Japanese folklore, ninjas were warriors who were skilled in espionage, traveled in disguise and often employed stealth fighting techniques many centuries ago. Today, a ninja is a hot new job title, vying to become the "guru" of the new century.

In 2009, the growth of "ninja" as a new job description far outpaced the growth of other trendy titles, according to LinkedIn Corp., a Web site that provides networking for more than 65 million professionals. While the numbers are still small on LinkedIn—some 800 current or former ninjas have public profiles on the site—their growth has skyrocketed past other fashionable careers such as "gurus" and "evangelists," says Monica Rogati, a scientist at LinkedIn who finds patterns in jobs data.

It's harder to quantify precisely what a ninja is.

"They're not coming from Japan," says Ms. Rogati, who first spotted the ascent of ninjas in 2003, but says they really took off last year. "They're just as likely to be software engineers or people with specialized skills working in the cubicle right next to you."

While most are computer programmers, the term has been used to describe expertise in everything from customer service to furniture movers. Jon Carlson sells the services of "ninja workers" in the Salt Lake City area. For $10 per hour per ninja, his team will do everything from housesitting to personal security to hauling junk.

Todd Bavol likes to be called the "Job Search Ninja," and published a book with that title last year that encourages people to use "creative skills from your bag of tricks" to find a job. "People who are doing the regular everyday things to find a job aren't being successful," says Mr. Bavol, the CEO of recruiting firm Integrity Staffing Solutions.

"The concept of a ninja is metaphorical. It's about confidence," says Alex Schliker, who has been advertising to hire one for his San Francisco business software start-up, CureCRM. It's "an easy way to say you need to be good at learning anything new I throw at you," he says.

Ninja is "sexier" than its predecessor, Mr. Schliker says: "Guru is so Web 1.0."

In finance, ninja has a more dubious meaning—it's an acronym for a kind of loan in which a bank hasn't verified an applicant's income, job, or assets. After the housing bubble, many of these sorts of loans ended up in default, with their borrowers disappearing like ninjas.

Valerie Frederickson, the CEO of an eponymous human resources firm in Silicon Valley, says ninja is just the latest in a string of unusual job titles for the tech industry that began in the 1990s with "evangelists."

"Technology was changing so quickly that companies needed somebody who could go out and convince customers to go with the new technology," she says.

But today's economy needs more employees who are willing to do a lot with a little. "Ninja panders either to the young or the young at heart. It is designed to make them work harder but feel good about it," says Ms. Frederickson.

The business world's love of vivid job titles dates back at least to "black belts," who first became popular in the 1980s thanks to the Six Sigma management strategy that uses the term. Management theorists spawned a generation of "gurus," although one of the most famous, the late Peter Drucker, once remarked that "we are using the word 'guru' only because 'charlatan' is too long to fit into a headline."

Bonobos Inc., a New York City start-up that makes and sells men's apparel online, has dubbed its customer-service employees ninjas. Its first customer-service representative happened to hold a fourth-degree black belt, CEO Andy Dunn says, which started the trend.

All of the ninja talk in the U.S. only sows confusion in Japan, where the term isn't used for jobs. Ninjas are mostly seen in TV period dramas and cartoons.

Jinichi Kawakami, honorary master of the Iga-ryu Ninja Museum in the city of Iga, is known as one of Japan's last living ninjas. He says that calling efficient workers ninjas is not completely inaccurate. But he's disappointed that the term has lost touch with its roots in the military arts. "As a Japanese person, I feel a bit of discomfort about it," says Mr. Kawakami, 60.

Ninjas aren't assassins, insists Mr. Kawakami, who trains by walking on his big toes. A real ninja must have stealth, intelligence, a righteous heart and patience, he says.

"Lacking any one of those, you cannot make a useful ninja. These things are required in the business world as well," he says.

The rise of ninjas in the tech world is being fueled in part by Amazon.com Inc., which hosts a ninja brain-teaser contest at job fairs and industry events when hiring computer-software writers. Winners get the title of Amazon Ninja Coder and a miniature foam statue of a sword-carrying ninja.

Ms. Frederickson, who says she has seen "enough ninjas to take a castle" recently, isn't convinced that becoming one is a good career move. "If you're going to give people funny titles, they should describe what the person does," she says. "What are you going to do after being a ninja—senior samurai?"

—Miho Inada in Tokyo contributed to this article.

Original Article

10 Job-Search Mistakes of New College Grads

People entering the job market (and all job seekers) should avoid these common errors.
by Charles Purdy, Yahoo! HotJobs

Although this year’s college graduates are facing a tough job market (and the smart ones are facing it now, rather than waiting until after graduation), they have an advantage over other job seekers, according to Andy Chan, vice president of career development at Wake Forest University: they are among the age group most likely to be hired in coming months.

“Organizations are very interested in hiring young people because they have a lot of energy and are willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done,” Chan says.

But no matter how well-positioned these young people are, they—and all job seekers—will have a better chance of success if they avoid these common job-hunting mistakes of new college grads:

1. Not being proactive enough
Emily Bennington, the author of “Effective Immediately: How to Fit In, Stand Out, and Move Up at Your First Real Job,” says, “This isn’t the time to sit back and be casual in your approach. Create a hit list of five to ten target companies, and really utilize your network to locate an ‘in’ at each.”

2. Relying solely on the Internet
In a recent Yahoo! HotJobs poll, 57% of respondents said networking was a factor in landing their current or most recent job. Brad Karsh, president of JobBound, says, “When thousands of candidates are applying to the same jobs online and posting their resume to the same job boards, candidates need to stand out by making connections and networking their way into a company.” Job boards are an important tool, but Karsh says new grads also need to focus energy on networking.

3. Not creating wide networks
Career expert Liz Ryan agrees: “Use your parents’, grandparents’, and friends’ networks to help you in your post-graduation job search,” she says. “Don’t be shy—reach out to any long-ago Scoutmaster, choir director, or babysitting or leaf-raking boss. … There’s no statute of limitations on networking.” (Read more Yahoo! HotJobs articles about effective networking.)

4. Not creating customized resumes
Ryan says, “Don’t send out any resumes that simply list your courses, the degree you’ve earned, and your part-time and summer jobs—use this opportunity to make a stronger statement about what you want to do with your adult life.” And according to Jay Block, the author of “101 Best Ways to Land a Job in Troubled Times,” younger job seekers often haven’t thought about what they have to offer an employer (as opposed to what they want to get from one). With this mindset, they create resumes that are “boring biographies” instead of effective marketing tools. (Read more Yahoo! HotJobs articles about crafting better resumes.)

5. Misusing the Internet
Tory Johnson, CEO of Women For Hire and the author of “Fired to Hired,” says, “New grads don’t use LinkedIn—it’s not sexy like Facebook or Twitter. But it’s the best resource for getting names and building a professional identity. Don’t overlook it.”

6. Failing to follow up
Johnson says, “It’s not enough to send resumes and pray the phone rings.” She cautions that job seekers can’t expect a resume to be discovered in that “big black online hole.” “Hustle to follow up,” she says.

7. Setting expectations too high
Johnson says new graduates too often focus on looking for the perfect job, instead of a first job: “Especially in this economy, the first job should be about finding a position where you’ll learn a great deal, you’ll be super busy, and you’ll be surrounded by lots of people.”

8. Appearing unprofessional
Make sure you’re ready for employers’ scrutiny, says Tim McIntyre, president and CEO of The Executive Search Group. That means you should “sanitize your MySpace page—right now. It will be checked,” he says. He notes that many college students will need to change off-color voicemail greetings. Ryan adds, “Don’t assume that Facebook’s privacy settings will keep your youthful antics away from curious eyes. Rid your profile page of any photos of the ‘three Bs’ (beer, bongs, and bikinis).”

9. Not taking the job interview seriously
Even when you’re applying for an unpaid internship, you need to adhere to common standards of professionalism. McIntyre says those standards include demonstrating you’ve done your research on the company and dressing appropriately. Block adds that new grads are often unprepared for tough (but standard) interview questions, such as “Where do you see yourself in three years?” and “What are your weaknesses?” (Read more Yahoo! HotJobs articles about effective interview tactics.)

10. Not using the college’s career office
“A career office can help [students] identify networking contacts, learn important job-search skills, and significantly improve their resume and cover letter,” says Wake Forest University’s Chan. Ryan agrees, but adds that this is just a first step. The career office’s job is to “to prepare you for your job search, not to conduct it for you,” she says. “Use LinkedIn, reach out to everyone you can, and begin researching employers who’d be likely targets for your job-search.” (Start your job search now.)

Original Article

Is Twitter better than LinkedIn for Job Seekers?

Once upon a time, long, long ago (which in the social media sphere is abouttwo months ago!) I was sure that LinkedIn was THE most valuable social media site for job seekers.

Today, it's definite that I'm unsure!

I would never make an argument that job seekers rely on only one site, but if I had to pick one platform as being absolutely crucial for the job seeker, I might now suggest Twitter.

"Is the man mad?" I hear you ask, while my long-suffering wife simply wonders, "Why do you even ask?"

Twitter: Best Real Time Source for Jobs

Here's why you have to be utilizing Twitter in your job search. Twitter provides you with THE best real time source for jobs that suit your job brief and it allows you to get your resume in early. Some recruiters admit that they review resumes on a chronological order and stop reading once they have 8-10 top class resumes. Understandable if you receive 500 plus resumes / job applications. Thus, in today's incredibly competitive environment, simply getting your resume in on time may not be in time!

Numerous major employers are tweeting job openings. As of 10.00am on 4/05, Abbott (608 open jobs via Tweetmyjobs.com) has tweeted openings for Global Product Manager, Patent Assistant, Electro Mechanical Technician and numerous others. You just hit the link and you are taken directly to the online application.

Sears has opted to use TweetmyJobs as its primary social media conduit. You will find 9 Sears entities when you search, including Sears Holdings Management Corporation which currently lists jobs like Lead Systems Engineer, Brand Manager – Craftsman, Multi-Channel Operations Manager.
Other major companies using Twitter include IBM, McDonald's, Deloitte, Accenture. Interestingly, while Pepsi is using Twitter for job postings, I could find no reference to Coca Cola.

Apart from http://tweetmyjobs.com, other sites worth looking at include http://www.twitjobsearch.com/and http://tweetajob.com

Note: Twitter is a fabulous tool for disciplined information gathering as above indicates. Once you register with Twitter (which is necessary to access other Twitter related sites), you do not have to send any 140 character tweets or even accept any tweets from others. So don't get bogged down by all the drivel that is out there, but do register for Twitter. Oh, keep it going on LinkedIn also.

Original Article

How Does Google Affect Your Job Search?

What does Google say about you? Why should a job seeker care?

Candidates should care, because employers care, recruiters care, HR personnel care.

Google can open opportunities for you ... or knock you out of contention. Not having anything listed about you in the first few Google pages may work against you. Then again, having negative results show up in the first few pages of Google can be damaging to your job search.

It may seem that Google is just a huge invasion of privacy, that it only causes problems in your search efforts. While Google can cause problems for your search, in most cases it only causes problems if you let it.

That's right, if you let it. You have some control over Google rankings, a process called Online Reputation Management (see http://recareered.blogspot.com/2008/03/online-reputation-management.html).

Don't get me wrong, you're never going to have total control over Google, but you can manage how Google searches on your name appear ... and the information that these searches reveal. Not every employer searches Google, but most recruiters and mid to large sized companies will as minimum due diligence.

Here's what you might find in a Google search on your name, and how it might affect your job prospects:

• Nothing: Google returns information on others who share your name. If you've maintained that you are a subject matter expert, industry leader, or corporate executive, and you aren't showing up in the first three pages of Google, you look ineffective at best - misleading at worst.
• Someone else's Google info: Do you want to risk a job on an employer knowing the difference between you and someone else who shares your name? If you do't manage your online reputation ... then someone else is managing it, especially if your name isn't unique. You might want to use a middle initial, shorter or longer first name derivation if you share the name of an embezzler who was just convicted on fraud charges.
• Unfavorable information: If your name is very unique than some information may show up that's not as bad as fraud convictions, but you might not want your employer to see.
• Old court cases or police arrest information: Have you ever been sued or arrested? Depending on locality and local newspaper practices, these records may end up on Google searches.
• Real estate tax records: Real estate tax records or real estate transactions (including property value) may show on Google depending on locality and local newspaper practices.
• Charitable and political donations: These may include dollar amount, political, religious or group affiliation
• Potential embarrassments: Blog comments, Twitter or Facebook posts may be visible, depending the uniqueness of your name and what other information about you is on the web.

The scary part is that judgments are made about you through this information, generally without you having a chance to explain anything. In as competitive, litigious, and risk averse employee hiring is today, many employers will just pass on a candidate if they sense risk - without even asking questions. What can you do?

1. Avoid surprises: Do an inventory of what's listed on Google searches of your name. Look through the first 5 pages, searching combinations of your full name, search with shortened first name, search under name and address, name and city, name and state, name and phone.


2. If you find negative information: It's next to impossible to remove it, but you can shift it. You can manage where negative information is listed by generating information that ranks more highly than the information you wish to shift (see http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/01/online-reputation-management-4-steps-to.html).


3. Others information: If your name is John Smith, and a different John Smith was just sentenced for some terrible crime, make sure to warn the hiring manager, recruiter or HR department ... or all three. Let them hear from you first that there will be some confusion, and you're not the same guy as the bank robber John Smith.


4. Promote yourself: Google can work for you and can help you be found by employers and recruiters. One of the huge side effects of social media allows recruiters to search using Google ... these are some of the hottest seminars, blog topics, and ebooks out there for recruiters. Given how expensive the major job boards are for recruiters, it's a huge benefit for recruiters to find candidates without having to rely on Monster and CareerBuilder. By proactively usng Online Reputation Management to build your subject matter expertise band, you can make it easy to stand out and be found. This can even work safely for passive candidates, because you're found by subject matter expertise, not by your resume - you're found, but it's not obvious that you are looking.


5. Fill out profiles: Fill out profiles on all the social networks you can find (there are hundreds of them - at a minimum fill out profiles for Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Plaxo, and more here: http://recareered.blogspot.com/2008/03/top-50-web-20-tools-for-job-seekers.html). Fill out profiles with all the major search engines and free email services (Google/Gmail, Yahoo, Bing/MSN, Hotmail, AOL).


6. Claim a blog Just claim it from a free service (the easiest is Blogger, and copy your basic Linkedin profile into a post). Use your name for the name of the blog.

These are some of the basic steps you can take to manage your reputation. I'll follow with subsequent articles on intermediate and advanced Online Reputation Management techniques that you can use to fine tune your subject matter expertise, and show up on employer searches for specific business problems.

That's when you can really have Google doing the hard lifting of your job search, so employers will come searching for you. Who would want that these days?

Have you searched Google for your own name lately? What does Google say about you? Any surprises?

Full Article Plus Other Info

How LinkedIn will fire up your career

By Jessi Hempel

If you need a job, or just want a better one, here's a number that will give you hope: 50,000. That's how many people the giant consulting firm Accenture plans to hire this year. Yes, actual jobs, with pay. It's looking for telecom consultants, finance experts, software specialists, and many more. You could be one of them -- but will Accenture find you?

To pick these hires the old-fashioned way, the firm would rely on headhunters, employee referrals, and job boards. But the game has changed. To get the attention of John Campagnino, Accenture's head of global recruiting, you'd better be on the web.

To put a sharper point on it: If you don't have a profile on LinkedIn, you're nowhere. Partly motivated by the cheaper, faster recruiting he can do online, Campagnino plans to make as many as 40% of his hires in the next few years through social media. Says he: "This is the future of recruiting for our company."

Facebook is for fun. Tweets have a short shelf life. If you're serious about managing your career, the only social site that really matters is LinkedIn. In today's job market an invitation to "join my professional network" has become more obligatory -- and more useful -- than swapping business cards and churning out résumés.

Make the most of your LinkedIn profile

More than 60 million members have logged on to create profiles, upload their employment histories, and build connections with people they know. Visitors to the site have jumped 31% from last year to 17.6 million in February. They include your customers. Your colleagues. Your competitors. Your boss. And being on LinkedIn puts you in the company of people with impressive credentials: The average member is a college-educated 43-year-old making $107,000. More than a quarter are senior executives. Every Fortune 500 company is represented. That's why recruiters rely on the site to find even the highest-caliber executives: Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500) found CFO Jeff Epstein via LinkedIn in 2008.

The reason LinkedIn works so well for professional matchmaking is that most of its members already have jobs. A cadre of happily employed people use it to research clients before sales calls, ask their connections for advice, and read up on where former colleagues are landing gigs.

In this environment, job seekers can do their networking without looking as if they're shopping themselves around. This population is more valuable to recruiters as well. While online job boards like Monster.com focus on showcasing active job hunters, very often the most talented and sought-after recruits are those currently employed. Headhunters have a name for people like these: passive candidates. The $8 billion recruiting industry is built on the fact that they are hard to find. LinkedIn changes that. It's the equivalent of a little black book -- highly detailed and exposed for everyone to see.

For a generation of professionals trained to cloak their contacts at all costs, this transparency is counterintuitive. So far most conversations about how to use social networks professionally have focused on what not to do: Don't share drunken photos on Facebook. Don't use Twitter to brag about playing hooky from the office.

Read The Rest Of The Article + Video

Top 10 tips for grads starting their career search

A. Here are my top 10 tips for grads starting their career search:

1. Be yourself ... polished up!

2. Learn to tell "your story" well. Share why you are the best candidate. What value will you bring to the organization? Think from the recruiter’s/hiring manager’s perspective.

3. Have your "elevator or marketing pitch" ready for the "Tell me about yourself" question, which is used for informational interviews as well. Be prepared to identify what sets you apart from the rest. Share what you are looking for (be focused and have specific areas).

4. A résumé is a "living document" in a constant state of revision. Be prepared to give examples from your résumé that can address your ability to deliver on expectations/projects.

5. Get business cards. Put your name, e-mail and cellular phone number and a title or category if you have identified one. You can print them off the computer until you decide who you want to be, then order them online or from the office supplies/printing stores.

6. First impressions: Make sure your cell phone message sounds professional. Remember this is one way to begin "branding" yourself.

7. Organize your networking plans:

• Make a list of who you know, who they know and who else you would like to know.

• Join social networking groups and list 3-5 associations to join. Joining associations (preferably in your desired profession) and becoming active in them can produce outstanding results and in a shorter timeframe.

• Create a LinkedIn account. This allows you to build an image, or brand.

• Connect with your college or university alumni, companies you interned for, mentors and others in "groups" with common interests.

• Identify 3-5 of your mentors — individuals you respect and admire — and arrange informational interviews. You must prepare for these the same way you would prepare for an interview. Come prepared with targeted questions.

8. Get your references ready. Contact former employers, internships, professors and ask for written or electronic references. Ask for a LinkedIn recommendation.

9. Prepare to make and track phone calls. Sell yourself, not the résumé. Set hourly, daily, weekly plans with goals. Also, get your space organized, have a system to track activity and follow-up.

10. Get mentally prepared for the "process." Finding the job you want and getting offers is a numbers game. The sooner you realize this, the less likely you are to become dejected. You will fail more than you succeed, but you only need to succeed once (getting and accepting an offer).

Consider joining a job search circle led by a certified career coach to learn job search methodology, expand your network and gain maximum value from the group experience.

Lisa Chenofsky Singer, of Chenofsky Singer & Associates, offers executive and career management coaching and human resources consulting. Lisa writes and speaks on job search and career-related topics. Her website is ChenofskySinger.com.

Don't Fumble Your Interview

Article by TheEmploymentExpert

You're all alone in the job search end zone and here comes the ball. It's yours to catch and be victorious, or it's yours to fumble and return to the bench. Your education, skills, experience and connections navigated you past all worthy defenders. You're in the open and the ball is headed your way. At this point it's yours to lose, and there is only one way to not drop the ball right then and there.

Manage Your Small Talk!

It's true, chit-chat or small talk will kill nearly any interview if you are not very careful. I know, everyone thinks that they are great at small talk. I agree that you may have wonderful communication skills, but when it comes to the job interview the rules are different. Make a mistake here, and you'll be hoping Obama extends unemployment benefits for another 13 weeks because you're going to need it.

You see, small talk uncovers more about a person than any direct interview question ever could. Anyone who interviews often will work on using the brief transitions in an interview to get the job seeker to (unknowingly) open up while their guard is down. This is where the unsuspecting job seeker falls into the trap. You see, this tiny part of your interview uncovers your faults and weakness in a way that you would never show during the formal interview.

Now before you object to this because you are just too smart to fall for that - no you not. As an executive recruiter I've interviewed over six thousand people in the past 15 years, and I can tell you that almost everyone tells me more than they should. This is why it's so seductive for the interviewer to engage you in casual conversation, because everyone falls for it.

It usually starts before the interview. You're waiting in the lobby, and the interviewer comes out to greet you, and walks you back to their office. You had a great firm handshake, great eye contact, and a pleasant demeanor. You've succeeded at the first impression and you celebrate your mini-success - or have you? What you don't realize is your interview began five minutes prior with the admin in the lobby. They were instructed to engage you in small talk and find out more about you. Because your guard was down you mentioned how your recent triple bypass was giving you some discomfort and FUMBLE-RUSKI! You dropped the ball and the clock just ran out.

Will you become the next VP of Marketing with a bad ticker and chest pain? Not likely.

Now while you're walking back through the office a more deadly conversation begins. It always starts with, "Did you find your way here alright"?

Plan your response to this question before it is asked. Never explain car trouble, being lost, going to the wrong building. Again, your guard is down at this point. You want to convey success and confidence. Your answers should be positive and planned out. Whatever you do, don't talk about the weather.

Small talk does however provide you the opportunity to combat any perceived issues you think you might have. Are you overweight and you're concerned that this could be a concern? Well then talk about the tennis tournament you played over the weekend, or the ten mile hike you went on the day before. Alleviate that concern when small talk arises.

If you're worried that your skills are rusty, then bring up how you just attended a conference on the cutting edge new software package that seems to be the buzz in your industry. You always want to combat your perceived weakness during the soft talk phase of the interview, and never succumb to the enticement of the chit-chat. It's difficult because it's so unknowingly seductive.

If you fear that you are perceived as too old then you need to plan your small talk to combat this. So when you're asked how your weekend was you shouldn't respond that you were celebrating the birth of your 12th granddaughter. Certainly a joyous event, but they may want to fit you for a blue vest and direct you to the nearest Wal-Mart. Again, give them a reason to see that you're young, hip and going to be around awhile. Find a way to talk about how you were Tweeting your kids with your cell phone while hiking to the top of Pikes Peak. If you can pull that one off, you've just scored the winning touchdown!

Michael C. Webb is The Employment Expert, Author of Six Weeks to Multiple Job Offers, and a Partner in the executive search firm CFOs2GO. Find Michael on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/theemploymentexpert

Original Article

How IBM Uses Social Media to Spur Employee Innovation

By Casey Hibbard

Published February 2, 2010

“Be yourself.” It’s one of the rules of social media. If you’re blogging, tweeting or Facebooking for business, be real—or you won’t be followed.

Yet, how do you pull off “authentic” while maintaining the company brand message?

It’s tough enough for a small business. What if you’re #2 on Business Week’s best global brands list, with nearly 400,000 employees across 170 countries?

At IBM, it’s about losing control.

“We don’t have a corporate blog or a corporate Twitter ID because we want the ‘IBMers’ in aggregate to be the corporate blog and the corporate Twitter ID,” says Adam Christensen, social media communications at IBM Corporation.

“We represent our brand online the way it always has been, which is employees first. Our brand is largely shaped by the interactions that they have with customers.”

Thousands of IBMers are the voice of the company. Such an approach might be surprising for #14 on the Fortune 500.

Organization: IBM

Social Media Stats:

• No IBM corporate blog or Twitter account
• 17,000 internal blogs
• 100,000 employees using internal blogs
• 53,000 members on SocialBlue (like Facebook for employees)
• A few thousand “IBMers” on Twitter
• Thousands of external bloggers,
• Almost 200,000 on LinkedIn
• As many as 500,000 participants in company crowd-sourcing “jams”
• 50,000 in alum networks on Facebook and LinkedIn

Results:

• Crowd-sourcing identified 10 best incubator businesses, which IBM funded with $100 million
• $100 billion in total revenue with a 44.1% gross profit margin in 2008

Edgy at 114

At 114 years old, IBM seems to be the Madonna of the corporate world, staying relevant from decade to decade. The first company to build a mainframe computer and help NASA land a man on the moon still holds more patents than any other U.S.-based technology company.

As it turns out, its decentralized social media approach is another milestone in the company’s history—driving unprecedented collaboration and innovation.

IBM lets employees talk—to each other and the public—without intervention. With a culture as diverse and distributed as IBM’s, getting employees to collaborate and share makes good business sense.

“We’re very much a knowledge-based company. It’s really the expertise of the employee that we’re hitting on,” Christensen says.

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