Job Stalker

Organizing your time ...

Brendan Tripp posted 5 days, 17 hours ago | no comments

http://www.flickr.com/photos/k6mmc/ / CC BY 2.0

One of the challenges for the job seeker is keeping their days organized. Opinions vary on how one should have one's day scheduled (from those who encourage taking personal time during the day to those who are totally "nose to the grindstone"), but it really does help to have some sense of what you're actually doing with your time.

Once again, my experience/ background is not typical, having worked from home 13 of the past 15 years, and I have habits in place that put me in my home office for substantial chunks of the day (although I have started to heed the "go get some work done in a coffee house" advice from time to time). As my previous job died a drawn-out fading death, I also had a number of projects whose time-lines decayed at various rates. One of MY main challenges when it became clear that I was, indeed, in a job search (and no longer part of a team keeping our previous company on life-support), was to make sure that I was spending enough time on the job search, as well as other essential functions such as sleep. On this latter point, I'm one of those guys who will get dug into a project and keep at it deep into the night, so one of the triggers for my developing what I'm going to be sharing with your today was to make sure that I got closer to six hours of sleep than four!

Published in Job Search and tagged calendar, schedule, time sheet

The value of a word ...

Brendan Tripp posted 6 days, 21 hours ago | no comments

I recently read a blog entry that made me think. A lot. It is, on its surface, about journalists, so is, perhaps fairly "narrow focus" for this vehicle, but it brought up so many other issues about the current value of work, that I decided that I'd do a The Job Stalker entry about it, rather than just ranting in my personal blog.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/r-z/ / CC BY 2.0

The piece Stop The Exploitation of Journalists appeared in Alan D. Mutter's Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, which had been shared by somebody I read on Twitter. While, obviously, targeted to the news biz, the things discussed in the post can be applied more generally across other fields, especially as related to doing "freelance" assignments.

The key message in this is his urging journalists to insist on being paid what they're worth and, to help them determine this, Mutter worked up a little spreadsheet. On this are various segments making assorted assumptions, the first of which is a base "hourly rate". To get this he picked what he felt was a typical number out of the Newspaper Guild's wage listings, coming up with a figure which was almost exactly 4x the minimum wage for the state it came from. He suggests that this could be used as a "rule of thumb" for a journalist's hourly wage expectation. Next is figuring out how much time is involved, as the project is not just getting words onto paper, but research and other legwork. One key element he injects here is to add 20% for overhead as freelancers have many hidden costs that are part of the package in a regular job. Once an hourly-plus-overhead figure is arrived at, one can determine a cost-per-word number. More on this momentarily. The grand total is then arrived at by adding in whatever expenses were incurred in the development of the piece, which in this illustration was $331.67 for a 600-word article, which involved six hours of professional services.

Published in Job Search and tagged Alan D. Mutter, freelance, journalism, Newsosaur, pay rate, twitter, wages, writing

Towards brave new worlds ...

Brendan Tripp posted 1 week, 1 day ago | no comments

Welcome to another book review/interview feature! This one, while having aspects applicable to the management of anybody's career, is specifically targeted towards the younger "Generation Y" folks just getting into the job market, who could best use the "Personal Branding" advice given here. The concept of "Personal Branding" is, to some extent, the "personal brand" of author Dan Schawbel whose book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success has spread like wildfire across the web.

The concept of "Me 2.0" is a re-imaging of oneself from being a simple undifferentiated individual to being one's own Brand, for which one fills the roles of CEO, CPO, CIO, CFO, CMO, etc. (and you always wanted a "C-level" job!). In order to achieve this, one needs to muster up a good deal of focus, develop a wide array of skills, and have a single-minded determination to succeed. Again, the book is largely aimed at 20-somethings (the author himself is a mere 4 years out of college), and is somewhat of a 21st Century "How To Succeed In Business" manual for those just starting out on their professional careers.

The utility of the book for those already established in their working lives is more variable (I doubt many people would find a listing of my collegiate extracurricular activities particularly germane to any position to which I would be applying), although the middle section does have quite valuable step-by-step instructions for how to do a wide range of "Web2.0 and beyond" functions, which could be quite handy for those of us who pre-date Web1.0! More details on all this are in my review.

Below the cut are Dan Schawbel's answers to my interview questions (including a bunch of links to some very interesting web resources) ...

Published in Job Search and tagged Alexandra Levit, book review, Delicious, Facebook, interview, Lindsey Pollak, LinkedIn, Miriam Salpeter, Modite, Polly Pearson, twitter, Untemplater

Reading & Networking ...

Brendan Tripp posted 1 week, 3 days ago | no comments

http://www.flickr.com/photos/takomabibelot/ / CC BY 2.0

The past couple of weeks have offered pretty solid networking opportunities, with many events available. As I've noted, I try to hit at least 2 events per week, and try to do no more than 4 (exhaustion sets in eventually!), and here in Chicago (at least in my niche) that's an easy target to make. What's difficult these days is that some nights (like this past Thursday) there were at least three events that I would have benefited attending. I ended up at the Social Media Breakfast on Tuesday, a Publicity Club of Chicago tweet-up on Wednesday, and the monthly Social Media Club event last night. Again, there are literally hundreds of events happening every week, and every job seeker should get in the habit of checking MeetUp.com, Googling for your particular job-search area along with "event" or "meeting", and digging up info on the appropriate industry groups and following their calendars.

Anyway, I'm way behind on getting out resumes this week due to the non-computer time invested in that, and there are a few less links here than there have been recently for the same reason. I have two good features coming up for next week (an author interview and another "tip" from my own school of hard knocks), so you have that to look forward to. Speaking of "good news" (the title of the previous post), I had a phone interview earlier this week, and a call to set up another phone interview for next week (both of which for very cool jobs, too), so maybe this long log-jam on hiring is starting to break, and I might get actually be getting work sometime in the foreseeable future.

I've been keeping a document with all the links I've presented here (largely so that I don't end up repeating any), and I was wondering if there was any interest in having that available as a resource. The links I bring to you on Friday, as I've previously discussed, are the product of my own on-going research on the web (primarily on Twitter), and are, generally speaking, presented in simple chronological order of when I encountered them. If there was a desire on the readership's part for my setting up a downloadable file that I could keep available here, I'd figure out a way to make that happen, as I came to realize that the list (which currently runs more than six pages) is starting to be a pretty valuable repository of a whole lot of job-stalking information! Let me know one way or the other in the comments if you care about that. In the meanwhile, here are this week's batch of links ... hope you find them useful ...

Published in Job Search and tagged Google, links, Meetup, networking, reading, research, tweetup, Twitter

Some VERY good news ...

Brendan Tripp posted 1 week, 6 days ago | no comments

As I noted at the end of my last post, there is some "better" news to report today. This is an amazing "mash-up" of two very useful Twitter-centered programs, TweetDeck and TwitterJobSearch, the former being a desktop Twitter manager, and the latter a site which scours Twitter for any and all job listings. The new desktop client is called JobDeck, and it looks to be an awesome way of doing what I've been doing "manually" with the Twitter web interface!

I have not had a chance to check this out as yet (it was just unveiled yesterday), but I'd dabbled with TweetDeck previously, and have been meaning to port my Twitter efforts (now that I'm following as many as 500 Twitterers) over to it or the web-based HootSuite.

I expect that other (such as HootSuite) will eventually come out with similar products to JobDeck, but right now I think it's not exaggerating that having JobDeck in your job search tools is almost essential, given how much of the data stream is moving to Twitter!

Again, what I've been doing with "massive efforts" via the basic Twitter web interface can now be largely automated (if I'm reading the press on this right) with JobDeck. As I've noted, I get from 5 to 12 resumes out a day from what I've been finding on Twitter, and this has the potential of doing the same for you in your job search. Although I've not had a chance to even download this yet, I feel pretty confident in highly recommending your getting this set up on your computer. For more information, check out these articles by TechCrunch and ReadWriteWeb.

Published in Job Search and tagged HootSuite, JobDeck, ReadWriteWeb, research, TechCrunch, TweetDeck, Twitter, TwitterJobSearch

On-Line Robbery ...

Brendan Tripp posted 2 weeks ago | no comments

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dubswede/ / CC BY 2.0

Hey, The Job Stalker readers ... hope your job search is going better than mine has been. I knew that when I took on this assignment it would have its ups and downs, after all, it is predicated on the basis that its writer is both unemployed and looking for work, and that (short of disqualifying myself out of the gig by actually getting a job) it would be more about striving than success. However, I've been hit with a whole series of set-backs and disappointments, from my computer issues (which I've still not been able to take care of) to several interviews that have gotten my hopes up, only to lead nowhere, to the not-unexpected financial crises that being in one's umpteenth month with no income brings.

I have been meaning to get around to this issue again, but have been "not wanting to go there", but it's important, and I guess I will. I have, in my e-mail in-box, an ever-growing collection of e-mail notices from places that have my contact information, each purporting to have exciting job opportunities for me. Sometimes there are actually jobs for which one can send in applications in these, but far more frequently, these are cruel, cynical come-ons from really horrible people that have decided that the desperation of the job seeker provides them with a handy money making opportunity. When I started in my current job search, it seemed like there was only one of these (the one you've seen on TV, with their various permutations under assorted other names), which was promising "100k jobs" if only you'd pay them their monthly fee.

Now, as I noted early on in this process, I'm in my third significant job search in the past 10 years, and I've "been around the block" several times, and I'm pretty clear that the only thing that paying these folks will get you is to get to see listings which are very likely elsewhere on the internet with no other advantage to you. These listing groups get plenty of advantages, most notably selling their services to companies looking to hire promising "filtered" applicants. Well, yes, they've been "filtered" by being convinced to give up $30 a month (with hard-to-stop automatic payments) to see the listings.

Now, I don't want to get into TMI here, but one member of my family has a prescription that is essential to their day-to-day health, and this costs us (under my Wife's COBRA discount) $30 a month. Do we ask the family member to "buck up" and go without the meds so that I can see these listings? Maybe, if there was only ONE of these vile "services" out there. However, over the past year this particular scam has exploded, and I probably have a good dozen that send me their cold-hearted pitches on nearly a daily basis, each wanting a monthly payment, on a recurring program (which, again, tend to be almost impossible to get out of), for about the same $30 give or take a few bucks. Can you afford an extra $360/month in your budget? We have had NO income coming in since last May, and we certainly can't.

Published in Job Search and tagged evil, ExecuNet, iHire, job boards, Job Fox, Ladders, scams

Another week's research ...

Brendan Tripp posted 2 weeks, 3 days ago | no comments

Sorry for the paucity of posts over the past couple of weeks, but I'm still dealing with computer issues, which has slowed me down on all fronts (using my current "jerry rigged" system is a bit like trying to run through chest-high surf compared to using my currently dead main system!). I had hoped to have had the new hard drive I ordered last week but it didn't get here until this past Thursday, and I've had no free time to dedicate to getting that fixed up due to a rather aggressive networking schedule this week.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/ckaroli/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Speaking of which, additional apologies for this "research dump" sliding off of Friday, but I was swamped yesterday and then had a Tweet-up that took me out of the house from the late afternoon till about 9pm, and I fell asleep at the keyboard before getting this done!

I had somebody ask about these weekly links (and why they should care about them), and thought I'd address that here. As those who've been reading The Job Stalker under my tenure know that I have concentrated most of my job search on the Internet and various "social media" sites, especially Twitter. I follow quite a number of "job industry" feeds there, from job boards to "career consultants" to assorted industry bloggers writing on the subject. In a typical day, I am likely to spend 6-10 hours reading every post by every person I follow (every day). From my perspective, this is great because I tend to find at least 5 job possibilities per day to shoot resumes out at, but it also puts a ton of articles in front of me, the best of which I copy to a NotePad file on my desktop for sharing here. In other words, what you're seeing in these end-of-the-week link dumps is the "cream of the crop" of what I've read in 40-70 hours of research.

I'm hoping to have my "real" computer back in service by next week and will be posting more frequently than I have while struggling with "technical difficulties". In the meanwhile, here are this week's batch of links ... hope you find them useful ...

Published in Job Search and tagged networking, reading, research, tweetup, Twitter

If you won't take GOOD advice ...

Brendan Tripp posted 3 weeks, 1 day ago | no comments

As anybody reading this space with any frequency knows, I spend a vast amount of time "mining Twitter" for job leads, contacts, and those links that I share with readers on Fridays. Ever since I started to pass along my book reviews here, I've been getting a bit of a "buzz" on Twitter, with folks seeing my book review blog as a way to getting word out on their publications. However, this week's book, How to Self-Destruct: Making the Least of What's Left of Your Career, didn't come to me via the author, Jason Seiden (@seiden on Twitter), directly, but via another job-search blogger who had obtained a number of copies of the book (see my review for all the details) that she was sharing with her readers.

As one can guess from its title, How to Self-Destruct is not your typical career-management book, focusing its "advice" on ways to make a total mess of your career, your relationships, and your life (with counter-examples just in case self-destructing is not your primary aim).

I just got done reading this (my review went up on Friday night), and I was very pleased that Mr. Seiden was able to respond to my interview request as quickly as he did ... his answers to my questions follow the break:

Published in Job Search and tagged book review, career paths, Twitter

Struggling back ...

Brendan Tripp posted 3 weeks, 4 days ago | no comments

http://www.flickr.com/photos/timetrax/ / CC BY-SA 2.0

Still fighting with the dread "dead computer" issues here ... have a new hard drive coming (hopefully today) for my main computer, and still scraping along with an old jerry-rigged system at the moment. While very frustrating (I'm used to fairly intense multi-tasking that my current system just is not up to), I have managed to get into a flow of being able to at least generally keep up with my job search reading, meaning that I have a good block of "weekend reading" to pass along to you today!

On other fronts, finally, after the holidays, the networking calendar started to swell this week. Once again, I probably could have gone to a dozen events this week. However, I've found that completely filling my week with these eventually becomes counter-productive, as there's an exhaustion factor that catches up with me. To give you a feeling of what sorts of things are out there, I figured I'd give you a run-down on what I've been to this week. On Tuesday it was the monthly Meet-Up for the NetSquared group, which is an outreach that brings together folks in the non-profit field with folks in the tech field, since I'm interested in both sides of that equation, it's a natural. I got to see some folks I'd not had a chance to chat with in a couple of months, and saw a great presentation (although this on was not particularly good for making new connections). On Wednesday, I was up in Evanston working on some consulting that I'm doing with EvanstonOnline.com's Evanston Today Live web news program, and ended up staying up there for an event that the Technology Innovation Center was holding. Met a number of new folks, which got converted over to 1st degree LinkedIn connections. Last night I was off at the launch party for the Tribune's "Nelson Algren Awards", which was fabulous in that I got to meet a whole bunch of folks that I'd previously only known via Twitter ... and it's always good to be able to have face-to-face contact with folks, no matter how "techy" one is. I have another possible Meet-Up in play for this evening, but I'm thinking a night home with the family might be more constructive.

While you're catching up on the reading here, you might also want to block out some time to start poking around on the web for events in your area -- meetup.com is a good place to start, as would be Google, combining industry key words with "event" or "networking". Anyway, links below the cut, hope you find them helpful ...

Published in Job Search and tagged LinkedIn, links, networking, research, Twitter

More links from Twitter ...

Organizing your time ...

The value of a word ...

Towards brave new worlds ...

Reading & Networking ...

Some VERY good news ...

On-Line Robbery ...

Another week's research ...

If you won't take GOOD advice ...

Struggling back ...

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