Its really important,  not just with photographs, but almost any online content, you should think before you post, who may see it, and how they may view it, especially if it is a prospective employer.

Keep it private if you need to.  I wrote a post on my blog and made password protected, and shared with few people who I trusted, and have since made it private.  It was an issue I had with copyright infringement that at the time was appropriate, but since I’ve been blogging for a while, I’ve learned to lighten up a bit and not take that issue as serious as I had.

I have chosen at this time to keep my Facebook profile public, I do have a Myspace page, but haven’t updated it in over a year, and don’t intend on doing so at this time, it is set to private so that only my friends can see it.  Nothing to worry about there, just that I’ve chosen not to update or use myspace at this time, and made it private.

Two things I’ve done actually are matching up my online profiles across the sites with the same picture, for brand recognition mainly, so people know it’s me and what I’ve written.  Secondly, when I change the photo one one site, I chage it across the board, even on sites that I would consider more social than professional.

I do have links to various social networking sites on my contact page. I do have a Youtube channel, I do have Picasa, and other photo sharing accounts which can be shared on different social media networks, but I have not and will not post inappropriate photos or videos of myself or others because on some sites such as Facebook you can Tag a photo with another users name, and it will be attached to their account, and can be looked up as well.

In my job search and in person networking, even meeting someone for the first time, I generally dress up than down, unless it’s stated prior to the meeting that it is casual.

Coming from a background in IT, the places I’ve worked in recent past have been business casual, allowing for polo shirts instead of dress shirts, and at times jeans instead of slacks.

I had an assignment through a staffing firm recently, and asked the recruiter about how I should dress for the assignment, and was asked to wear slacks, but when I showed up, almost everyone else was wearing jeans, I felt a bit out of place, but it was ok.

I had asked about dress code prior to the assignment, and done the work that was asked of me. I talked with one of the recruiters yesterday when I went to pick up my paycheck, asking him if there was any feedback from the client on the work performed, he said there were no issues, the work was performed quickly and correctly, and his comment was ‘no news is good news’.  I hope to work again for that client, because it was an enjoyable work experience, and I learned a few things in the process I hadn’t done before.

Another good idea is to google yourself, or set up a google alert, which I wrote about here,  because it can give you an idea of what employers can find about you online.

Happy Friday and Happy reading!

-Martin

1. Get out and get noticed, a great local resource in Phoenix for networking events is networkingphoenix.com search the internet for local network groups for your own area
2. Set daily, weekly and monthly goals in your job search, make them realistic, not unattainable, you don’t want to set yourself up for defeat
3. Take constructive criticism gracefully.  I’ve learned from some very helpful people that if someone tells you something about how you handle an issue, that more than one person likely has seen the same thing, so don’t over-react.
   • These are more than likely people in your ‘inner-circle’ and noticed something, whatever it is.  Pause a moment and listen, they care and want to help you succeed in your life.
   • Use it to your advantage
   • Take time to reflect on it
   • Grow and learn from it
   • Thank the person for bringing it to your attention later
4. Find someone else who shares your story, and bounce ideas off each other.  Remember the saying, ‘there is no I in team’, and teamwork is something that will help out in the long run, so don’t try to go it alone, here are  some resources you can utilize:
   • Alumni association and/or career services office of colleges you attended
   • Your LinkedIn Network
   • People you previously worked with in your field

I came across the following message on twitter this morning from a buddy of mine who runs jobshouts.com, Mike Quale that was Retweeted from another couple of people.

So I had to go look at it, and just a quick overview of that article, I am doing 5 of these things, I will go over them here. The full article is located here if you don’t click on the short link above: http://hotjobs.yahoo.com/career-experts-8_little_known_tricks_for_the_job_hunt-79

1. Add a signature to your outgoing email messages
   • While I have almost always included my name and email address, since I’ve been searching for a job and since starting this blog, I have added a bit of additional information to my email signature, to include name, email address, blog site and LinkedIn profile URL and I do recommend everyone not currently doing something like this to add one, most webmail providers also include an option to add a signature.
2. Include your LinkedIn profile URL in that signature
   • This is something I started doing once I had my LinkedIn profile up and running, my LinkedIn profile mirrors my resume for the most part, but still does need some tweaking
3. Use Twitter to keep your fans in the loop
   • I’m making a point to connect with people, and I send relevant messages, also letting people know when I’ve made a new post here so they can read it and follow what I’m doing, not only do I do that but I have my twitter feed pulled in to facebook, and I utilize the LinkedIn “What are you working on?” status update as well
4. Make your Facebook page work for you – not against you
   • This one is the one that I’m not doing, I just need to figure out how to work this, if there is anyone out there that can help me with this, I’d appreciate it
5. Add a qoute to your resume
   • This is another that I’m not doing, I can think of several things, but if anyone has a format or idea on where and how to place it on the resume, I’d like some suggestions
6. Get a Moo card
   • I have a ‘network’ card, listing my contact information, this Moo card idea is a bit different and something I will be looking into
7. Put a voice on your job search profile
   • This is one that I plan on implementing in a different way, currently my ‘voice’ was the short news interview I had on ABC15 which there are links to from my sidebar here on my site, but I need to expand on that a bit more in my own video or audio
8. Rewrite your resume so it sounds human
   • Currently working on my resume with Christian Kaijser of Career Evolutions to retool my resume and take it to the next level.

Happy Reading!

Martin

Monday mornings I generally follow up with contacts and recruiters, to set up coffee or lunch meetings during the week, I  also let these contacts know of my networking schedule, so they can meet me face to face at the networking events as well.

This coming week I plan on attending a job fair hosted by National Career Fairs today from 11am-2pm, then a SJN meeting Tuesday morning, after that I’ll be meeting with a recruiter Tuesday afternoon to discuss an overnight position he’s got down in Tempe, it will be my first meeting with him.

Tuesday evening I’ll be attending a meeting of Austin J Feldman’s -  Austin’s “Who’s who” in Arizona, at Barcelona in Scottsdale. Tuesdays lately have been one of the busiest days of the week for face to face networking depending on the week.

On Wednesday evening from 7 to 9 PM, there is the St Patricks Employment Support Ministry network meeting I will be attending at St Patricks Church in Scottsdale.

I encourage anyone local reading this to come to these events, if you’re looking for work and we meet up there (or after the event) we can talk about how we can help one another, and if you want to contact me to find out more, my contact information is here.

I will be making time early in the week to speak with Jim McVeigh, who I’ve met at a couple of networking meetings in the last month or so, he’s in the marketing and PR field. I want to discuss some opportunities that have come across my plate in the last few weeks as possible business opportunities.

I will also be making some phone time early in the week to speak with Charee Klimek who is Volunteer CMO and COO for JobAngels. I met her on Twitter last week and connected with her on LinkedIn, told her about my job search, and how I stress networking as a very important part of the job search. She wanted to make some phone time to talk with me, I’ll be emailing her to find out when she can get some time to talk.

I may have what I will call ‘piece’ work during the next week as well. After I’d made some connections last week, a couple of them saw that I was blogging and were interested in starting it themselves, and wanted to talk with me about what’s necessary to get it set up on their own domain host.  I also had a couple of hardware problem requests emailed to me over the weekend from people I’d met in the last couple of weeks.

A few tips for the job search for this week:

1. Find and attend at least one or if possible two network meetings a week some resources for are listed below:
   • networkingphoenix.com (login is required to view details on the calendar which is extensive)
   • meetup.com (search for ‘networking’ and this is a national site, so you can look in your local area)
   • networkingeventfinders.com (is national so it can be searched by each state as well)
2. Bring the following with you to any network event or job fair:
   • Pens/Pencils, a small notepad, or portfolio
   • Business cards (I call it a ‘networking’ card) – things I recommend including on the card for job seekers:
     • Name
     • Phone Number
     • Email address and web site address if you have one
     • LinkedIn profile address
     • 2 or 3 items in your area of expertise or what you’re looking for
       • Don’t use old business cards from previous employers if you’re unemployed and looking for work
         1. print your own on your home computer
         2. purchase business card stock from a printing place like Kinko’s and print them on-site
         3. vistaprint.com is another resource for printing busines cards
   • A cheerful attitude
   • A firm handshake
3. Set up alerts on key words from various job boards
   • monitor and change keywords if you’re not getting the results you expect or no results at all
   • utilize your RSS reader and subscribe to feeds of your search terms if the job site has that capability
   • make sure your resume is updated on the job board, and attach a cover letter with specific information related to the job you’re applying for
4. Work your personal network
   • Talk with family/friends and let them know what’s going on
   • Make contact or reconnect with old coworkers, even if they themselves moved companies
   • Make several coffee or lunch dates
     • Have specific questions or an agenda in mind
     • make it brief, unless more time is needed,  30 minutes is fine, you can always extend as needed
   • Don’t be afraid to ask for help from those in your network, you won’t know until you ask

More tips coming up soon!

Happy reading!

-Martin

Some photos from ABC15 are posted here. The entire article on the event written by Christopher Sign is posted here: Thousands circle Valley Stadium looking for work.  (linked with his permission)

To give you a little more of a background story about what’s been going on with me,   I had made a connection on Twitter back on January 30th to a guy named Greg Scott, who is co-founder of Jiibe.com, we exchanged messages, connected on LinkedIn, and continued to communicate.

I Emailed him back in response to his “how’s the job search going?” question he asked, and a day or so later he asked if he could use my email on his blog.  I agreed and said yes, but asked that he please remove references to the place I lived, and companies I spoke about to protect my privacy.  I followed up with him several days later to find out if he’d ever blogged about it, and he gave me the link, which I am sharing here:  “A personal letter about a tough job search – can you relate?” (Yes, I am the “Steve” in that blog post)

When I got to the arena a little before 4 pm the line was wrapped half way around the building and back again to the entrance. I immediately started networking with those around me, asking things like “What kind of work do you do?” and “What kind of work are you looking for?”,  “How long have you been waiting in line?” and struck up conversations with several people, one response I got a lot to the second question was, “anything, I just need to get some money coming in.”

There was a guy in line who was looking for any kind of work, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, though his most recent experience had been in construction.  People talked about the possibility of losing their homes unless they were able to procure some kind of work to pay the mortgage or rent.

While my unemployment has only been a little over 5 months there were some in the crowd who have been unemployed for almost 2 years at this time.

With unemployment rate in the state of Arizona hovering at 6.9 percent as of December, it’s no wonder the turnout for this four hour event was so huge.

Outside and almost immediately when I got there, I ran into Zach Hubbell co-founder of  pursuethepassion.com handing out the program listing the employers attending inside. We chatted briefly as I’d met him on at least two previous occasions, one being a SJN event where Zach and Brett Farmiloe gave a presentation recently, and prior to that was at the last Jobing.com career fair in October 2008 at this same location, they are great guys with a passion for what they do as well, seeking to interview people who are passionate about their careers, check out their web site for more information on who they are, and what they are doing in this on-going project. I recommended one of my friends be interviewed for their project and need to follow up with Brett about it soon. Brett also blogged about the job fair prior to it happening and that can be found here: The Great Recession

It took me about 30 to 40 minutes before I was finally down on the field level inside the stadium, and one thing I recommend for these types of job fairs, is to register online if possible, Jobing.com had a ‘quickpass’ when you register, which I printed out and took with me, so instead of having to walk through their registration on-site, I handed them my quickpass and was on the floor immediately. I had checked the program on my way down and knew which employers I wanted to get to in the short amount of time I had left.

I waited in some short lines, and some longer lines. Some of the longer ones were with health care companies, and I did wait in a line for Triwest Healthcare, the gentleman who stepped up behind me in line was clean cut, very short hair, and very personable, we started talking and I found out he was in the military, and looking for any kind of work, the lady standing in line in front of us heard part of our conversation and turned around asking, “Did I hear you say you were in the military?” to which he said yes, and she shook his hand and said, “Thank you for serving our country.” I gave my network card to both of them letting them know that I had some networking resources I wanted to share with them, and to contact me soon.

As the event was coming to a close I had been standing in line to speak to someone at the Casino Arizona booth, and once again I found myself networking with those around me, there was a gal who was laid off recently, who  had just bought a house and lost her job, the closing was coming up within a couple of weeks, and she was in desperate need of work.

There was another gentleman in line I talked with, by the name of Bhawani Baral.   I gave my card to him, and out of all the job seekers I’d talked with he is the only one to respond in kind, while he didn’t have a network or business card to hand me, he did the next best thing, he handed me a copy of his resume, which had his contact information on it.  I plan on following up with him, and blogging about his experience at a later date.

The day after the event I made the acquaintance of Alison Doyle with About.com on Twitter.com when she sent a message out about her blog and job search tips asking for input.  I told her about my networking efforts and wrote up a little something about my networking efforts to share with her. The blog she specifically mentioned can be found here:  Best Job Search Tips and it includes some very sound and good advice from other experts, and people like myself who are looking for work.

Also in my networking efforts I’d talked with Michael Prahl a few days ago prior to the job fair, who is a member of the board  at SJN, about how this form of social media (blogging) may be utlizied in the efforts of the outreach of SJN to the community at large in conjunction with face to face networking, and had I thought of the opportunity before I attended this job fair, I would have asked the board president and founder of SJN, Chris Vacari for some of their business cards to pass out along with my own.

I’ve also been attending another networking group at St Patrick’s Church in Scottsdale, which will be a topic of another blog post soon.

My next post will be a continuation of this and the feedback I’ve gotten since the event on Wednesday.

Permalink: http://martinpiraino.com/2009/02/13/career-fair-day-jobingcom-phoenix-21109