About a year ago we introduced the import your Gmail contacts feature.  It was buggy, and Gmail seemed to change their API (the protocol that allows a third party (like us) to tap into their system).  We just sat and waited, and moved on to other things.  It’s hard chasing around moving APIs and keeping up to date.

One of my developers told me they had really updated their API, it was more stable, and ready to look at again.  So we fixed the import on our end, and it seems to work!  However, I did an import and saw stuff that I didn’t want in my database, and a user did an import and had some other issues.  The import works, but you may get a bunch of garbage in your JibberJobber database… so a few thoughts:

This is a premium feature (only $9.95/month).  Mouse over Network or Tools, and then click on Import/Export.  You’ll see the Gmail tab in there.

The import pulls all of your Gmail contacts in.  If they don’t have names (first name, last name), they that will be BLANK… but it will pull that e-mail address in.  Kind of useful, but it means you have to go and clean it up

On our lastest implementation, there were some duplicates created, and tags and categories got duplicated.  This should be fixed now, but if it’s not, let us know!

If there are fields in your Gmail contacts that are not coming over, please let us know… we’ll see if we can grab those also.

If you do an import and you get a bunch of junk, you can delete in bulk (I’ve done this a number of times).  Here’s how:

1. Go to the Network List Panel,
2. Click on Manage Columns (next to the search box above your contacts)
3. In the middle column, show up to 255 contacts (right now we are capping it at 255)
4. Click save, which takes you back to the list panel
5. Click on the checkbox on the top right, which selects ALL of the 255 contacts on the page,
6. Scroll to the bottom, and click the delete, which will delete those 255.

This would be repeated for all of the contacts you want to delete (in batches of 255).  You can order by Date Created, so you don’t mix in other contacts with the contacts from that import.  WHen I did an import, it pulled in about 2k or 3k new contacts…

One other option to consider, just export from Gmail into a csv file, clean up the csv file, then import that…!

Very cool to take those relationships to the next level, but yes, I am overwhelmed at the number of people I’ve communicated with over the last two years in Gmail!

Jim Stroud is a thought-leader in the recruiting/sourcing space, and recently did a presentation on “how to find a job when the economy sucks.”  I just checked out the three blog posts he did to document his presentation and found some cool ideas that I hadn’t heard of, or thought about before.  It figures, he’s the though leader in this space!

Do yourself a favor and check out these three short posts.  Jim certainly expanded my vision, especially regarding what a job seeker should do with technology in a job hunt:

• How to Find a Job (when the economy sucks) Part 1 of 3
• How to Find a Job (when the economy sucks) Part 2 of 3
• How to Find a Job (when the economy sucks) Part 3 of 3

Let me know what you think!  One thing to consider as you read this, Jim Stroud teaches recruiters and sourcers how to find the right candidates.  His techniques are very heavy on technology (search engines, job boards, etc.), so his perspective helps a job seeker optimize his/her chance of being found by a recruiter who uses technology to find candidates.

Saturday morning I was a guinea pig for Jeroen Latour in the Netherlands, as he practiced a presentation for his job.  The presentation focused on why people share things with others (specifically through Last.fm), and touched on why music becomes successful.

There were two things Jeroen talked about regarding music taking off:

Social Appeal. Everyone else is listening to it, so it must be good.  Or, someone I trust listened to it, or likes it, so it must be good.  Or a major influencer listened to it and recommends it.  This is a word-of-mouth recommendation.

Substance/Quality. The band really is *that* good.  Other examples: What kind of car is the best car to buy (the one that won’t be in the shop every other month)?  What is the best computer, pen (I know people who are pen connoisseurs, and have a favorite pen that is the bomb), hamburger, french fries, tshirt, socks, shoes, etc.?  I hate shopping at the dollar store because the crap they sell is usually broken before we get home.

I’m not an expert in the psychology of why people buy things, nor am I an expert in why people hire, but it really made me think about what we can do, as job seekers (interviewers, candidates, etc.) to increase our chance of getting hired.  Let’s take these two points and relate them to YOU, as the product, making yourself more appealing.

Change “Social Appeal” to Emotions or feelings. I’m hungry, I’m bored, sad, lonely, happy, ecstatic, proud, satisfied, hot, cold, etc.  I remember hearing that if we are trying to memorize something, and we can tie emotions into the memorization process, we’ll have a much better chance of memorizing it, because those emotional ties are so strong.  Who hasn’t made an emotional purchasing decision (or bought on a whim)?

I think the most important thing here is sharing stories.  Stories make your numbers, and your experience, and your skillz come to life.  When I was in marathon interviews (as an interviewer), all of the resumes seemed to look the same, and all the lame answers to my questions were the same.  It was all cliche, and I was dying for something to jump off the page… to be different. If you tell me stories, I will be able to get out of my gray boring funk of listening to blah blah blah and hopefully become enthralled by your story. (did I just use a story to illustrate the power of stories??)

Later, when I mentally sift through all the interviews, you’ll probably stick out because of the stories you told.  Others gave facts, with no emotion, but YOU gave stories.  And thank goodness there are mini-stories on your resume, to help me remember you even more.

Substance. I’ve been wondering how to write about this for a long time.  Many job seekers want that next great gig, but they aren’t good enough for it.  They don’t have the skills, abilities, experience or education they really need to be successful.  For example, I can’t be a doctor right now.  I can’t apply to be a staff accountant, a chip designer at a semiconductor plant… get the point?  I don’t have the substance, or quality, to be that right hire.

I wonder how many of us are applying for jobs that really are beyond our reach.  Just because we read Good to Great does not mean we can be the next great CEO.  Just because we read Jack (about Jack Welsh) does not mean we are ready to lead a team at GE, or any other company.  Just because we read an article on project management (or take a MBA-level project management class) does not mean we are ready to be a project manager.

Do you have substance?  Do you have the professional depth to make you the right candidate?  If not, I can only suggest two things:  Either you are shooting too high, and are not realistic, so you need to manage your expectations better, OR you need to build substance.  Get what you need to have the deep substance that will make you the right hire.

What can you do to make yourself more hireable?

I just had a very entertaining interview with a reporter from KSL, a local radio station, which will be aired Friday morning at 5:20am and 7:20 am (for the commuters).

He asked about the Six Degrees from Kevin Bacon thing… we’ve all heard of that.  During the interview he asked if, besides him, I knew anyone famous.  Here’s kind of how it went:

Me: I am two degrees away from George Foreman.  I think I’m three degrees from George W.  I am three degrees from Mr. T.

Paul: You are three degrees from Mr. T?  No kidding.  Then you are four degrees from Conan O’Brien, since Mr. T has been on Conan’s show.

Me: Oh, cool!

Paul: And that means you are five degrees from Kevin Bacon.

Me: (thinking: cool… I’ve beat it by one degree)

Paul: … and I’m six degrees from Kevin Bacon!

It was a cool moment to see Paul realize he really was six degrees from Kevin Bacon.

One quick note… he asked how I knew I was three degrees from Mr. T.  I only know because I was communicating some wishes to my first degree contacts.  I had one come back and said Mr. T was a second degree contact, and he’d be happy to do an introduction.

Sometimes we are a lot closer to our target contacts than we know, we just have to start asking “who do you know who might know … ” GO FORTH AND ASK!

Been a LONG time since I posted on Saturday, but this is pretty interesting.  I got it from the YoungPRPros.com mailing list this morning.

Read this article and the comments about California’s Supreme Court finally ruling noncompetes as garbage (er, unenforceable, even illegal).

This single issue has plagued hundreds of professionals whom I’ve met over the last two years, and I’m sure hundreds of thousands of professionals who just want to make a living.

One issue brought up in the comments is that now we’ll have employees going off and starting their own gig with no regard for the employer’s intellectual property (IP):

“Well there goes a bunch of companies leaving California. Why would they want to be bound by laws that allow employees to steal their clients and the company secrets.”

Many comments are in favor of this.  I can imagine this will bring a whole rash of intellectual property lawsuits, and the reality is a company is going to be able to outspend me (and you, probably) in court.  They can sit around with their salaries and lifestyles, while we tap into our retirement to fund a legal proceeding in court, trying to get a paycheck again.

It’s not over, but it’s a good start, I think.  Everyone who seems to know anything about noncompetes have indicated they are virtually unenforceable… this just seems like one more nail (a big nail) in the coffin.

Will this help you?  Will this affect your future employment?  How will companies react to this (i.e., what policies will they put into place, perhaps not sharing IP as freely as before), and most of all, will the federal government follow in California’s tracks, and when?

Interesting.  But I’m sure there will be adverse consequences.

It started a few weeks ago, when my four year old daughter complained of a really bad toothache (the kind that makes crocodile tears flow), and cut short her trip with her grandparents.  We drugged her up and scheduled an appointment with a dentist for the next day.

As she was sitting in “the chair,” the dentist explained to me that he is seeing the quality of American’s teeth go downhill rapidly.  He said the main reason was the lack of dental insurance, which we used to have in abundance, and now not many people have it.  I’m sure the healthy supply of soda and other sweets doesn’t help, but his argument was that people used to come in for six-month visits regularly, since their insurance paid for it, but dental insurance started going away and people now neglect their regular visits.

The diagnosis on my daughter was not what we wanted to hear.  I was expecting to pay a few hundred dollars to fill a few cavities, but he said she required a “child root canal” or something like that.  Nothing sounds like money falling out of your wallet like “root canal.”

Turns out she got two of them, one for each side.  She’s only four and quite proud of these silver caps that cover the entirety of two teeth.  My wife feels guilty, horrible, as she never wanted to be “that mother,” the one who obviously let her kid eat junk and neglect her teeth (another stereotype, of course… hey, we’re human).

This put us back over $1,500.  Very expensive procedure, not to mention scary to have your kid “go under” with anesthesia.

I quickly made an appointment to see the dentist.  You know when you watch a movie about, say, spiders, you suddenly feel like you are covered with spiders?  I suddenly felt like all my teeth were about to fall out, or at least ridden with cavities.  I remembered every little pain or discomfort and was sure I, too, would have tons of cavities.  I would rather get them fixed now than have to pay for root canals later.

Guess what?  I hadn’t been to the dentist in about 5 years.  I didn’t go in the last year that I lived in Idaho, and haven’t been in the 4+ years since I moved to Utah.  When I told the receptionist this, she said they would probably have to do a deep clean which went under the gums, and they charge by the quadrant (in my mouth).  Charging by the quadrant sounds VERY EXPENSIVE, doesn’t it?

Long story short, I went in, scared (of pain) and worried (about money).  About 90 minutes later I walked out – they were amazed my teeth looked so good.  Not one cavity, and a simple cleaning and polish, and I was good to go for another six months!  I felt so blessed at that time, and glad that I had flossed and used Listerine faithfully.  Reminds me of a saying from a friend of mine:

Be true to your teeth, and they will be true to you.

and,

Q: Do I have to floss every tooth?  A: only the ones you want to keep!

The reason I’m posting this is because I probably have some readers who are putting off critical things, like dental care.  Take care of it now, while it’s inexpensive (my trip, including all xrays, was about $200) and relatively easy.  Ignoring certain things is just asking for trouble.  I wrote about this last year in Water Damage Is Expensive – Don’t Neglect Your House, and should have taken my own advice!

Pizza Hut.  McDonalds.  Article Circle. Home Depot.

Are these places for me to work?  Should I go from general manager to “would you like fries with that?”

Before you get all upset and think I’m being an elitest, realize I’m writing this because it’s one of the biggest issues I hear about from professionals who become unemployed.  I’ll share my ideas, and I welcome your balancing perspectives.

Before I lost my job, I was quite a stereotyper.  I would look at an unemployed professional and say “I would do anything to pay my own way – get two jobs at McDonalds,” or whatever.  It’s really easy to say when it’s not you.  As I faced the issues of unemployed income (not coming in) vs. unemployed expense (still going out), I thought about McDonalds.  Here are three rationalizations for NOT taking this type of (temporary) job:

1. Humility vs. Pride. Perhaps you could find a store that is not in your neighborhood, so you don’t have to serve Ms. Jones and her snotty kids (who whisper, all-to-loud, “what’s he doing here??”). It’s easy to say someone else needs to get over themselves and get the job at McDonald’s but when it’s you, with all your education, clout and self-importance, … it’s easy to justify why you shouldn’t.  It can probably be summed up in one word: pride.
2. Actual income. If I worked 40 hours a week, at $6/hour, I would make about $1,000 a month.  Give me a break, this was a fraction of my previous income, and wouldn’t even cover my mortgage.  Even if I “need the money,” is this the only way I could earn money?  Perhaps I do need a temporary job (see below for another way of saying this), but I have to consider my expenses and find a job that can contribute significantly towards that.  Oh yeah, don’t forget taxes
3. Harmful to the job search. Let’s be conservative and say I’m working 20 hours a week.  That 20 hours might preclude me from getting to job interviews, networking one-on-one, formal networking events, taking phone calls when they come in (“why yes, Ms. Hiring Manager, I’d love to come in tomorrow for an interview” vs. missing the call altogether), etc.

Those are three rationalizations.  Let’s look at it from another perspective.  When I went through a two-day job search workshop, they referred to this “temporary job” as a step job.  It is just a stepping-stone to get to where I was supposed to go.  A step job is what you get to keep the incoming coming in.

It is also helpful to keep you out of your house, networking, even keeping skills sharp or broadening your vision.  A step job can be helpful in many ways, and it doesn’t have to be at McDonalds.  Consider a step job as a job you occupy while you are looking for that right opportunity.

Perhaps YOU are in a step job right now (and didn’t realize it)!

There’s nothing wrong with that, just make sure that the step job doesn’t preclude you from getting the job you are shooting for.  I’ve thought about step jobs with nigh shifts, but knew I’d be a good-fer-nothing all day long (and grumpy, too)!

So what do you think?  McDonalds to low for you?  Does a step job make sense?

I got the following question from a JibberJobber user:

I just talked to one of my references who has now talked to two different recruiters for me. I asked him if he was asked any “stumper” questions and he said that both recruiters asked the same question that he didn’t have a good answer for: “Name a time that XXXX saved money for a client”.

This would appear to be a standard question when asking about someone who’s been a consultant and it never occurred to me to make sure my references had an answer to it.

I asked my partners about this (since I didn’t make it that far in my job search ), and Wendy Terwelp, of Knocks.com, responded:

The recruiters may have been trained by Jeff Skretney or another superstar in the staffing industry who trains NATIONWIDE – and this is one of his typical questions he trains recruiters to ask during a reference check.

To answer question, YES. Do coach your references. Provide each of your references with a copy of your resume, so they have a fresh reminder of your background. Give them three options to answer when asked the “money saving” question – be sure they know about the savings personally. For example, “Yes, I remember when Jason saved the client (or company) around $150,000 in shipping costs by using ground instead of air – per year! Our client was ecstatic and increased their orders with us by 10 percent.” or whatever is relevant to the job. By the way, achievements like these should be on the resume.

I also think it’s a great idea to coach your references.  You’ll likely call them anyway, to ask them if they will be a reference for you, right?  In that call you might consider two talking points:

1. Coach them on your brand. They may have known you as Mary in Accounting, but you want to go into another related field.  Let them know this, and emphasize the aspects of your brand that will help with a reference check.  Isn’t this also referred to as “transferable skills?”
2. Coach them on specific questions that may be asked. The question above is one example… I did a google search and came up with some other ideas:

Susan Heathfield, Human Resources expert at About.com, wrote Job Search Tip: Prep Your References for a Reference Check, which as some excellent ideas.  Among some obvious questions that I would think of, here are some she suggests (you can get this from her “Reference Checking Format” worksheet for those who check references):

• How many reporting staff did the candidate manage? Their roles?
• Tell me about the candidate’s most important contributions to the achievement of your organization’s mission and goals.
• Describe the candidate’s productivity, commitment to quality and customer orientation.

Best Job Interview.com has a great article on references in general, and then a list of questions… here are more to consider:

• What was (candidate’s) reason for leaving your company?
• Can you tell me (candidate’s) salary at the time of leaving?
• How would you describe (candidate’s) punctuality?
• Could you rate (candidate’s) reliability?
• How would you describe (candidate’s) honesty and integrity?

eHow has a brief article titled How to Ask a Job Reference Questions, Best Job Today has a few more questions to consider in their article Interviewee Reference Questions, and Ellen Heffernan of SJG-The Spelman and Johnson Group has an awesome article, Your References: An Important Part of the Job Search Process.

My biggest question is, with all of these potential questions, how in the world do you coach your reference?  Do you prepare a cheatsheet for them, with questions and answers (not a bad idea), so they can refer back to talking points?

When I got laid off I thought I’d land pretty quickly.  I was an experienced professional with strong IT, strategy, business and customer relationship skills, and excited about life and business.

I didn’t know that the job search would kick my butt, and my ego would dwindle as the days/weeks went by.

Even though I had not ever been in a job search, I thought I knew what I was doing.  My strategy looked like this:

1. Get resume ready, and pass it by trusted friends who would be able to critique it.
2. Post resume on key job boards, including Monster, Careerbuilder and Dice.
3. Apply to jobs I found online from various sources (job boards, company sites, etc.).
4. Send resumes to recruiters, who would surely love me, help me, and bend over backwards to put a paycheck back in my hands (couldn’t let the 3.5 kids starve now, could they?).
5. Ignore the concept of networking, since it would take too much time, and I would have an offer pretty soon.  Um, yeah.  I was that dumb.
6. Prepare for interviews by reading articles about how to interview.  After all, I was going to have a lot of interviews coming up soon, and I wanted to be as sharp as a whip.
7. Figure out how to do salary negotiation. This needed to be a step forward, not a step backwards.
8. Figure out how to accept a job offering, while turning down at least three others.  How could I let the other three down easily?

I was ready to conquer the world.  Or at least get a great job that I’d love, hopefully as much as I loved my last job.  Well, my job search sucked, and I spent wasted 60 hours each week for months – mostly applying to jobs online.  Want to know where that got me?  Further unemployed.

I have some friends who recently got laid off, and thought “what would I suggest to you?  What do you do in the first 30 days in a job search?”  This is such a critical time.  So here’s what I would suggest:

1. Get your resume ready. Find a way to scape up a few hundred dollars and get a competent, well-respected resume writer to do it for you.  During the resume-writing process you should learn some new phrases to help you in your interviewing, and networking.  If you can’t get the money (I realize there are some who read my blog with tens of thousands of dollars available to them, and others who don’t have one red cent left, and no family or support group), go to a library (or bookstore) and read through resume books.  Or, for $9.95 buy the resume book I recently reviewed by master resume writer Louise Kursmark.  MY RESUME LOOKED GOOD, BUT IT KEPT ME OUT OF JOB INTERVIEWS! I am confident a resume professional would have been able to help me figure that out BEFORE I applied to dozens and dozens and dozens of postings.
2. Find someone to be accountable to. I learned about the importance of this from a network group I went to, where they emphasized your “coach” is NOT your spouse (who is too close to the emotional situation).  But you need to find someone to be accountable to on a weekly basis.  This person should be strong enough to lay down the smack if you need it (you probably will).  They should not be nut-cases who don’t understand the job search, especially the importance of networking.  If you can afford it, consider one of my career partners who will not only be accountable, but will guide you based on best-practices and CURRENT job search and career management information.
3. Understand your finances. One of the first things we did, and it was very scary and humbling to do this, was to talk finances with our parents (both sets) and our local church leader.  We got some temporary help, and we were able to really understand our financial status, what we could/should cut, and how long we could go at the rate we were going.  You HAVE TO do this. Is it scary to talk to those who can help you?  Very.  Heck, I got too much schooling, and had great titles, and made good money… talking to someone about supporting MY family was not easy at all.  But it was very helpful, both financially and for my nerves.
4. Learn about the relationship you have with recruiters. I thought recruiters would be the silver bullet in my job search.  I was WRONG.  They don’t work for me, they work for the hiring company, and get paid if they make a placement.  If they don’t have something that fits me, they MOVE ON fast.  I put too many eggs in that basket without understanding what I was doing.
5. Understand the value of job boards. Yes, post your resume there, but don’t overdo it, and don’t spend too much time there.  An eye-opener for me was when I learned that about 10ish % of all jobs were placed through job boards (this stat is widely argued), so WHY spend more than 10ish% of my time on job boards???  I was spending 90+% of my time there, neglecting what I should have been doing.  Consider getting job search agents set up, so you don’t even have to go search for the job openings, and doing “competitive intelligence research” to learn what you can about target companies or industry happenings.
6. Network, in person. You cannot ignore the power of in-person networking, and should not avoid this.  You should get out every day – find networking events to go to, and invite people to breakfast, lunch or “coffee.”  Read Never Eat Alone to understand the power of networking… this was the book that changed my entire attitude, especially when networking with other job seekers.
7. Network, online.  Of all the tools you can network on online, I’ll suggest getting on LinkedIn first.  Grow your network with people in your space (profession, industry and geography).  Figure out how to network with them (which is too involved for this post).  Then, look for relevant Yahoo or Google Groups to join, again, in your space.
8. Get prepared for a potentially long search, and a long time without an income. When I lost my job my dad wisely commented “I’ll expect you to be out of work for at least six months.”  I thought NO WAY.  I was too good to be out of work for that long.  Since then I’ve met professionals and executives who have been out of work for up to two years… at least a handful for more than two years.  As you settle in to this phase in your career, you need to adjust your mindset.  Remain optimistic but realistic or else you’ll find yourself with financial and emotional problems that compound the issues.
9. Kiss your spouse and kids. This is stressful for you, right?  Humiliating?  Scary?  It is equally as stressful for your family.  A few months into our job search someone asked my wife how I was doing.  She said “I don’t know.  We don’t talk much anymore.”  That really hit me hard… I didn’t realize that our communication all-but-stopped.  She was trying to be strong for me, and I was trying to be strong for her, and we just didn’t have much to say during this time.  What a waste of time – take advantage of this time to communicate about important matters.  And realize your kids are going to wonder what the heck is going on, and perhaps have to fend of rumors from neighborhood friends (like “your dad got fired!”).
10. JibberJobber. If you showed me JibberJobber at the beginning of my job search I would have said phooey!  I wasn’t going to need it for more than a few weeks, right?  WRONG.  The job search went longer than expected.  More importantly, as you use JibberJobber you enter information that will be critical in your next job search… helping you get a jump start on that next transition (not a pleasant thought, but hey, we’re all adults here – it’s time to be serious about your future transitions).  The amount of information to keep track of, and the potential for missing appointments, opportunities and followup, is just too much… you really need to get a real tool to help manage your job search – this is it. If you are serious, consider the optional upgrade.

I’m sure I’m missing stuff, and this is much more “JOB SEARCH” oriented than “CAREER MANAGEMENT” oriented.  What would you add or suggest?

One of the cool things about my career expert partners is that they are thought leaders in the career space.  One of my partners, Louise Kursmark, is well-known as a thought-leader amongst her peers, recruiters, etc.  She has the uncanny ability to combine the “very nice person” characteristic with astute businessperson.  And she has a bunch of books that she has authored…

Her latest, 30 Minute Resume Makeover, is a great read.  At only $9.95, this 200+ page book has a ton of valuable information for you to understand the how and why of an excellent resume.  Louise includes a number of example resumes, picking them apart and explaining what makes them effective, what can be improved, etc.  If you are a “do it yourself” type, I’d say this is an essential purchase.

The tagline is “Rev up your old resume in half an hour”… here are the chapters:

• Chapter 1: Resume Diagnosis
• Chapter 2: Resume Repair: The 30-Minute Resume Makeover
• Chapter 3: Proofread and Polish to Perfection
• Chapter 4: Before-and-After Resume Transformations (has 18(!!) resume transformations, including a situation, the before version, the after version, and strategic thoughts)
• Chapter 5: Create a Killer Cover Letter (this is an awesome chapter)
• Chapter 6: Find a Job Fast
• Appendix: Resume Development Worksheet

If I had this book, my resume probably would not have sucked, and I would have gotten a job in 2006 (thank goodness that didn’t happen :p).

You can find her book on Amazon here, or at Wendy Enelow’s bookstore here.

If you want to find resume writing information on this blog, check out “The Resume Experiment,” a five-post series where resume experts and recruiters pick apart a resume and suggest their revisions.  Louise Kursmark was one of the expert resume writers contributing there.