Determine to make a difference every day...

I finished my day yesterday unfinished. I know that seems weird but it is, nonetheless, true.  Too many things left to complete.  Too many calls left to make.  Too many tales to tell.  Too little time to do it all in. Is it just me or are the days getting shorter?  I have theory that I am sure others share…

The days get shorter and the years go by quicker as we age because they represent a smaller percentage of the totality of our lives. For instance, for a 10-year old a year represents 1/10 of his life. But for this 48-year old, a year represents a mere 1/48th.

Winston Churchill, in all his wisdom, was grasping at what I seem to be feeling these days when he said, “It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got to succeed in doing what is necessary.”  I think what I may be feeling is attached to good, old-fashioned work.  For 1.5 years, I had trouble leaving the office, given that it was in my home.  Many of you can relate, as virtual and home offices have become more and more popular and necessary.

How do we make sure that we succeed in doing what is necessary? There are millions of time management tips we can read, review, and try to follow, but it all comes down to sheer will and follow-through. Your will is what drives you out of bed in the morning. It also drives you to work through lunch or into late-night hours. But your will can also be what tells you your work is done for the day.  Answering to your will is the easy part; determining your will? Now, that ‘s another story.

“Do or do not, there is no try,” famously uttered by Yoda. Determine to make a difference each day. If not in your own life, perhaps in someone else’s. It does have to be huge or even medium-sized. Just one small difference. Call a jobseeker and give a little free advice. Follow through when you say you will.  Be happy.  Share a smile.

Today is the 17,634th day of my life. (You can figure out how many days you’ve lived here)  Days come and go – quicker all the time – but what you do in each is where the distinction lies.  I don’t know how many days I have left, but I happily raise my glass to at least another 10,000!

“You can’t cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water.” ~Rabindranath Tagore, Poet

Rayanne Thorn, @ray_anne is the Marketing Director for the online recruiting software company, Broadbean Technology.  She is also a proud mother of four residing in Laguna Beach, California, and a contributor for Blogging4Jobs.  Connect with her on LinkedIn.  

Last week I presented to a group of Restaurant Human Resources Professionals as part of the People Report Summer Camp Symposium in Dallas, Texas.  The event was hands down the best conference I have ever presented at or attended.  I led a session titled,  ”Blogging for Dummies.”

Blogging is an interesting topic for Human Resources and Corporate Recruiting Teams.  An amazing corporate blog can help effectively communicate change to your current employee base while also providing potential candidates a look inside your company and corporate culture.  Recruitment and HR blogs should be managed by their respective departments and not marketing.  Marketing should work hand in hand with their talent team and serve as a consultant or advisor.

For the individual, blogging in my opinion is an absolute must to help define and control your personal brand.  Blogs are a great way for companies and clients to learn more about you outside of your professional resume or social profiles like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.  Blogs can be the difference maker for job seekers and are the Resume 2.0.

My talk’s foundation started with what I call the 5 P’s of Blogging.  Although similar, the 5 P’s of Blogging are different from the 5 P’s of Marketing you might remember from your undergrad marketing class.

• Purpose. Your blog as a corporation, collaboration, or person must have a purpose.  Similar to a corporate mission statement, your blog’s goal must be defined and like any marketing or branding tool must be developed to attract and inform a particular segment of your audience or market that you have defined.  Too often, we start a blog without the proper research or understanding of what we want to write about or who we want to engage.  Developing and defining your purpose is by far the most important step.

• Platform. The decision to create a blog starts with the decision to use a blogging platform or service.  I encourage you to play with some of the platforms before you make this decision.  I say this from my own experience.  My first blog, BloggingforJobs was on a free platform called Blogger before I moved it to its own domain and transferred my blog to another platform called WordPress.  A third and very common blog platform is TypePad which my good friend Kay Stout uses.

• Planning. Hands down your first 10 blog posts are the hardest so it is important for you to plan, research, and prepare for these first few articles.  This is an important part of defining your blog’s writing style, your own style, and setting up the structure surrounding how often, who, and when your blog will release its posts.  If you have a collaborative, corporate blog, I encourage you to work with at least 4 bloggers who will commit to writing at least one blog post every two weeks.  Personally, I commit to no less than 8 blog posts a month myself for Blogging4Jobs and have for the past four years.

• People. Second to Purpose, this is the most important step.  People are the social aspect of blogging.  Ask your entire company to help you promote leveraging their own networks.  Setting up a simple RSS feed or newletter can help leverage your contacts both inside and outside the company as well.  Both these tools allow persons to subscribe to your blog updates while keeping your brand and company at the top of their mind.  Blogging should be a two way conversation and I encourage you to keep the comments open both good and bad.  Candidates realize that companies aren’t perfect and its the conversation and culture that sets companies apart.

• Promotion. Promoting my blog on social networks is a huge part of my blog’s success.  I recommend using social bookmarketing sites to promote your blog like Digg, Stumbleupon, Technorati, and LinkedIn Groups in addition to popular social platforms like Twitter and Facebook.  Your marketing department is key in helping your blog gain momentum and popularity as they are experienced in online press releases with services like Pitch Engine.

Want to bring an corporate, personal, or professional blog to myself and the reader’s attention?  Leave a comment below and recognize them for a job well done.

Photo Credit Farm3.

Just this last weekend I visited my hometown of Google, Kansas (AKA, Topeka).  I caught up with family and friends while squeezing some time in for a little business.  Throughout our whirlwind weekend, we drove from place to place, and I made sure to check into Four Square and Gowalla every chance I could. Why? Because just like any social networking site, it’s about sharing and being present where-ever and whenever you are.

The term geolocation refers to an application that allows the user to broadcast their location using the internet.  These apps are available on mobile devices like your blackberry, android, iphone, and even the world wide web.  Registered users log into an application like Four Square and check into their  physical location, event, or venue while broadcasting their check-in to their friends, social media networks, and those on the internet.

Another feature similar to geolocation now available on the popular micro-blogging site, Twitter is called geotagging.  Geotagging allows Twitter users the option to share their location to their followers, search engines, and other third party tools that work alongside Twitter.  As social media and sites like Twitter and FaceBook have served as conduits to link users with one another across the global, geo brings the focus back to your local and present community.  Users of all three of these tools have access to local and real time trends, information, and people whether you are a long time resident or just passing through.

But why personal branding?

Geo tools present an new and exciting way for users to network, develop relationships, engage a customer base, and build a brand within a niche community or ecosystem.  Building a brand reputation, recognition, or relationship takes time and touches. Customers want to do business with a brand who is recognizable and has a solid reputation built on recommendations from trusted sources like friends and family.  And with your personal brand, geolocation and tagging tools are another new facet of the marketing and branding package that sets you apart from the rest.

Blogging, Twitter, and FaceBook–Everybody’s doing it.

Imagine that you frequent a number of local businesses near your home or work and you happen to be the mayor of two nearby coffee shops, PT’s Coffee (locally owned) and Starbucks (global chain).  As mayor of both these locations, your profile picture and name are viewable to everyone who checks into the location as well as your network.  Tools like these increase your exposure and number of touches among potential companies, clients, employers, or even website visitors.  As you check in, you are sending a subtle but targeted reminder of your name or brand.  And because customers of coffee shops like Starbucks’s average household income is in excess of $80,00 and are 42 years old, it is safe to assume that many target customers work in high level and decision maker type positions or are influential and connected within the community.  Surely the kind of people you are interested in being connected with and getting top know, right?

As geolocation tools like Four Square become more mainstream with more than 500k registered users in March 2010, it’s a safe bet that a geo presence will only benefit your personal brand by increasing your brand recognition, strengthen relationships and quite possibly drive traffic to your website and your other social profiles.

Learn more about Gelocation Recruiting and Sourcing Strategies here.

Photo Credit Same Forzley.

As someone who has worked as a Recruiter, I understand how important social media is in finding quality job search candidates. I’ve used tools like chat rooms, online communities, blogs, Twitter, FaceBook, and even internet dating sites to source and place candidates.  As a blogger, I have used Blogging4Jobs, my blog to develop an online personal and business brand that has provided me with a solid reputation in my industry as well as landing a handful of clients who found me and reached out after reading my posts and content. The Human Resource industry has been slow to adapt and understand the new media world. Since not all HR professionals are Recruiters and vice-versa, job seekers are at an advantage and a disadvantage at the same time.

Think of recruiters are salespeople who are in the business of finding people for companies they either work for as employees or as third party agencies who search and find candidates most often on behalf of companies they represent. Human Resource professionals are more analytical personalities who are focused on policy (policies), procedure, technologies like payroll and application systems, as well as legal concerns with protecting the company in mind. Most HR professionals do not like recruiting, work in recruiting or if they do, are not passionate about the process. To them it’s a means to an end. I like to think that I am the exception to the rule and have worked in and understand both.

The good news is that according to EMarketer, the tides when it comes to HR and social media are changing. A recent survey regarding HR Executives found that HR Professionals spend an average of 3.77 hours per week for work purposes. About one half of respondents reported that a social media helped their brand and made them more valuable as a job candidate.

This change in thought from HR Executives and business leaders makes personal branding even more important than it ever was before. As you continue to grow and build relationships and your personal brand, companies are becoming more aware of its value and seeking out influencers and thought leaders either internally within their own organizations or externally and often using social media networks and communities. This also makes managing your online and personal brands strategically and targeting your audience, content, and touches more critical in your future job and career success.

**June 2011:  A new study was released about how HR uses Social Media.  Conducted by Toolbox.com, this study found that human resource professionals are now spending nearly 8 hours a week on social media for work purposes, information, and networking.  Those are promising statistics the support when this article was first published in early 2010.  With Facebook expected to reach 1 billion members by the end of 2011, social media is quickly becoming a necessary part of maintaining a personal and professional network, and finally HR is getting the memo.  

Photo Credit Looking Glass & EMarketer.

This YouTube video by my friend, @animal about how to get popular on Twitter has some very good points, but the best point of all is painfully obvious.  You have to original in order to stand out.  Recruiting Animal is well-known in the recruiting industry because of his brash sense of humor.  He is quick to provide extremely honest feedback even if it hurts. People in the industry have come to expect and respect  the Recruiting Animal.

The video begs the question–what’ s your online differentiation strategy?  Is it working?

Photo Credit Kamran Web.

Using wardrobe & image to get the job in a hyper-visual, hyper-competitive world.

How’s your job search going? You’ve networked. You’ve updated your LinkedIn profile and used social networks to learn about leads. You’ve revamped your resume to tailor your background and experiences to each job posting. And then finally, an opportunity presents itself. You’ve got an interview lined up for next Friday at 1:00pm. Have you thought about what you’re going to wear? Fashion isn’t frivolous. Thinking about image and wardrobe are more important than ever. The Department of Labor reported that in January 2010 there were 14.8 million unemployed Americans. Hiring managers are inundated with applications. How are you differentiating yourself from the pack?

Personal image, according to Robin Fisher, President of Polished, a full-service personal styling and image- consulting agency, is what you visually and non-verbally communicate to the public through personal appearance and social etiquette. 55-70% of your first impression is determined by your clothes, grooming and posture.€ If you are exclusively invested in your content and you ignore the power of your image, you are missing a critical element of your overall effectiveness. Are you allowing a professional image to support you?

Jacqueline M. Peros, of JMP Image & Style, suggests that an applicant do research on the standard or accepted attire for not only that particular industry but also the corporate culture of where he/she will be interviewing. You wouldn’t want to show up in a creative/artistic ensemble in a financial corporation. It’s imperative to communicate that you fit in and appropriately represent your industry/company.€  So stand out, to not be screened out. Think critically about what’s appropriate, professional and comfortable to ensure a positive return on your image.

According to Lisa McLatchie, the stylist behind Practical Fashionista, don’t forget a business formal look, is more conservative and refined.  For men and women, that means a classic, tailored suit in neutral or dark colors. Wearing big patterns and anything too bright, trendy and sexy is distracting for the interviewer.€ Use color and accessories to incorporate personal style with conservative suiting.

Kimberly Gomez, Image Consultant & Fashion Stylist, Impeccable Image LLC and I offer these interview wardrobe and grooming basics for women and men.

• Wear a suit  either pants or [women] a knee-length [or just above] skirt; colors: navy blue, gray/charcoal or black; no brown: brown is a subordinate color.
• Wear a light colored, no see through blouse/shirt; colors: white, ivory, blue, light green [no bright or loud colors].
• Women: wear necessary underpinnings i.e., shell, blouse or camisole. Avoid revealing the 6 B’s: breasts, butts, backs, bellies, bras and briefs.
• Invest in a properly fitting bra and seamless underwear. Wear a shaper, if necessary.
• Women: Wear flesh-colored hosiery with a skirt.
• Make sure shoes are in good repair and polished: women 1-3 inch heels okay but no stilettos; men: black and brown shoes okay.
• Invest in a quality, black or dark brown brief case.
• Cover all tattoos and do not wear any body piercings.
• Wear minimal, conservative jewelry such as pearl earrings, watch.
• Don’t overpower with cologne or perfume.
• Women: Wear neutral makeup. Men: Don’t wear any makeup! [Just wanted to see if you were paying attention!]
• Be well groomed [face, teeth, hair, nails].

Need more help. Check out Melissa McGraw and Jennifer Gregory’s terrific site, WorkChic to get outfit suggestions for the perfect suit for your next interview. The duo puts together looks that blend professional silhouettes with trendier pieces.  Be sure to follow them on Twitter as well @workchic.

Judith Rasband, owner of The Conselle Institute of Image Management, says, Creating an authentic, appropriate, attractive image will allow you to feel more confident, more capable, more productive and appear more credible.€

Everyday is an opportunity. If you are dressed for it, I see a job in your future.

Photo Credit Work Chic.

Dena A. Lorenzi is a guest blogger for Blogging4Jobs. She’s an independent marketing professional and fashion enthusiast who blogs as @FaithInFashion on Twitter and presents her You : The Brand seminar to college seniors and corporations.