Whether you are a job seeker, entrepreneur, or company the first step in engaging with your targeted audience is to become a go-to source of valuable information. The idea is to stand apart from your competition and be relied upon and trusted by your network. The best method to begin this process is to understand how to find information that will make a difference to your network and establish you as that go-to source. The first step is to research, read, collect, and aggregate information.

Step 1: Set up a Google Reader

RSS logo courtesy of RSS wiki

Google Reader allows you to aggregate RSS feeds from blogs and websites that contain valuable information. The reader is a storage area you can set up like your own custom newspaper. Tip: You can share parts or all of your Google Reader with your audience. This is a great method to help your network discover new information and what you are reading.

Step 2: Join Twitter.com

Twitter, first and foremost, is the resource where I find 80% of my research and value content. The strategy is simple:

• Identify your industry, niche, people, associations, companies and news sources
• Utilize the “Search” box and input names of people, companies, industry, or company names
• Follow those sources of information. Ex I follow @guykawasaki, @peterkim, @chrisbrogan because they write blogs, offer value, and offer free download resources
• Once you begin following someone or organization of interest go to their Twitter home page and check to see who they follow. This is called mining your resources resources.

Step 3: Global Social Media Network

Blogger Ray Schiel authors one of the best resources for anyone interested in valuable information on social media, blogging, and Web 2.0. Go to Ray’s “Resource” page to find the following:

• A list of 105 Corporate blogs from Rubbermaid to Clorox to Hewlett Packard
• 75+ Corporate Facebook pages, how they are set up, and how they engage their audience
• Dozens of Podcasts
• A list of over 150 entrepreneurs, companies, global corporations in every niche on Twitter

Silicon Valley star Guy Kawasaki did not intend for his chapter “The Art of Driving Your Competition Crazy” in Reality Check to be job seeker’s advice; yet the main theme is vital for any job seeker’s success. The chapter outlines 8 steps to drive your competition crazy aimed at helping entrepreneurs and corporations understand how to win at the art of business.The most valuable theme and step is “Focus on the customer.” Guy outlines the irony that entrepreneurs and businesses should not take action against the competition–don’t do anything to them but everything for the customer.

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.

What do you want to be when you grow up? That is a question that I asked myself many times–in my adulthood. Throughout my adult worklife, I held onto the notion that I understood the focus and direction in my business development career. I thought I understood my sales career path,  I thought I was following the correct course of action, and yet I felt unsettled.

What was wrong with me? Nothing was wrong with me but something was definitely wrong with my thinking.  I was not on a career path that held my passionate interests and I was unwilling to admit that fact. I was holding on to my “business legacy” aka my past experience in the business world as my valuable assets in finding my next job.

Job Seekers Doing the Same Old Thing

You have made your wish lists, educated yourself, and done the following:

1.Target companies
2. Target industries
3. Target hiring managers
4. Target job titles
5. You have hired a resume service
6. Paid a business coach for interview practice
7. You joined every networking group you could find
8. You updated your wardrobe
9. You allowed yourself the expense of a trip to the hairstylist or beauty spa
10. You opened a Linkedin account
11. You connected with people on Twitter
12. You created a Facebook page
13. You educated yourself at various workshops and seminars
14. You marketed yourself to the hidden job market
15. Tapped into every networking resource from family & friends to former co-workers

Yet Something is Wrong

Yet something is missing. You feel a bit lost. You are not completing tasks in a timely manner. You feel challenged when staying organized. Your campaign to find a job feels a bit disjointed. You even find yourself making excuses not to do work that must be done to find a new job. You are falling victim to the same mistake I made for years in my business career.

Job Seeker’s Step 1: Your Direction

The very first #1 step that every job seeker must understand is a simple yet sometimes frightening personal question:  What is it I want to do with my life? Step 1 for any employment campaign is to identify what you wish to do, what industry you wish to focus upon, what jobs are available in your chosen field, and where those jobs exist.

Without executing Step 1 in a job search, you will fail to be inspired. Your motivation to complete the necessary work in research, marketing yourself, and reaching out to find that new job will never happen. In essence your job search will remain in neutral or worse yet frozen in fear. Without a purpose and direction, the employment campaign is nearly impossible to execute to successfully find a new job.

Twitter, like blogs, is fast becoming an effective tool, for jobseekers willing to take the next step in their integration into social media, as a job search strategy. Consider the testimonial provided by David Murray in David Meerman Scott’s eye opening article “How David Murray found a new job via Twitter.”

The Scenario

David Murray was laid off from his job. He immediately jumped into the traditional job search strategy of completing a resume, calling people, and networking. David quickly realized he would have to utilize Web 2.0 tools in order to stand apart from his job seeking competion

The Strategy

Twitter Public Announcement: Dave decided to reach out on Twitter, @DaveMurr, in order to publicly announce he was looking for work. As Dave explained, in Scott’s article:

“I guess you could say I used a new tool for old school networking. . . The response was overwhelming and I received several leads and opportunities that were far more fruitful than my previous attempts.”

How Did He Do That?

Twitter Search: Dave gives social media star Chris Brogan credit for his Twitter search strategy. Brogan outlined his strategy of utilizing RSS feeds aka Really Simple Syndication as a method to keep up with his thousands of followers.

Dave’s Search Strategy:

1. Enter Keywords into Twitter’s Search that match the company, industry, niche, or community you are targeting. Examples of Dave’s search keywords included: “Hiring Social Media”, “Social Media Jobs”, “Online Community Manager”, and “Blogging Jobs.”

2. RSS Feeds are available for every keyword “conversation” on Twitter. Dave simply clicked on the RSS chicklet next to the search box of the information he wanted to track.

3. Google Reader is a tool that allows you to aggregate information, via RSS feeds, into one spot so that you can read what is important to you. It’s like creating your own newspaper or library.

Dave simply ” pulled the RSS feeds of these keyword conversations into Google Reader and made it a habit to check these first thing in the morning everyday.”

Next Step

Introduce Yourself is as easy as following and reading conversations. If something sounded like a good fit for Dave, he took the initiative to introduce himself via Twitter.

1. Hidden Job Market: According to Dave, “Many times when inquiring about the open positions, the jobs had not been officially posted.” And more pointedly, “How cool that on Twitter you can express interest in a job opportunity that hasn’t even been announced yet? It’s like inside information.”

The Results: Dave’s New Job

Dave is happily employed as Assistant Webmaster, Client Services for The Bivings Group. Davide Meerman Scott’s best quote came from Heather Huhman Entry Level Careers pages for Examiner.com:

“The Internet is changing just about everything – the internship/entry-level job search included. Gone are the days of printing out your cover letter and resume on ’special’ paper, sticking both in an envelope and mailing the application package off. We are officially in the Job Search 2.0 era.”

I am very happy to announce the finalized plans to present the Inner Architect workshop “Blogging to Employment” here in Northern California. The workshop is a detailed basic course on how to create an employment campaign utilizing your blog as the delivery system for your message. The goal is to provide people a plan on how to create their differentiating factor in order to stand apart from the estimated 1.1 million Americans who will lose their job in 2008.

Call to Action: If you know anyone who is unemployed, and I know I do at this time, please consider informing them of this valuable workshop.

Benefits for Attendees:

1. Your own Blog: We will help you register and set up your first blog.

2. Employment Campaign: Learn how to action plan an employment campaign so that you can answer the age old hiring manager’s question “So Bob, what have you been doing the past 6 months to find a job?”

3. New Skill Sets: You will add blogging, navigating blog software, Web 2.0 tools, and networking to your skill sets.

We are launching this program with two hands-on workshops:

Tue. Nov. 18, 2008: 6:30PM to 8:30PM, Holiday Inn Express, San Jose, CA

Wed. Nov. 19, 2008: 6:30PM to 8:30PM, Ace Conference Center, San Rafael, CA

Workshop Fee: $75- Registration required

Value Comparison: Blog set-up fees promoted on the internet run from $200-$300, which only covers the registration and setup without any coaching. Blog coaching and training fees run from $70 to as much as $500 per hour.

Workshop class size will be limited to 20 so that each student is provided hands on personalized instruction.

Come find out why you need to establish your brand, discover your differentiating factor, and add to your skill sets the latest Web 2.0 information. For complete details, visit our Blogging to Employment workshop page.