I wrote this June 2009: JibberJobber is NOT your Job Search Silver Bullet

Sorry to say, folks, we can’t be the job search silver bullet.

Sure, we solve a lot of problems and frustration in the job search, but we aren’t going to find you your dream job.  Or even a step job to get to the dream job.  We provide solutions to problems, but we aren’t getting you the job.

Here’s a note we got from someone who deleted their account recently:

“I’ve yet to find a job through you.  I’d do better sitting in front of the White House with a tin cup.”

Yeah, you know what, you probably are better off doing that… especially if you login to JibberJobber every day hoping to see a job offer pop up on your screen.

Seriously – what problems do we solve?  Here are the two biggies:

Organizing your job search. I used a spreadsheet to organize my job search, and I quickly outgrew it.  That means it was getting very, very messy.  Columns added here, data added there… it became a hodgepodge of junk that I was spending time trying to decipher.  Sound silly?  Spend a few weeks in an intense job search, networking, and applying to jobs, and your spreadsheet will get confusing – quick!

Managing a job search. Another user said that JibberJobber became his virtual assistant – allowing him to focus on the important stuff while JibberJobber simply kept his stuff in the right place and reminded him of important things he needed to do (like network).

Now, many people use JibberJobber to manage their own network (like a personal relationship manager), or to manage business stuff (like a customer relationship manager)… so it’s definitely not limited to being a job search tool… it’s all about the relationships.

Back to this person’s note to us, though… if you want to switch on the computer and have a tool that delivers jobs to you, good luck.  There will be hundreds of thousands of others who are sitting there waiting for the same job delivered to them.  And then the race is on, to be the person who stands out in a sea of resumes.

I’m on Facebook – Now What is NOW in the updated, second edition… !!  Here’s a webinar (sign up here – no cost)that I’m doing with the coauthors (Jesse and I welcome Rachel Melia, Facebook expert and marketing consultant as a coauthor)… info below:

Facebook has over 1 billion users worldwide and has become a critical marketing tool. Do you know how to best utilize the social media platform to achieve your business objectives? We go into detail about many of the things organizations of all sizes need to know to be successful on Facebook in the recently released book I’m on Facebook — Now What??? 2nd Edition.

Join us for a FREE webinar with sessions from each of the three authors. In this 90 minute webinar, each authors will do a 30 minute presentation jam-packed with information. We will expand on content from the book as well as share brand new information not available anywhere else.

Date: June 27th, 2013
Time: 11am-12:30pm

Here is the schedule:

11am – 8 Tricks For Building a Thriving Facebook Community by Rachel Melia. Growing a thriving Facebook community can be challenging. In this webinar, learn 8 tricks for how you can build a community of the right fans that are engaged and ready to take action (and what to do next).

11:30am – Managing Professional Relationships on Facebook by Jason Alba. Finding prospects on Facebook (or any social network) is great. Now what do you do with them? Use a relationship management tool to develop your contacts into real relationships. Don’t let prospects fall through the cracks. Follow-up and nurture relationships.

12pm – Using Passion to Drive Growth and Conversation by Jesse Stay. Having grown many Facebook Pages to millions and millions of fans, Jesse has found one common theme that has helped grow all of them – passion. Focusing on the things that really resonate with your audience and implementing that throughout your social strategy will make night and day difference in how fast your brand grows for the amount you put into it. In this webinar Jesse will show you how to grow your brand on Facebook using passion, and what factors lead to a successful social strategy.

Don’t miss this exciting webinar, register now.

-Jason, Jesse & Rachel

*P.S. We will pick three lucky webinar viewers that will each win a signed copy of I’m On Facebook — Now What???, and one webinar viewer that will win a signed copy of Jesse’s book Google+ Marketing For Dummies. Register now!

*P.P.S. Enter for a chance to win one of three $50 Amazon gift cards. Purchase I’m On Facebook — Now What??? 2nd Ed. and be entered to win. Write an honest Amazon review for two additional entries. Purchase the book from Amazon here. Enter by 7/3/13.

I wrote this in January of 2009: Why I’m Uber-Frustrated (click to see the 27 comments from back then)

Like many of you, I’m getting a lot of calls and emails from people looking for help finding their next job.

Either they have been in a job search for a long time, or they are new to the job search, or they think they will be in a job search soon… it seems to be the season to be unemployed or know a dozen professionals who are unemployed.

I never went through this – at least during my own fruitless job search I was one of a handful of unemployed people, whereas now it seems to be in fashion (not by anyone’s choosing).

I’m quite frustrated.  Not because of the economy, recession or influx of job seekers.  I’m frustrated because I can’t tell people what they should do to land their next job.  So many people will hear the advice, but really, all they want is the silver bullet.

All I wanted was the silver bullet.

Don’t give me lists of things to do… just tell me that one thing I’m not doing (or doing wrong) so I can find my next job.  That’s all I wanted.

I’d like to tell people the answer is in networking.  But that’s usually a long-term strategy.  And long-term is not silver bullet.

I want to tell people they need to work on their personal brand and their googleability.  But that’s also a long-term strategy, and won’t matter if no one is googling them.

I want to tell people to get on LinkedIn, but once you are there, there’s work to do to really use it in a job search, and it’s not a silver bullet.

I always tell people to check out JibberJobber, but it’s not for everyone.  And while it can give you peace of mind in your job search as you track and manage all the data you start to collect, it isn’t going to reach out through your monitor with a job offer.  And that’s what many people want.

So I’m left, with all kinds of advice, some great, some long-term, some more along the lines of career management… and people look at me with that pleading look… where’s the silver bullet?

Here is the recording of Tuesday’s webinar.  To make it bigger just push play, then click on the “bigger” icon towards the bottom right.  You can access all ATE webinars here.  Sign up for future ATE webinars here (great stuff coming up!).

I got a great email from someone… their email is in bold and my response is in not-bold:

I’ve been in ________ Management for several years and that’s what’s on my resume, but it would be nice to turn my hobby and first love of video production, editing, and graphic arts into a source of income. 

Cool… big transition!  It’s good to know what you want to do and pursue it, if it can support your lifestyle.

Problem is, NOBODY will simply hire me to do this without a competitive resume with years of experience. 

I think the video production, editing and graphics arts are specialized enough that I might hire three different people to do each of those.  I’m not sure a “resume” is going to get you the gig, because you have to get into the right interview first.  Regarding “years of experience,” above you say this is your passion and first love, so I wonder what other projects you’ve done.  Maybe no commercial projects but if you have done projects that might be all I need to take a gamble on you…

I wonder if you focus on one or two of the three things you list, instead of all three.  For example, bring a graphics artist in to complement you.  If you network enough and well with those specialists, maybe they will bring YOU in on video projects…?

Replacing your last job is hard enough, but changing careers requiring a whole set of skills (which you may have sans the experience part) is nearly impossible.  

We talked about this on my Dick Bolles Ask The Expert call.  It is definitely not easy but you can do it.  How do you position yourself?  Generally, my simple thoughts are to figure out and talk about your “transferable skills.”  You’ll probably have to pull from your off-time for graphics and video products you’ve done.  BUT, what if you pull together some contractors you can tap into and then focus on the product/project management of the project, as well as sales and marketing?  Get some great commercial projects under your belt and that should lead to more.

Again, watch Dick’s interview. I don’t remember when we talked about this but his response blew me away.

The ONLY option that I can foresee is to go independent and adopt a very aggressive marketing and networking campaign to drum up business.  

The “very aggressive marketing and networking campaign” you would do to drum up business is virtually the same you should do in a job search.

In my job search, seven years ago, I had to make a decision.  Do I spend time working towards “a job,” which someone might take away again, or do I spend time working towards long-term financial independence, which do I do?  I chose to shift gears, work as hard as I was on my job search, and took a gamble.

For you, what I would recommend is to build up a portfolio of projects.  Make some up for yourself, or beg and convince friends at businesses to do things for them.  As your portfolio grows it will be easier to have people know and think about and choose you for their projects.

My personal proof was here, in this post from 2006: Substantiate Yourself

Here’s a favorite post I wrote October 2010: The Hidden Job Market.

… is not hidden.

It is next door to you, at your neighbor’s house.

It is at the church you go to.

It is sitting across the table from you when you are chatting with your friends.

It is at Starbucks, on a cell phone.

It is on a Yahoo Group.

It is in your LinkedIn connections.

What is this elusive “hidden job market?”

It is simply a non-published, little-known collection of openings and opportunities that only company insiders know about.

They key is, how do you get to know about any of them?

Or maybe they key is this: how do you get the insiders to know about YOU, and what you want, and how you are the right person for the job?

The hidden job market is right in front of you, but you don’t know it, and because of poor personal branding and poor networking, it doesn’t find you.

You can try as hard as you want to find the job seeker silver bullet, but it all comes back to your brand and your network.

Exporting contacts from outlook.com is really easy. I’ll show you how to export, then follow step TWO and Step THREE from this post.

First, choose PEOPLE from the top-right option.  Click the drop down (#1) and it will show the four options (2).

Then, from the top menu click the Manage Drop down (1) and then click Export (2).

That is it – Outlook.com automatically exports your contacts to a csv file.  Again, do steps TWO and THREE from this post to import into JibberJobber.

I was browsing Joanne Meehl’s website and saw something I LOVED.  On her menu she has an “About You” link.  Get it?  Not About Me, but About YOU.

That is cool.  I think this is brilliant.  Could you do something like this to let your target audience know you understand them?  Wouldn’t this help your target audience feel more comfortable that you are the right person for “the job,” whatever job that might be?

Here’s a screenshot (click here to go to the page):

Here’s a great post from Susan Whitcomb titled My New Drug of Choice.

Susan writes:

Visioning is a “drug” – visioning releases dopamine (similar to adrenalin), which enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action toward those rewards.

In my job search I lost my vision (that is, I lot hope, I couldn’t see a path to a brighter future).

When I started working on JibberJobber, and got a vision for what it could become, and how it could help a lot of people, I was reenergized.  It was very exciting!

I didn’t realize I was doping myself, but there was definitely a powerful change.

I wonder if a discouraged job seeker could sit down and create or rewrite their vision, and if that would help them shift gears “to take action toward those rewards.”

What do you think?