My book “I’m on LinkedIn – Now What?” is coming along… and now people think that I’m the LinkedIn expert :p Well, I probably should be, but it’s kind of hard to think of yourself as an expert when others know so much more about it than you do. Nonetheless, here’s a question I wanted to share with you.

A good friend just went through a job change and asked how she could let her LinkedIn network know. It’s pretty easy (it’s a one-time setting) but not foolproof. This is a setting … so login to LinkedIn and then …

1. Click on the Account & Settings link:

2. Under Receiving Messages, click on Profile Updates:

3. Check to see if you are sending your contacts messages when you update your profile:

4. NOTE that they can choose to get them via e-mail or just when the login (which means that they might never see it) … here’s how I have mine set:

Because many of your contacts might have chosen to only see these updates if they read them on LinkedIn, I would choose to send them a personal e-mail letting them know (if it’s important enough).

How do YOU send e-mails to your LinkedIn contacts?

Anita Bruzzese blogs about a Larry Dinsmore who had a very simple idea that (a) grew into an additional revenue stream and (b) landed him a job.

The idea was simple – print a t-shirt that says Damn I Need a Job on the front, and put a letter (like an introductory letter: “dear sirs, … “) on the back. Read about what happened on Anita’s blog (she interviewed him). Some of my thoughts:

First, he got a job out of this. From Anita’s blog:

“The local news noticed. Actually I called them and told them what I was doing but they were interested enough to come and talk to me and ran the story. That lead to a chain of events where it eventually got back to the IT manager of the place I am now. So yes, my idea was directly responsible for my employment status today. And yeah, there were some weird looks along the way as well.” — Larry Dinsmore

Second, it was a great way to show his personality (sense of humor, pride vs. humility, creativity, guts, etc.).

Third, isn’t this the simple stuff you’d expect to read about on Dave Perry’s Guerrilla Marketing blog (or book)? Dave has hundreds of ideas… the thing is, who’s actually doing it (without going overboard)? Larry did. It worked, and it is having residual results.

Fourth, the “additional revenue stream” that I’ve blogged about before, the idea of not being 100% dependent upon one employer, is in place for Larry. He is set up to make money on shirt sales, sales of a cover letter package, ad space, etc. And from poking around his site it’s clear that he has other ideas that he is working on (like the video resume module).

I ask myself “what did I do that was creative or different in my job search?” My answer: nothing.

Have you ever done anything creative in your job search? Did it work? Where there any benefits?

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At the network meeting that I sometimes frequent there is an accountability session where they ask a number of questions (how many interviews did you have last week, how many network contacts, etc.) One of the questions is “do you have a coach?”

They make it clear that your coach cannot be your spouse. It has to be someone that “holds your feet to the fire” and “tells you how it is.” If you don’t have a coach it’s almost as if you aren’t quite serious about your job search.

Well, I finally got a coach. We’ve had two sessions and tomorrow we’ll have our third. I’m really quite amazed how these sessions have gone, and what happens between sessions. I’m drawing some parallels between business coaching (which is what I have) and job search or career or executive coaching.

As I’ve pondered the “it cannot be your spouse” idea I came up with three things that make a coach. I’d love to know from coaches what I’m missing, but for my simple brain this makes sense. I’ll elaborate on this more later… for now, a coach:

1. Teaches/instructs/leads by principles. Coaches are not necessarily teachers (although they do teach), but the key here is that they understand and subscribe to principles. In my job search I was working off of my bad theories – if I had a coach he/she would have set me straight and not let me waste two solid months, 60 hours a week, spinning my wheels in ineffective areas.
2. Provides accountability. I’m a big boy. I am very disciplined. And I don’t need a babysitter. I certainly didn’t want a coach watching over my shoulder (Did I mention that I’m a rather private guy? It may not seem like it but it’s true.) But in my job search I had 10 hours a day that I could do whatever I wanted… and no one would really ask specifically what I did because they didn’t want to insult me (I was already insulted enough when I was laid off). It’s almost like coming home to a messy house and asking your wife “what did you do all day?” Not a good thing! It is hard to describe the accountability I get from my coach but I’ll tell you, it is critical. I am held accountable weekly for “homework” from the week before, but during the entire week it’s on my mind!
3. Has the right tools. In my job search I want a coach who says “You need JibberJobber because…” I believe it’s the best tool out there for maintaining relationships, for working towards that next promotion, for tracking elevator pitches, etc. The coach should recommend the best tools available for me. They should have some kind of system they use to keep track of our sessions, my assignments, etc. A professional coach needs to be empowered with software, training, certifications, etc.

Not only do I have my own coach but I have partnered with some coaches… some of which are job search coaches, others are career coaches, others are executive coaches. If you are curious about how a coach can help you, right now, check out my partners page to see the coaches (and resume writers) that I’ve partnered with.

I thought that coaching was for the rich and famous. Then, last week I went to lunch with a good friend of mine and we were talking about it… he said that he had a coach for a year and it was one of the best investments he ever made. I really respect this guy so I saw that there was a lot more to this coaching stuff than just elitist services (which is what I thought it was).

I’ll have more posts to share what I’m learning from my coaching sessions… but I’ll tell you, having a real, dedicated coach is really an amazing thing. And I’ve only had one for two weeks!

Do you have coach? Have you ever had a coach? If you are a coach, am I off-base?

This book has two titles: The Recruiter Is Your Friend and This Ain’t Your Granddaddy’s Job Search (which is actually the subtitle). It is a short book (51 pages) by Kristen Hallows, who has a cool blog from a coach/resume-writer perspective.

So what did I think about the book?

At first I thought it was too short. There just wasn’t enough meat, I thought. But guess what? I’ve read it three times. I agree with almost every single thing in here (don’t ask me what I don’t agree with, I don’t remember, and it was pretty inconsequential)… Kristen has a style where she actually does deliver the meat, it’s just lean. This is great because you can get through the book in about an hour, and hopefully during this time your ideas on what a job search (and career management) is will totally change.

I say hopefully because when I started my job search I wasn’t quite ready to face the truth. I imagine that a lot of people out there (whether they are full of themselves, like me, or students that still think they are “all that” and immortal) aren’t going to be ready to really hear this truth. I think there are a lot of pearls in this book that will probably be overlooked or disregarded. Now that I’ve had my head in this stuff for so long I find them jumping out at me.

Here’s some titles or subtitles to give you an idea of what’s in here:

• The job search is lined with potholes… and some contain explosives.
• One thing you can do right now.
• Use the internet to build your network (do not use it to look for jobs)
• Networking: Still the best way to find a job!
• Change your perspective and your attitude while you’re at it
• Why recruiters make sense (includes The good, the bad and the heinous and How can I find the right recruiter?)
• Searching confidentially
• Why resumes will never die

Yes, it is small, but it is bite-sized stuff that people like me (people that suffer from the “I already know everything” syndrome) might just be able to read and accept. It really would have helped set me straight before I wasted two solid months of fruitless job search.

Click here to go to her page with purchasing options (it’s $9.95 on Amazon).

Find high quality Bilingual jobs at LatPro.com.

I launched JibberJobber May 15, 2006. If I remember correctly, it came out as a “job search tool” or “job search organization tool” even though the logo says “career toolset.”

I’m not sure how or why it was “JibberJobber –> job search tool” early on, because I remember wanting to brand it in a much bigger light… that is, a long-term career tool (or, set of tools).

About three weeks after launching I realized that I had to … can you believe it … rebrand! And you know what, it has been very difficult to get over the initial perception of “job search tool.” That’s kind of okay because it was optimized for those in a job search right now. But, once you get a job you should still take care of your network. You should still have target companies that you are tracking and monitoring. You should still keep your resume updated. You should still have elevator pitches. There are a lot of things that we all “should” do… we kind of perfect them during the job search process but once we get that job we go into “relax” mode and neglect our careers.

JibberJobber is the perfect tool for these long-term tasks (which really should be your part of your lifestyle).

I’m still working on that rebranding.

Let me tie this back to an amazing observation I made while interning at Simplot. I noticed that interns were, well, interns! That is, we were all treated as part-timer, wet-behind-the-ear kids. But there was this one full-time guy who had graduated about 5 years earlier… you know what? His brand at work was something like “he was the intern in Finance.”

Wow – five years later, working full-time, and he couldn’t shake that brand!

Want to know the best way that I saw to rebrand? I saw someone else do it and the difference was night and day.

This other guy had graduated about five years earlier also. But after switching to full-time with Simplot he was offered a job somewhere else. He took it for about two or three years, and wasn’t branded as the intern… but decided to come back to Simplot.

Guess what?

Person A was always known as “the guy that was the intern from finance.“

Person B was “the guy that was at that other company, did amazing things (or, had amazing titles), and came back to us, adding to the diversity of our management.“

It was night and day. The lesson I took away from this is that if you want to be known as something more than the intern, perhaps you have to get out, do something else (perhaps even something mysterious), and when you come back your personal brand will be different.

Have you ever had to rebrand? Do you have any tips for me (with JibberJobber), or my readers, for rebranding their personal brand?

Find more on diversity in the workplace at DiversityJobs.com.

I write a lot for those that don’t have jobs. Even though we are all just a few hours away from getting a pink slip (the image is what I have on the back of my business card), I am… well, not opposed to doing a great job while we are at work! As a matter of fact, sometimes I think that my blog tone and attitude makes me unemployable… I imagine there are hiring managers out there saying “never hire Jason Alba or he’ll get our entire workforce networking, developing personal brands, and paranoid about losing their jobs!”

Alas, I believe in giving more than 100% to the employer (and, of course, balancing your life as well). It’s exciting to be on a winning time, with a winning product or service, make a difference in the world and your industry… and get paid for it! So, for those of you that have jobs I wanted to share a few blogs that I really, really like. In alphabetical order…

45 Things – Helpful information and advice from America’s favorite workplace columnist. Anita Bruzzese writes for lots of newspapers and some huge online sites, so you’ve probably come across her columns. She also has written two books… her focus has been on the workplace. I love her style, and find her posts to be really cool. I’m intrigued by the old media / new media debates so I find it refreshingly cool to see a syndicated columnist writing a real blog (partly because I know I can learn from her training and discipline that she gets from being a real journalist (as opposed to me, just a blogger ). (hat tip to Liz Strauss for introducing me to Anita!)

Cube Rules – Career Management for Cubicle Warriors – I’ve enjoyed Scot Herrick’s blog for quite a while, even before he was famous :p Scot has a full-time job with a huge company so he has a very different perspective than I do. I love what he writes because once you land that job you really should think proactively about how to do the best job you can. And, of course, I really appreciate Scot championing JibberJobber – we both realize how easily you can go from “I’m not looking” to “I’m looking,” … right?

Kent Blumberg – Leadership, strategy, and performance – Kent has had an awesome career in high-level leadership positions. I have adopted Kent as a mentor (not sure he knows that) and have asked him to be on my board of advisors … the experience and wisdom that he brings to the table, and his blog, is really quite powerful. As a leader, a CEO, a manager, I think his blog should be required reading, it’s almost like getting a mentor in a box. Oh, did I mention that he’s exceptionally intelligent? Not a big deal, I know plenty of dumb intelligent people, but because of Kent’s style his intelligence really allows him to swim around all the wisdom and come back with some awesome, awesome lessons. Presented for less-intelligent people like me

Thom Singer – Some Assembly Required – Thom’s books are often compared to Keith Ferrazzi’s Never Eat Alone. Here’s what I love about Thom, though. I know Thom, we’ve dined together, and we’ve had calls and regularly exchange e-mails. He is approachable, and I know that he does what he write about (he’s a regular blogger and working on his third book). Thom practices what he preaches. Thom is a networker. I’m sure Keith is too (duh), but so far he has been absolutely unapproachable (I’ve talked with “his people” but never, never him). Each time I read one of Thom’s posts, which focuses on networking and has a slant for those that are networking in their job (not necessarily for a job search), I know that it’s something that he has already lived through.

Some others that I strongly recommend include:

• Nerd Guru – Pete Johnson blogs a lot on job and career stuff but also, as the Architect of HP.com, blogs on leadership, project management, technology, etc.
• Beyond Blinking Lights and Acronyms – On Creating Real Value Through Information Technology. Mike Schaffner recently landed as CIO of a multi-billion dollar company in Texas and, lucky for us, had already honed his blogging skills, so we get to read a new CIO blogger… very powerful learning here.
• Profitable Marketing – Perspectives on how Analytics is shaping Marketing & improving Business – Adelino de Almeida has an excellent blog for marketers, especially those number crunching, put-the-bean-counting accountants-to-shame, statistical types. (for the non-statistical numbers folks with interest in accounting read Andy Sernovitz, Seth Godin, or David Armano)
• Get Fresh Minds – Ideas so fresh… they should be slapped! – Katie Konrath writes on creativity and innovation with a passion that I rarely see. She is also living a very exciting life, right now in Germany to learn German. Anyone that has “creativity” or “innovation” in their job description needs to check her out.

There you go – all of these folks are friends and have incredible blogs – if you are currently employed you need to be following some blogs in your industry or trade!

This morning I went to a network meeting for professionals in transition. Man, it’s been months since I’ve been to one of these! I used to go to two or three a week but then I just got too busy at work. I miss the environment… even though there are people there with immediate issues (like, no income), they are very open and helpful. Whether you are employed or not I encourage you to look one up and go, just to see what it’s like.

(for those that have a job): In a comment left yesterday by one of my partners, Brad Attig of My Retail Career, leaves a quote from John F. Kennedy: “The best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining.” Don’t wait to go to a networking meeting… by then it’s weird and embarrassing.

So anyway, one of the questions that usually comes up is “what keeps you up at night?” Today there was a very interesting answer: distractions.

Last week the guy didn’t do much because he was registering for unemployment, and “other things.” This week he plans to dedicate to … registering for unemployment, and “other things.”

Come on guys. Let’s get real here. We can put this off as long as we want, we can work to get our own house in order, we can take care of all the little distractions… oh wait, when those are done, there will be more that pop up.

Haven’t any of you said, in your last job, something like “when things slow down we’ll do xyz.” I’m guessing things never slowed down. But you had to do the important things, and not get mired down by distractions, right?

One of the veteran transition guys there said he took one week, got rid of all distractions, and hasn’t allowed “distractions” to be an excuse anymore. I guess I’m cool with that. If your distractions are that bad, dedicate a reasonable amount of time and get them out of the way – at least the important ones. But man, then you have to buckle down and get to work!!

I’ve blogged on this here, Chicken List Is Out – Now Put Away The Honey-Do List! (make sure to read the comments).

But I counter it with some common sense here, Water Damage Is Expensive – Don’t Neglect Your House (again, the comments are key).

Don’t let distractions be the reason for your failure. If you are having problems with distractions, I strongly encourage you to check out my Expert Partners page to find experts (and coaches) that have partnered with JibberJobber.

My new buddy (Andy, is it too early in our relationship to publicly proclaim we are buddies? :p) Andy Sernovitz is author of Word of Mouth Marketing, speaker, and instructor of the Word of Mouth Marketing class at Northwestern University. He posted about a new contest he has where he wants you to send him “stories about fun, honest, free, real word of mouth.” If he thinks it’s cool enough he’ll send you a bottle of wine. Click here for details.

So, why does this fit in my blog? I’ve been thinking about it since the 3rd, when I read it on his very cool blog. I’ve blogged about Brag! by Peggy Klaus and the concept of figuring out how to communicate your unique value propositions.

Andy’s message (which you’ll get from his book and his blog) seems to take it to the next step. Yes, he writes to “smart marketers”… don’t let that fool you. Remember, we are all “You, Inc.” and we are all our own marketing department.

So let’s say that we have Peggy’s stuff down, we get it, we have our “brag bites” ready to go. Now what?

Now switch to Andy’s stuff, and try and figure out how to create word of mouth marketing about you! This is were it is fuzzy for me, perhaps he’ll write something (or do a contest) about word of mouth on a personal level … how do we create word of mouth buzz about … us??

I’m not talking about all the networking and participation stuff that I’ve written about over the last year, I’m talking about getting others to talk about us (in a good way), the way they talk about other things. I’m going to dive into Andy’s book this month (I hope) and report back. For now, I’m left wondering how to get others to buzz my brand.

Two quick thoughts:

• I haven’t been able to get my hands on Dave Perry’s Guerrilla Marketing for Job Hunters yet, but this makes me want to more… I’ll try and do that soon… I’ve met Dave and we talked about stuff like this – I love his attitude about getting yourself out there and getting what you deserve (and what you are worth), so I’m excited to add this to the mix.
• Sarah Needleman, editor at CareerJournal, recently wrote Why Attention-Seeking Tactics Often Backfire on Job Hunters … I think that we are more worried about failing and tainting our brand, so we do nothing… but a word to the wise, don’t over-do it. Sarah collected some great stories of people going overboard (it’s a fun read ).

Do you buzz someone else’s brand? WHY? What is it about them that makes you want to, and what exactly to you share with others?

PCRecruiter provides applicant tracking software to employers.

Wow, I didn’t expect people to comment on my rant/whine/post from yesterday about the unemployment rate. The truth is, it’s been something that has bugged me since I started my job search. Because it was so low, people would be surprised to hear that I was *still* looking for a job. Get it? It provided proof that if I couldn’t get a job, the problem was me, … because this economic indicator showed that anyone that really wanted a job could get a job.

Plus, it didn’t help that I was still living with my own strong stereotype that if you couldn’t get a job it was because you made bad choices, sucked, or just weren’t up to snuff – it’s what I believed and now I had to apply those ideas to my own situation.

At 32 I felt I was too old (they could hire kids from college for cheaper) and too young (I didn’t have the decades of experience and wisdom of the baby boomers). How’s that for age discrimination? There’s gotta be something out there that says that GenX has been lost between these other two generations

Anyway, as usual, the comments are smarter than the post. Here’s some gems I picked out:

From Daniel Johnson, Jr., he said that he used the unemployment rate as an excuse to why he couldn’t find a job. I’m guessing the unemployment rate during his search was higher than normal.

From Daniel Sweet, who is a recruiter and has been at this job search stuff a lot longer than I have, he says my logic is a little messed up (or at least, he redefines some stuff I was trying to communicate) and emphasizes that we need to keep our skills current and make sure that we market ourselves properly.

Katie Konrath has a really positive take on all this stuff – which is refreshing to hear from Gen Y (usually the stuff I hear from Gen Y has to do with entitlement and bucking the system) – she says that it’s true that they are expecting to have 10 – 15 career changes (mind you, that’s not job changes… !!) and that there are really lots of opportunities out there, even though there isn’t really job security.

David Armstrong comments on job happiness (where does that come up in government metrics?), a real job search (that is for another post… perhaps next week!), and relationships. And – thanks a TON for sharing JibberJobber with a large group a couple of days ago!

Heather Mundell talks about our attitudes and succeeding even though the numbers say perhaps we should (divorce rate, etc.). Very cool strategy Heather!

Scot Herrick talks about staying in a big company and the changes that you’ll see there, with reorganizations every 6 to 10 months. It’s really interesting perpective considering I can’t get a job at a big company and honestly, his comment doesn’t make me want to :p

Finally, “M” brings up two points that really, really bug me. First, as I mentioned in the post yesterday, the unemployment rate is subject to garbage-in-garbage out problems. M says that the unemployment rate doesn’t take into consideration those that are nut currently filing for unemployment (where the unemployment benefits have run out). This is really common, I think, as I know lots of people who are well past their first six months of job search, or they haven’t found “the one” yet and continue to look. Second, M says that just because you “get a job” doesn’t mean that it’s going to work. I was not in a position financially where I could go to general manager of a software company to a burger flipper or a Wal-Mart greeter. Not because I was too proud but because I could not afford to make $24k a year.

Of course there was talk about age discrimination, career management, and other stuff. The comments really were quite insightful – thanks to all that contributed to the discussion. I guess this boring topic (it was boring in college ) really is quite interesting!

One thing that I didn’t understand during my job search was the unemployment rate. Seems like it was around 3% or 4% when I was looking (right now it’s at a record low 2.5ish% in Utah).

Politicians love this because it means they are doing their jobs wonderfully, and it’s great cause for celebration.

Employers hate it because they say they can’t find their talent (and you hear things like “war for talent” muttered more often).

I imagine recruiters love/hate it because it means more business opportunity for them since employers are more apt to bring them in, but it’s really, really hard to find the right person for the job.

I absolutely hate it because I think it misleads society — hey, if we are at 2.5% in Utah then things are great! We can sustain this forever, can’t we? The term “bubble burst comes to mind. Detroit is going through a huge employment bubble-burst right now.

I also hate it because it discourages those that are in the job search. If there are only 2.5 people out of 100 that can’t find a job, and I’m one of them, what’s wrong with me?

Why does someone talk about this great “job seeker’s market” and I can’t even get a real interview? It must be me, right? That’s what the government and economists are telling me

This unemployment rate is merely a metric devised by economists to help get a pulse on where we are at with jobs. But it’s just like any other metric – it has it’s problems and I choose to scoff at the rates. It suffers from garbage-in-garbage-out because people that don’t apply for unemployment, or otherwise report it, aren’t counted. It also neglects the huge difference between finding jobs at McDonalds vs. executive or professional positions.

It also neglects people that are unhappily employed, or looking for some other reason. I hear about a lot of people that are not in the “unemployment rate” numbers but are moving around. This is normal stuff, as far as I can see. But the numbers don’t reflect it at all.

Why am I on this subject? Yesterday should have been a really quiet day at JibberJobber. I was expecting record-low signups because of the holiday. But just the opposite happened. I got record-high signups, due to a newsletter that went out to a popular executive job board list. It’s uncommon to get more than 100 signups in one day, but it happened on the Fourth of July … all day long, from early morning and into the night. It was exciting because we continue to grow.

It was discouraging because I realized that there were hundreds of people who are extremely concerned about their careers, enough to take time to (a) read the newsletter, and (b) pick out the expert advice that says “use JibberJobber” and (c) signup for an account.

Maybe that’s a half-glass-empty observation. The flip side is that over 100 people understand long-term career management and are really interested in taking it to the next level.

Ya, maybe that’s it.