1. Go to the Studio

Future Starlet or Star: Often the first (wannabe’s) strategy would be to go straight to Warner Brothers, 20th Century Fox, or other big studio and beg for a meeting or interview from a movie mogul, director, or talent scout. Banging on doors, collecting names, finding information to follow up was often the best these kids would manage.

Job Seeker or Entrepreneur on Linkedin: Often the first strategy is for job seekers and entrepreneurs to begin to show up on Linkedin, the modern day equivalent of the Hollywood studio. Here are a few steps to take “on the set”:

• Create a powerful profile on Linkedin
• Utilize the Linkedin internal search engine to find names, facts, and contacts of people and companies looking for their talents.
• Connect with targets by joining groups
• Showcase talents by answering Questions and asking Questions

2. Get Discovered

Future Starlet or Star: The next step was for these kids to go hang out in the drugstore soda fountain or by the pool at the Beverly Hills Hotel. This was their form of networking to showcase their “look”, their style, or their originality.

Job Seeker or Entrepreneur on Facebook: The next strategy for a job seeker or entrepreneur is to build a Facebook profile. Here they can place pictures, videos, and samples of their writing. They can include links to their Linkedin profile as well as other information resources. Like the Hollywood actor in waiting, job seekers and entrepreneurs can showcase their expertise, originality, and focus.

3. Go to the Right Places

Future Starlet or Star: The next step would be to go to the Brown Derby for lunch or dinner. Ease drop on conversations, ask doorman or bartenders for tips on who’s in the place, and try to find the right people talking about the industry.

Job Seeker’s and Entrepreneurs on Twitter: Twitter is the place for people to find conversations about their industry, jobs, opportunities, and regional areas. Here a person can politely “inject” themselves into conversations, RSS subscribe to conversations, and begin to communicate and network with their targeted audience(s).

4. Hire a Manager, Talent Scout, Press Agent

Future Starlet or Star: Finally the wannabe would begin looking for help via an agent or other representative. The difficult process of trying to break in on their own becomes overwhelming.

Job Seeker or Entrepreneur establish their blog: Tired of sending out resumes, paying for advertisements, and waiting by the phone, these people establish their own blog. The blog becomes their press release, their talent scout, their agent, and their delivery system. It is the hub and centerpiece of their campaign to build a new business or find a new job opportunity. The steps include:

• Writing Articles: showcase talent and expertise
• Sending Articles: leaving links to their articles on other industry, company, or niche blogs
• Creating Video: video clips of themselves giving tips or explaining a process
• Recording Podcasts: recording their own “radio show” filled with information and expertise design to help people while showcasing their talents

In what is surely a sign of the economic times we live in today, Nielsen.com reports that there was a “20% year-over-year increase in unique visitors to career development sites, which grew from 41.5 million visitors in January 2008 to 49.7 million visitors in January 2009.” Here are some of the eye opening and interesting facts about Nielsen’s findings:

1. 65+ Age Group was the fastest growing group in the career development category increasing 41% from 2.5 million unique visitors in January 2008 to 3.6 million visitors in January of 2009 according to job blog Cheezhead.com.
   
2. Careerbuilder.com was the #1 career development “destination in January 2009, with 20.8 million unique visitors.”
3. Yahoo “Hot Jobs” was the #2 career development destination with 11.7 million visitors
4. Monster.com was the #3 career development destination with 9.5 million unique visitors

The following is a breakdown by age group the web traffic to career development sites

Courtesy Marketwire.com and Nielsen.com “Web Traffic to Career Development Sites Increases 20 Percent Year-Over-Year in January, According to Nielsen Online”

Your resume is no longer your #1 marketing tool in a job search, job search is being performed online via social media networks by hiring managers, and job seekers must deliver their value via the social media tools available to them.

Mounting Evidence of the Paradigm Shift: Applicant Explorer Tool

In another piece of evidence that signals the paradigm shift in job search, Careerbuilder.com recently rolled out a new feature called the Applicant Explorer on their blog TheHiringSite.com. What is The Hiring Site blog? According to careerbuilder.com:

• Social networking sites
• Professional and personal blogs
• Personal and corporate Web sites
• Press releases
• Discussion and forum postings
• Articles and news stories published online

Analysis

Careerbuilder.com is competing with Linkedin’s Application features. Linkedin features allows job seekers to stream their online content directly into their profile page. Most job seekers do not opt in to provide their online content on their Linkedin profile page. With careerbuilder’s Applicant Explorer, job seekers will not be able to hide the fact they do not have an online presence. This raises the stakes for job seekers in the continually evolving paradigm shift in job search today. Make no mistake about it, job seeker’s must deliver their value first before the resume or appear to be completely out of touch with the current job search climate.

Susan and I presented our workshop “Web 2.0′s Impact on Job Seekers: The Changing Roles of the Resume, Job Search, and Job Seeker” at CSIX this past Tuesday to a packed house of over 110 hopeful job seekers. As we settled into facilitating this workshop, we realized that for the first time we were about to present our complete thesis and theme.

We have been supporting blogging as a more powerful and proactive “living” resume since June of 2008. Yet Tuesday was our first opportunity to evangelize the emergence of a paradigm shift, where social media tools and Web 2.0 strategies replaced the resume, as a job seeker’s main marketing tool.

Web 2.0 Paradigm Shift in Communications

The decades of mass media dominance and stranglehold over the control and flow of information is waning. Today is the greatest time in human history for communication, connectivity, collaboration, networking, and delivering your message of value, expertise, and experience to your strategicially targeted hiring managers and companies.

There is a global conversation going on between bloggers, people networking and finding opportunities on Linkedin, resources and messages being broadcast on Twitter, and companies searching for human capital talent throughout the social media stratosphere.

Companies Adopting Web 2.0 and Blogs: Tools to Promote Business

Our friend and blogger Ray Schiel, of globalsocialmedianetwork.com, has produced a massive resource page that outlines the participation of 105 major corporations in blogging, 64 on Facebook pages, 12 podcasting, 12 crowdsourcing sites, and 100′s of companies microblogging on Twitter.

Job Seekers’ Tip: These social media tools are being used by major corporations to promote their products, services, and business practices. If you want to connect with your target company, and they utilize social media tools, then this is a major opportunity to connect as well as demonstrate your understanding of their efforts.

Companies Monitoring Web 2.0 and Social Media: Screening and Hiring Practices

Not only are major corporations utilizing these tools for their own business practices, they are using them to find new talent and perform due diligence on potential applicants. Computer World’s “One in Five Employers Uses Social Networks in Hiring Process” outlines a Careerbuilder.com survey of 31,000 employers. The results are very compelling:

1. 24% of hiring managers “found content on social networks that helped convince them to hire a candidate.” In addition hiring managers said that “profiles showing a professional image and solid references can boost a candidates chances for a job.”

2. 22% of the 31,000 employers said they “peruse social networks to screen candidates.”

3. 9% more of the 31,000 employers said they are planning to do so

4. A total of 9,600 employers are going to search for candidates and perform due diligence rather than rely on resumes to tell a job seekers story

Deliver Your Value First

The conclusion is that job seekers must deliver their value first before attempting to deliver their resume. Social media and Web 2.0 are changing job search. The resume is no longer a job seeker’s marketing tool. It is up to job seekers, in this very rough job market, to utilize these tools in order to stand apart and become memorable.

We added our comments to some of Scoble’s steps denoted by “IA.” The following are what we feel are the most important of Robert’s 19 steps for job seekers.

Scoble’s Steps for Job Seekers:

1. Your blog is your resume. You need one and it needs to have 100 posts on it about what you want to be known for.

IA: 100% agree with this statement except the idea of producing 100 posts. Your blog is your ability to deliver your value message of expertise, experience, and accomplishments–no resume can come close.

2. Remove all friends from your facebook and twitter accounts that will embarrass you. We do look. If we see photos of people getting drunk with you that is a bad sign. Get rid of them. They will NOT help you get a job.

3. Demonstrate you have kids and hobbies, but they should be 1% of your public persona, not 99%. Look at my blog here. You’ll see my son’s photo on Flickr once in a while. But mostly I talk about the tech industry, cause that’s the job I want to have: talking to geeks and innovators.

IA: You are best served by creating a message of your value, expertise, and experience as the themes for your content on your blog. You are building a case for why people should be interested in you. You also want to be considered a “resource” of great information.

4. Put what job you want into your blog’s header. Visit Joel Spolsky’s blog. He’s “on software.” That’s a major hint that if he were looking for a job that he is totally, 100%, thinking about software. If you want a job as a chef, you better have a blog that looks like you love cooking, like this.

5. Post something that teaches me something about what you want to do every day. If you want to drive a cab, you better go out and take pictures of cabs. Think about cabs. Put suggestions for cabbies up. Interview cabbies. You better have a blog that is nothing but cabs. Cabs. Cabs. Cabs all the time.

IA: This is a critical point and should be the driving force behind what you write for your blog.

6. If you want to be a plumber, look for other plumbers to add to Twitter, friendfeed, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Remove all others. Be 100% focused on what you want to do.

IA: Twitter is one of the most important free social media tools to bring awareness of what you can offer an employer, building your credibility, and networking within your niche.

7. On Twitter you can tell me what you had for lunch, but only after you posted 20 great items about what you want to do. Look at Tim O’Reilly’s tweet stream. Very little noise. Just great stuff that will make you think (he wants a job as a thinker, so do you get it yet?)

IA: The best strategy for what you should “tweet” is to provide information that is helpful, interesting, and has relevance to either a niche, industry, or public awareness.

8. Invite influentials out to lunch. Getting a job is now your profession. If you were a salesperson, how would you get sales? You would take people out to lunch who can either buy what you’re selling, or influence others who can buy. That means take other bloggers (but only if they cover what you want to do) out to lunch. That means taking lots of industry executives out to lunch.

IA: We can not agree more. Too many job seekers are stuck in the past where a job search was a part time activity. If you are not ready and willing to treat your job search as your JOB you are in for a very long period of unemployment

9. Send out resumes. Make sure yours is up to date and top notch on LinkedIn and other sites where employers look for employees. Craig’s List. Monster. Etc.

IA: We agree that resumes are still part of the requirements for landing a job. But the role of the resume has changed. The resume is NO LONGER your marketing tool for landing an interview leading to a job. Until you understand this fact, you will be stuck in “response” mode, applying for

10. Go to industry events. I have a list of tech industry events up on Upcoming.org. If you want to be a plumber, go to where contractors go. Etc. Etc. Make sure you have clear business cards. Include your photo. Include your Twitter and LinkedIn addresses. Your cell phone. Your blog address. And the same line that’s at the top of your blog. Joel’s should say “on software.” Yours should say what you love to do. Hand them out, ask for theirs. Make notes on theirs. Email them later with your LinkedIn and blog URLs and say “you’ll find lots of good stuff about xxxxxxxx industry on my blog.”

IA: Again we agree that the blog should be the “hub” of your marketing plan in landing a job. Linkedin is your new resume and critical to notifying people you are open to “new opportunities.”

11. When you meet someone who can hire and who you want to work for. Follow them on Twitter. Facebook. LinkedIn. Their blog. Stalk them without being “creepy.” Learn everything you can about them. Build a friendfeed room with all their stuff. That way when they say on Twitter “I have a job opening” you can be the first one to Tweet back.

IA: What Robert is alluding to is your strategy to connect with hiring managers and companies. It is up to YOU to be proactive and place yourself in position to be noticed, appreciated, and ultimately contacted back.

12. Tell others where the jobs are. One thing I learned in college is by helping other people get jobs you’ll get remembered. So, retweet jobs messages (if they are relevant to your professional friends and to you). Blog about job openings. Help people get jobs. Hold lunches for people who are jobless. Some of them will get jobs and they’ll remember you and invite you along.

IA: The law of reciprocity or what comes around goes around does happen. According to Jeffrey Gitomer, expert networking and sales trainer, you must give first before you can expect to receive. It is that simple.

State of Technology

In 1985 there was no Internet, no fax machines, no cell phones in regular usage, and at that time answering machines were just beginning to hit the commercial market–I did not own one at the time.

Training and Resources

In 1985 the cottage industry of coaching, life-business or other niches, did not exist. The word tutor was attached primarily to language learning or students still in school. For job seekers interested in resume writing help, you could hire a resume writing service, buy an instruction book, or go to the library for resources.

Instead of instantly finding your job search answers via an online search, I was forced to drive to my nearest library or book store (national bookstore chains not prevalent at the time) wasting time traveling to and from my resource in search of answers.

1985 Job Search Activities that helped me land my job:

1. Purchased resume writing book; wrote my own resume
2. Crafted custom cover letters per job
3. Joined my alumni association
4. Called my friends, family, and contacts to announce my job search
5. Visited my library and bookstore 3 times per week in search
6. Collected 5 References for hiring managers to call
7. Hired a “Headhunter” aka recruiter
8. Read two newspaper’s Want Ads sections everyday; career or job sections dedicated to job search did not exist
9. Visited the unemployment office job board once per week
10. Spammed my local Chamber of Commerce with my resume

My Results

I sent over 150 resumes in a 5 month period. I hired a headhunter who continuously sent me out to interviews that were less than ideal–round peg in a square hole theory on her part. I read the newspaper want ad sections. I finally identified Moore as the opportunity for me. I requested my headhunter arrange an interview which she secured. I nailed the interview and I was hired the same day; nearly 5 months after beginning the job search process.

The Revelation

After being offered the Moore job, my manager asked me “Dean why didn’t you just come in and ask for an interview? Why did you go through a headhunter-I would have hired you and been more impressed if you had come to us directly.” Now it sunk in for me. I just spent $1,800 (1985 money mind you) when all I had to do was deliver my value directly to the company and my manager.

Ask Yourself:

• Are the majority of your job search functions, steps, and marketing based on the same “stuff” I did 25 years ago?
• Is the major focus, and marketing efforts, of your job search based on your resume?
• Do you approach each day like you would when you go to a job; simply put, are you treating your job search like you would a job that an employer pays you to perform?
• Are you educating yourself each day in order to add to your skill sets?
• Do you have an organized and structured plan you are executing?
• Have you performed your research and due diligence on the companies you target?
• Do you have a list of the companies and managers?
• Do you understand how to measure your job search efforts
• Are you networking in the right places online and in the real world?
• Do you understand how to provide value instead of bringing the hard sell approach in your job search efforts?

Theme: Make the Hiring Manager Happy

The idea and theme here is to ignore your competition and focus completely on a hiring manager’s happiness. Ignore the millions who are out of work and competing for the same jobs, ignore the pundits who continue to fuel the panic, ignore the negative naysayers who continue to bring your spirit down.

Instead think about what makes hiring managers happy? How about taking the task of reading resumes off their plate. What about saving them time, energy, and focus by removing the screening process that entails resumes and cover letters. Why not remove the gray areas and guess work for a hiring manager by delivering a better more revealing resource than a resume which is simply a job seeker’s listing of their value? How about removing the issue of back checking aka background checks to validate claims on a resume? Why not attempt to reduce their time wasted recruiting and looking for the right candidate for the job when you are available?

Most Hiring Managers Dislike:

• Deluge of resumes create huge time crunch
• Lost productivity in their own jobs due to resume review process
• Tasking other people from their jobs to help in the review of resumes
• Guess work involved in hoping they choose the right candidate
• Decisions about new hires ultimately reflect upon the hiring manager’s own judgment
• Lack of information or verifiable proof that job seeker can deliver their listed values in their resume

Make a Hiring Manager Happy:

• Craft your value message of expertise, accomplishments, and experience
• Establish your “employment campaign” blog that delivers your value message
• Research how you can provide value to targeted hiring managers then deliver your value message
• Write a keyword rich, descriptive, and opportunity message Linkedin profile
• Utilize Twitter to broadcast and deliver your value message
• Research your target companies for their participation in Web 2.0 blogging, social media networking, and engage them through these channel

Careerbuilder.com ran a survey (Sept ’08) of 31,000 employers about their use of social media in screening and finding job applicants. The results include:

• More than 1 in 5 employers use social media sites to screen job applicants
• 22% of the 31,000 employers said they use social media to find human capital
• 9% more said they would begin utilizing social media sites in 2009
• 31% or nearly 10,000 employers will focus on social media as a recruiting and screening tool in 2009

The writing, pardon the pun, is on the wall. If you want to make a hiring manager happy, and help yourself, you will adopt all of the steps outlined above to help you–stand apart from the competition.

I am going to provide the highlights of what each company is looking for in human capital along with the list of the 13 companies.

Tip: Go to Google and input each company name along with the word “blog.” If any of the companies interest you, it is a fundamental idea to know if they support a blog and Web 2.0 social media tools.

1. 7-Eleven: Convenience retailer

Description of Needs: “In 2009 we seek candidates for operations, accounting, information systems, merchandising and marketing.”

2. Banfield: World’s largest general veterinary practice

Description of Needs: “Our plan for 2009 calls for hiring quality associates to staff our new hospitals. . . To staff our hospitals, we are looking for veterinarians, PetNurses, office managers and client service coordinators.”

3. Farmers Insurance

Description of Needs: Entrepreneurs who want to grow their own business. They are especially interested in bilingual individuals to continue to expand their position in diverse markets.

4. Gentiva Health Services: In-home care services

Description of Needs: Nurses, physical therapists, occupational therapists and other clinicians; as well as sales, management and administrative support professionals are in demand.

5. HealthMarkets: Health insurance provider

Description of Needs: Agents willing to build their own business.

6. ITT Corp’s Advanced Engineering and Sciences division

Description of Needs: Defense electronics and services “Our primary focus will be on candidates with a strong engineering background or those with prior military experience.”

7. M.A.R.S. International: Mobile cosmetic and reconditioning services

Description of Needs: “Technicians to execute repairs and for managers to oversee the technicians .  .  . These technicians will have some aptitude for working with their hands, enjoy working outdoors and managing their own time.”

8. PricewaterhouseCoopers: Tax and Advisory services

Description of Needs: “We’re currently looking to fill roles across our organization. We have needs in each line of service — audit, tax and advisory — as well as our internal firm services organization, such as marketing, sales, HR and IT.”

9. ServiceMaster: Landscape maintenance, restoration, pest control, home inspections cont.

Description of Needs: all positions relating to all their businesses.

10. State Farm: Insurance provider

Description of Needs: “We have opportunities in claims, underwriting and systems/IT. We are also always looking for that next State Farm agent.”

11. Sutter Health: Health care providers

Description of Needs: “From providing care at the bedside to implementing lifesaving technology and administrative professionals, there are a variety of positions available throughout our Sutter Health network.”

12. The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company/Scotts LawnService

Description of Needs: “We’re hiring for territory service representatives, sales representatives and customer service representatives.”

13. URS Corporation: Engineering, construction, and technical services provider

Description of Needs: “In 2009, we will be looking for talent in key areas such as engineering, construction management, program management, power, environmental, health and safety, homeland security, logistics, operations and maintenance and more. Positions are available at all experience levels — from new graduates to seasoned professionals.”

14. One final possibility Kaiser Permanente: Health insurance and care

Description of Needs: Physical Therapists, Senior Physical Therapists and Speech Therapist II

But even with the best research, including desired companies and hiring managers, job seekers must be able to influence people in order to capture the interview leading to that desired position.

What is Influence?

In his interview for Guy Kawasaki’s fantastic must read “Reality Check”, Dr. Robert Cialdini PhD, Professor of Psychology at Arizona State University, and one of the world’s leading experts on persuasion, compliance, and negotiation defines influence:

“Influence means creating change in some way. Change can be in an attitude, it can be in a perception, or a behavior. But in all instances, we can’t lay claim to influence until we can demonstrate we have changed someone.”

Influence a “Science” for All

According to Dr. Cialdini the good news about influence is that it is no longer just for certain “gifted” individuals. Instead Cialdini insists:

“For centuries, the ability to be influential and persuasive has been thought of as an art, but there’s also a science to it. And if it’s scientific, it can be taught. It can be learned. So we all have the potential to become more influential.”

Influence Your Job Search

With the trend for job search turning to proactive target marketing and social media tools within an employment campaign, the natural progression for a job seeker is influence. How to influence hiring managers and persuade companies to give you a interview is the ultimate goal.

If you want to understand the importance of being influential in your job search, come back for my next installment in the series: “Job Seekers: Utilize 6 Ingredients of Influence.”