User question about very poor networking results

User question about very poor networking results You know networking is what you should do.  What if you are doing it but it doesnt work?  Sam asks: I am having very poor results on my networking efforts and feel very concerned by the overall situation.    Is there any useful advise you could share with me to help me turn things around? Sam, I feel your pain. When I finally bit the bullet and started networking, I was doing it wrong.  My first guess was that Sam is doing it wrong also, but I had to ask her what she is doing. From her reply I see that she is: using Linkedin heavily. I reach out to people inside outside of my network. No one answers. Whether these are school alumni or personal friends or contacts of contacts. No one answers or sends me a laconic:sorry I do not know this person or I do not have any contacts in this industry I wonder what her outreach looks like to get ignored (see below for an idea of what the problem might be). She is also asking for peoples time: I try to set phone meetings by emails when I can  not find the info of the person I want to speak to. I look them up on the web and find their email and just email them to avoid cold calling and either interrupting their day or leaving a voice mail that stays unreturned. Again, I wondered what her message/request looks like. Sam sent me an email that she would send to a prospect where she is asking for time on the phone (what I would call an informational interview).  The introduction, which Im not including here for privacy, is very good.  She ends with this: I would very much welcome the opportunity to speak to you informally over the phone 10-15 minutes just to solicit your advice and exchange about the working environment at (company name) and the hiring perspectives at the moment. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Sincerely, The biggest problem I see with this request is that she is not asking for time.  Read that last bit again.  There is no invitation or call to action.  The second biggest problem is that she is saying Im a job seeker do you have any openings?  Im a lot more informal than Sam is (she is an executive) I would personally rewrite it like this: I have some questions about your company and the industry in general and would appreciate your perspective.  Can we get on the phone for fifteen or twenty minutes?  My schedule is flexible this week and next week.  Is there a good time that works for you? That (1) has a call to action and (2) changes the conversation from help me, are there openings to Im a peer and colleague, lets talk shop. The fix to this problem might be that simple what do you think? User question about very poor networking results You know networking is what you should do.  What if you are doing it but it doesnt work?  Sam asks: I am having very poor results on my networking efforts and feel very concerned by the overall situation.    Is there any useful advise you could share with me to help me turn things around? Sam, I feel your pain. When I finally bit the bullet and started networking, I was doing it wrong.  My first guess was that Sam is doing it wrong also, but I had to ask her what she is doing. From her reply I see that she is: using Linkedin heavily. I reach out to people inside outside of my network. No one answers. Whether these are school alumni or personal friends or contacts of contacts. No one answers or sends me a laconic:sorry I do not know this person or I do not have any contacts in this industry I wonder what her outreach looks like to get ignored (see below for an idea of what the problem might be). She is also asking for peoples time: I try to set phone meetings by emails when I can  not find the info of the person I want to speak to. I look them up on the web and find their email and just email them to avoid cold calling and either interrupting their day or leaving a voice mail that stays unreturned. Again, I wondered what her message/request looks like. Sam sent me an email that she would send to a prospect where she is asking for time on the phone (what I would call an informational interview).  The introduction, which Im not including here for privacy, is very good.  She ends with this: I would very much welcome the opportunity to speak to you informally over the phone 10-15 minutes just to solicit your advice and exchange about the working environment at (company name) and the hiring perspectives at the moment. Thank you very much for your time and consideration. Sincerely, The biggest problem I see with this request is that she is not asking for time.  Read that last bit again.  There is no invitation or call to action.  The second biggest problem is that she is saying Im a job seeker do you have any openings?  Im a lot more informal than Sam is (she is an executive) I would personally rewrite it like this: I have some questions about your company and the industry in general and would appreciate your perspective.  Can we get on the phone for fifteen or twenty minutes?  My schedule is flexible this week and next week.  Is there a good time that works for you? That (1) has a call to action and (2) changes the conversation from help me, are there openings to Im a peer and colleague, lets talk shop. The fix to this problem might be that simple what do you think?

Writing a Life History From Resume - Making This Step Your Own

Writing a Life History From Resume - Making This Step Your OwnWriting a Life History from Resume in any type of resume software that is provided online is absolutely necessary. The reason is that, once you have created the first page of your resume, the rest will just flow in terms of words and paragraphs to the right of it.It is this second part that is where you get to the meat of your life history resume letter. And even though you are going to use your first resume letter to prepare your next one, it is still a very good idea to make some changes to your previous resume.You'll need to think about what you'll need to do to prepare your resume for the next stage. And I'm going to show you how.The next step is to write down all the skills that you've gained throughout your career. This is important as you'll be able to see where you need to make changes to your resume, and where your strengths lie. This can also help to identify the areas where you could stand to improve on.Once you 've done this, you need to ask yourself some questions such as what is my major skill? Where is my weakness?You'll want to focus on areas such as your strongest points, and areas you're trying to avoid. Once you've identified these two key areas of weakness, you'll be in a better position to build on those areas in your new resume.You'll also need to address your financial goals in this stage. What are your financial goals? How much do you expect to earn each year?Once you've answered these questions, you'll need to start answering the questions on your resume. Start by listing out the areas you need to increase on, and then list out the skills you've gained from your previous job, and so on. It's also a good idea to add other relevant areas to your resume such as experience, qualifications, and a list of potential supervisors.

Personal Branding Interview Chris Anderson - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Personal Branding Interview Chris Anderson - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke to Chris Anderson, who is the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, as well as the New York Times bestselling author of both The Long Tail and Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price.   In this interview, Chris explains (possibly for the first time) the impact of the free economy on branding, what the best online business model is, how free impacts how products are created, and how hes built his own personal brand through his various projects and roles. What does the free economy mean for brands, both personal and corporate? Let’s look at the former free that I focus on in the book which is fremium. Fremium is basically using a free form of a product as a sample to drive demand for a paid one; where the majority of people get the free form and the minority converts to paid. In this case, the free form of the product substitutes for traditional advertising. To some extent, the actual product becomes the primary vehicle of marketing, rather than the brand or the advertisement. You know, great products market themselves. They market themselves because of their utility; because you’re not telling somebody about it. Instead, you’re letting them experience it. They do the marketing based on how useful they are to people. The classic definition of brand, and my understanding of brand, is that: Brands are a proxy for missing information in a world where consumers don’t have exact information. They use brands to substitute; they use brands to stand in for information they are missing about things like quality. So, you know, if you aren’t an expert on mp3 players, buying an Apple iPod is a safe bet because the name Apple and the brand iPod stands for a certain degree of quality. You don’t have to become an expert to make a good choice. Um, if however all these products were available for free, and you were able to sample them and try them with no risk associated, then you would go for the product that offers the most utility to you- and you wouldn’t have to settle on the brand to tell you which way to go. So, in a sense, free products level the information playing field â€" they give consumers information that allows them to make wise choices that allows them to depend on brands somewhat less. In other words: free products speak for themselves. Now does that mean that a brand doesn’t matter? Absolutely not. Brands still matter, but you could argue that in a world where people could sample products rather than just having to hear about them, the brand doesn’t matter as much as it did in the traditional world where you use brands to reduce your risks of disappointment. What do you think the best online business model is in the free economy? Freemium as you say. Maybe explain that a little bit more? Yeah, so I think. Free is perhaps the most misunderstood four-letter word beginning with F in the English language. Among the many misunderstandings about free are some misunderstandings about the book; which is that some people think that in our marketing, everything should be free. Or that everything should be advertising supportive. In fact, the book certainly acknowledges the ad-model, but focuses more on freemium- which is the combination of free and premium. The best way to think about that is a version of the traditional free sample: as your selling muffins, you might give out one percent of your muffins as free samples to sell the rest. You can’t really give out much more than that or you will go bankrupt because there are real costs associated with those muffins. The freemium model, which really only works in the digital space and, you know, additional markets, is one where you give out 80 percent or 90 percent of your product in a free form to drive demand for a superior paid version that maybe ten percent of the people want. And because digital products are so cheap and getting cheaper, that ten percent paying users can subsidize 90 percent free users and everybody wins. They use free as a form of marketing to reach the maximum possible audience, and then offer two products â€" a free version and a paid version with the hope that the most engaged consumers and that the most active power-users will see the value in the product, will use the product and love the product see the value in the product such as they want additional feature that they be willing to pay for that. Will free force businesses and people to work harder, fast, smarter and deliver higher quality products? Free is defined as freemium-based business models online. Free is where the products market themselves; where the free form of the product is the advertisement. What that requires is that you can’t just tell people about the products or, you know, come up with the ad campaign. The products actually need to: A: be useful B: be so useful that some people are willing to pay for more So the product has to be great. Free is not a silver bullet that makes every product marketable. Free is a great way to allow people to sample the products, but if they don’t like what they are sampling, or if they are not thrilled or delighted and wanting more, then you know, you can’t convert them to paid. So, you know, it’s never been a good idea to have a bad product, but now when you are in the freemium model, having a product is not a sufficiently compelling guarantee that the freemium product will work for you because the sampling tells people all they need to know â€" which is that the product is not worth paying for. Can you give an example of a company that has used the free model before competitors and has succeeded? You know it’s been interesting to watch even companies like Intuit that use free. Intuit sells Turbo Tax and you know, Turbo Tax was and probably still is a box you can buy in the store. But it’s also an online service and what they chose to do was to make Turbo Tax online free in one form, which is your federal tax, and then if you wanted to do your state taxes, well, that would be paid. Now, I don’t know of anybody who did this before them. But it was clearly possible for someone to do this. It is just software. When you offer software online the marginal costs are so close to zero that free becomes a possibility. I don’t know of anybody else who made, at least not this level of quality, made federal tax filings free. Now, I have a hard time answering this question precise because I don’t know the details of every particular. The way you phrased the question is somebody coming into it before the competitors. I can’t guarantee that there wasn’t another tax preparation software package out there for free. But, I don’t think it was anything on this scale, and it is interesting that Intuit, in a sense, cannibalized their own business and took one of their own products and made it free because they recognized that if they didn’t, somebody else would. It is also very interesting how they made their free premium divide. Federal free. State paid. We Americans all live both in this country and a state. So, you know, I suspect their conversion rate is really quite high. If you have already entered all your information into the federal one, it’s very compelling to upgrade to state. How have you built your personal brand both at Wired Magazine and as an author? Is it challenging to balance both, and how do they support each other? It just so happens that all of my projects kind of overlap â€" they are complimentary. I think my last book, The Long Tail, started as a series.   I give speeches a lot. That’s what the editors are required to do and are expected to do and it is a good thing for our public profile for editor to be out there. Now, when I give a speech, I need to have something to say. So I end up doing a lot of research to create speeches and have something unique and fresh to say. And in the course of doing that research, I eventually stumbled back in ‘94 on some data that was so interesting and surprising that it led to a series of speeches on (what became The Long Tail). So my public presence as part of my job led to my research, and the research led to an epiphany, and epiphany that led to more research, which led to an article in Wired, which then led to more feedback, which revealed more data, which then led to the decision to write a book. I wrote a book which we then ran an excerpt in Wire d. It was published, and I gave more speeches about it. You know, I am known as the author of The Long Tail, but also the editor of Wired because The Long Tail originated in Wired. The two are seen as very complimentary. Free was the same model, although at this point free emerged from The Long Tail research rather than substantial known work. Once again, it is a good thing for the editor of Wired to have a public presence. It is a good thing to have public presence to be about the subject matter that Wired covers. It is a good thing if you are in the thought-leadership business, which is kind of a terrible term that I use with caution. Ideas, and packaging ideas is what we do here at Wired. You know, ideally these ideas are fresh and powerful and we package them in different ways. We package them with words and pictures in design in the magazine. We package them in speeches. We package them in books. But it is all about packaging ideas that resonate. The magazine is one way to do it. Books are another way to do it. Speeches are another way to do it â€" but it is all about idea propagation. These ideas are all coming from the same place â€" which is how technology is changing the world. They all seem to complement each other. So there is kind of the logic between all my various personas. They all come from the same place, which is how technology is changing the world and ways to understand that that we can all use. - Chris Anderson is the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine, and is one of the most knowledgeable, insightful and articulate voices at the center of the new economy. He consistently understands before anyone else the new directions the economy is taking and then names the central phenomenon, giving us handles for the business opportunities they represent.   With his New York Times bestseller The Long Tail, he named the rise of the niche as a powerful new force in our economyâ€"why the future of business is selling small quantities of more things to the few people who want those things; how all of those small communities together make up a vast market potential, and how the efficiencies of digital and web technology make it possible.   Now Chris has published the New York Times bestseller Free: The Past and Future of a Radical Price, originally as an article in Wired magazine.   He worked at The Economist for seven years in various positions and served as an editor at the two premier scie nce journals, Science and Nature. Education background in physics, including research at Los Alamos.

Choosing Challenging Tools

Choosing Challenging Tools In the 1950s, we imagined a future where robots and machines did all the work for us; we would only need to push a few buttons every few minutes, and watch as tasks accomplished themselves. We’re not quite there yet, but we certainly can accomplish a tremendous amount of work by pushing a few buttons. I can reach my mother across town via the phone. I can shop via the internet and I can cook a ready-to-eat meal in the microwave. I can chop three onions in three seconds in my food processor. Tools and technology have made our lives better in thousands of ways. But some experts worry that our reliance on technology may create a society of have and have-nots. Not money, the conclusion you may have jumped to, but skills â€" the ability to actually do things. Writing for The New Yorker, Tim Wu says that we now have the option of two kinds of technology: demanding and easy. He defines demanding tools as “technology that takes time to master, whose usage is highly occupying, and whose operation includes some real risk of failure. By this measure, a piano is a demanding technology, as is a frying pan, a programming language, or a paintbrush. So-called convenience technologies, in contrastâ€"like instant mashed potatoes or automatic transmissionsâ€"usually require little concentrated effort and yield predictable results.” Wu writes that our choice of instant everything may eventually erode our ability to do anything. I see this in my personal life; I haven’t done much math since I first picked up a calculator in my late teens. To me, math is a chore that is best done by machines. I don’t pick up lint piece by piece from my carpet, and I don’t add up figures by hand. But I do think often about how much I admire people who choose challenging tools, people who know how to make things, build things, or repair things (and do math.) When the pump on our irrigation system stopped working a couple of weeks ago, we called six pump installation and repair companies to ask for a visit and estimate. Not a single one returned our calls. My husband went out every few days to take apart the pump and repair or replace the component he thought might be the problem. No luck. I watered my herb garden by hand and watched my radar app hopefully for signs of rain. Finally, on his fourth try, my husband figured out the real culprit. He repaired the pump for less than $20, saving us the cost of replacement (around $200, in addition to labor if we’d been able to hire any.) In the process, he learned a lot about the inner workings of the pump. He’ll be able to repair it on his own with confidence next time. Choosing to master a challenging technology or task gives you confidence to take on the next task. We build skills in layers, laying them on like nacre over irritants. Once you have taken apart a machine, you are more confident taking apart the next machine. Once you master cooking techniques, you can become creative and experimental with food. Choosing instant technology not only causes our skills to atrophy, but it also speeds up the pace at which we work, demanding more and more productivity in any given moment. Wu calls this “the tyranny of tiny tasks.” He writes, “Instead of fewer difficult tasks (writing several long letters) we are left with a larger volume of small tasks (writing hundreds of emails). We have become plagued by a tyranny of tiny tasks, individually simple but collectively oppressive.” There’s another, more insidious, problem with instant anything. We mistake being able to do something for being able to do it well. Being able to flow words into a PowerPoint presentation doesn’t make you a good presenter. Being able to operate MS Word doesn’t make you a writer. Heating up canned soup isn’t cooking. It takes time, sometimes years, to master a challenging tool. And time seems to be the scarcest commodity of all. I’m okay with that, as long as you don’t confuse instant with mastery. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have 100 emails to answer.

An Introduction To Resumetemplate - Beginners Guide

An Introduction To Resumetemplate - Beginner's GuideResumetemplate is a free online writing course that contains everything a budding writer needs to know to get the most out of his or her writing. As a beginner, you may think you are to pick up tips on how to get started, but as a veteran author I can assure you that you will have to explore every possible avenue of the process in order to produce the best book possible.While there are many tips that can be learnt by a beginner author like yourself, some of them may not be quite as necessary for a person who has been writing for many years. Instead of wasting your time, I urge you to start reading this course immediately so that you can experience firsthand how well this course is structured and how good the author is. The way you approach the course will tell you a lot about your level of expertise, the direction you want to take your career, and how much you are willing to spend.This course is made available by an expert in the wr iter's market, one Ian Stanbridge. As the founder of Metamorphosis Press, the publisher of this course, the author brings a lot of experience to the table. This knowledge is both beneficial and helpful to you as a student. In fact, in Resumetemplate, there are 10 powerful techniques to help you write effectively.You will learn some fantastic facts about your own writing ability. Every once in a while, we need to look at ourselves and wonder how we ever became so good at it. After all, our abilities may not be what they used to be, which is why learning to write clearly is so important. But the fact remains that those who write well are creative individuals.This online course will also help you to refine your craft. Each of the strategies you will find in this course can help you achieve better results faster. They are tools that can help you learn to structure a clearer and more effective plan of action so that you can become a better writer and improve the quality of your output.Fi nally, you will also be introduced to other core concepts that you can use in your writing. You can combine the techniques that the author teaches with these techniques to ensure you end up with the best possible manuscript. You will not be left wondering what you can do to further enhance your skills.In summary, Resumetemplate is a highly beneficial course for beginners. It will help you write your best work while getting the most out of your writing skills.Overall, this online course is geared towards providing students with the best techniques that will help them write with clarity. It will also teach readers to identify writing styles and stimulate their imagination.

16 Deadly Executive Job Search Mistakes - Executive Career Brandâ„¢

16 Deadly Executive Job Search Mistakes

Summary Sunday Motivation and More

Summary Sunday Motivation and More Who doesnt need a dose of motivation? The summer is filled with distractions and things you would rather do than work or your job search! Sometimes its difficult to stay on course.   Im guilty of being distracted and often need a good kick in the pants to get myself back on track. If youve been missing my Summary Sundays Im sorry. Weekend lacrosse tournaments, vacation and summer malaise  have gotten in the way. But Im back on track (I hope) and this post will help you get your mojo back too! CAREER Sometimes you just cant ignore good reminders! Why to never give up:- 1. You haven’t tried everything yet. 2. You’re closer to success than you think. 3. If you don’t finish, someone else will. 4. Right before success there is a dark place. 5. If you give up then what? 6. Past failure does not predict the future. â€" Warren Buffett (@itswarenbuffett) July 16, 2018 A Thought for Today from Roald Dahl: above all become passionate pic.twitter.com/g6mfJNQR1u â€" Mike Johansson (@mikejny) July 17, 2018 JOB SEARCH Dont Give Up On Your Dream Job If Youre Missing One Essential Skill by Forbes Coaches Council | Forbes Seldom will you be a 100% match for the jobs you apply to.  There are some excellent tips here to help convince the  employer to interview you! Stuck in an Overwhelming Job Search? 13 Simple Ways to Get Going Again by Young Entrepreneurs Council (YEC) | YouTern Every single one of these expert tips can be applied to help you get unstuck! Go try a couple and see if you can regain your job search momentum!

A Day in the Life of a Freelancer IM HIRED

A Day in the Life of a Freelancer The Life of a Freelance Writer The world of freelancing is an industry many desire to be part of. Day dreaming of the day when you can quit your 9-5 job and do it on your own. But many arent quite sure what is involved when youre your own boss. I get asked the question of what I do on a day to day a lot, and whilst most might think I am binge watching Netflix all day and living a glamorous life style, the reality is a little different. So I thought Id give you an insight into a normal day in my world. 9 am   I start my day by creating a plan of action, helping me assign time and ensure client articles and blog posts are completed by the deadlines. I set a weekly plan on a Sunday and update daily (failing to prepare is preparing to fail after all.) 10 am Checking emails is a big part of the day. Whether thats updating clients about articles or responding to readers comments, most communication is done through emails. I get a huge amount of spam emails so there is a lot of deleting involved! Then my least favourite part of the job but the most essential is invoicing. Whether sending out invoices or chasing, this is part of the job I could do without! (Getting a monthly pay check is much easier.) 11 am Most articles require research before youre able to putting together the piece. Therefore, its essential to review other sites or articles to use as references and quotes making the articles accurate and informative. So I use my best investigating skills and I get to work! 12 pm Now its time for the main event, start writing but before I put pen to paper or keypad to document, I list all my ideas. I break down articles into sections and headers, giving me a clear structure which really helps when producing an article. This is where self-motivation is a huge factor, coming up with ideas when you have a huge block is something I have to overcome on the daily. 1 pm After the sections are in place, the writing begins. At this point the focus isnt on grammar and spelling as Ill proof read later on. The first draft is normally just madly trying to write down everything in my head before I forget it. When I get on a roll I could be writing for hours, its important to never stop the flow. 2 pm Then its time for a lunch break but usually that is spent running errands. One benefits of working from home is you can do your washing, shopping or any personal task in your break.    (Occasionally there is time to eat) 3 pm As a freelance writer, I had to get myself more out there on social media, to promote my work. I dedicate time each day to advertising on social platforms including Linkedin. Whilst Im not a fan of posting pictures of my dinner, I do love being able to interact with readers and like-minded bloggers or businesses through social media, I get some fantastic advice from people who I have connected with online. 4 pm Another aspect of freelancing is pitching, that doesnt necessary mean you have to be good at cold calling but it does require me to reach out to new companies, pitch articles and apply for roles. In the world of freelancing, stable clients are the goal but most just want one off pieces or articles once in a while so it is essential to get new business if you plan on making any money out of your writing. 5 pm I check if any amends are needed on previous articles sent across and then I take a bit of time out. Whether getting dinner on, watching telly or just doing absolutely nothing then I try to switch off the laptop and enjoy the evening (though, the blue flash on my phone does mean work emails/ notifications are never too far away.) Evening Im more of a night owl so after having some time away, I get back to work and start proof reading. Its important to leave a gap before checking over your own work as its hard to spot mistakes just after writing something. Then its time to submit for client approval, still now I get a bit nervous at this stage, hoping the client like what Ive done and doesnt want a complete re-write.