I met Nick Corcodilos in Savannah at a conference.  He was telling a bunch of resume writers that resumes were useless, and why they were useless.  I thought it was a very gutsy thing to do – come to a conference as a keynote speaker and tell all of the professionals that their chosen profession (and for many, life passion) was obsolete.

That is how Nick is: gutsy.

Nick Corcodilos is an undisputed subject matter expert and thought leader in the job search space.  He has been writing for syndicated columns for years, and many thousands of people have read and benefited from his work and his perspective.

I got a chance to check out his new How to Work With Headhunters and even my expectations were exceeded – this is a terrific book and one that I recommend to anyone who is ready to really understand how recruiters play a part in your job search.

I didn’t understand – I thought recruiters found me a job when I most needed it.

Nothing further from the truth, especially in my situation.

Thankfully, one recruiter said “Jason, you’ll find a job for yourself sooner than I’ll find anything for you.”

It was then that I started to understand the job seeker / recruiter relationship.

If you aren’t getting value out of recruiters, and the valuable resource they could be in your job search and career management, then check out Nick’s book: How to Work with Headhunters… and how to make headhunters work for you.

Also, sign up for Nick’s free weekly newsletter – I’m on it and it has great info every week.  Go to Ask the Headhunter and you’ll see the link to subscribe towards the top.

Three and a half years ago I had a business plan, and I had a vision statement for my business.

I thought I would have a gazillion signups on JibberJobber, and that a percentage (high or low, didn’t matter – because even a low percentage of a gazillion is a lot) would have upgraded.

I had no idea that in my future I would write a book or two, or become a professional speaker, or have a product to sell, or become an executive editor, or that I would have different profit centers I would work on.

My business evolved… my business plan was for one discrete thing, but because of various factors, things changed.

Just like your “career plan.”  I put that in quotes because if you are like me, I did not have anything close to formal with my career plan.

At one point in my life the plan was to become the CEO of a Fortune 500 company.  I figured it would be a decades-long process of working my way up the ladder.

When I landed my first significant job as the first IT manager to a medium sized company, I started to think that that was pretty sweet and I could do away with the huge company dream, and stay at a company that had a rich culture and was managed differently (private company vs. public company).

Six years later, when I got the ax, I had a ton of emotions, but figured it was all a part of my story, and I’d laugh about it in years to come.

It wasn’t part of the plan (who has getting laid off as part of their career plan?), but it seemed to be a common thing, so perhaps I was paying my dues.

Fast forward almost four years, and my career has taken a different path.

How has your career evolved?

Think back to when you were in school…

• What did you think you would be doing now?
• What did you think you’d be doing for a career in the first few years of your first real job?
• How about now – did you ever imagine you’d be where you are at?
• And perhaps the big question – understanding career management better, what do you think you’ll be doing in the next 5, 10, 15, 20 years?

Will it be a traditional corporate job?  Will it be freelancing?  Will it be investments?

Will you have one, or two streams of income?  Could you have five or ten?

Will you trade money for quality-of-life, or might you trade quality-of-life for money?

Could you, would you move from Expensive City, USA to Podunk Farms, USA?  Or should you go from Podunk to Expensive?

What I thought five and ten years ago is different… it has evolved.

I wonder what I’ll think five or ten years from now.

What do you think?

If you’ve heard me speak in the last year, chances are you’ve heard me talk about email signatures.  I recently saw a signature that POPPED OUT – let me share it with you:

I totally missed the middle name until I saw the hyperlink with the tagline.

I LOVE THIS.

I clicked on the hyperlink and guess where it took me?

SocialMediaIsMyMiddleName.com

Brilliant. Thanks for the excellent example of an email signature that helps brand a professional Scott!

More information on email signatures as a personal branding tool at Today I (tearfully) Retire My Email Signature and A New Email Signature.

I remember when I finally understood I was supposed to followup with people on a regular basis… networking is about nurturing relationships, right?

What about the person you haven’t communicated with for years?  What do you followup with them about?  You might sound to pushy, with an agenda (“btw, please help me find a job!”) or you might sound to empty (“just writing to say hi, even though it’s been five years.  Okay, bye now!”).

That’s why I LOVE birthdays… it’s a great opportunity to reach out with no strong agenda, but also without being empty.

I have birthday reminders set up in JibberJobber and get an email on the day someone is having a birthday.  It brings me a bit of festive joy when I know someone is having their special day, and I hope that sending them a happy birthday email (cuz I’m an email-kinda-guy ).

Aside from the birthdays I have for my contacts in JibberJobber, I also get notices on Facebook and from Plaxo.  In addition, when I look at my Twitter stream I sometimes catch a “happy birthday to ______!”  I usually take the info from Facebook, Plaxo or Twitter and put that into JibberJobber, so I’m sure to get a birthday reminder email next year.

Consider birthday networking as part of your relationship nurturing strategy – just a simple but genuine message can help you maintain those relationships!

More on birthday networking with JibberJobber at these two posts:

Why Grandma Should Use JibberJobber

Adjusting your Birthday Reminders

Jacob Share’s Job Mob blog is one of the few I subscribe to via email – always something interesting there.  Last week he wrote The Funniest Article Ever About Job Interviewing Tips, which includes an exclusive interview with a guy who created a fake office and did fake interviews, taping them and then compiling information on how to nail the interview.  Check out Jacob Share’s interview with Steinar Skipness here.

Steinar Skipness’s site is worth the time, and should bring a smile to your Monday morning – click on over to How To Nail An Interview – not only does he have 20 tips there, but he has some clips from interviews to drive the points home.  Check out the video from Tip 14, Less is More:

None of this stuff is new, but to see the mistakes on video is really fun

A couple of weeks ago I went to Orlando for a conference.  When I got back to my office my computer was rebooting.

I think it had been rebooting for days.

In fact, it was stuck… and each time I tried to restart it I either almost got it to start (in Safe Mode) or it would remain hung in the rebooting process.

Finally, I took it back to the place I got it and they replaced the hard drive.  Diagnosis?  Unfixable, hard-drive failure…

Cool – I got a new hard drive – probably faster and better!

Uncool: I had to reinstall EVERYTHING on it.

I loaded Camtasia (for webcast recordings) and Snagit (for screenshots) and Skype (for my phone system) and Windows Live (for chatting) and Dymo Labels and Dymo Stamps (to ship my LinkedIn DVDs) and my printer driver (took way longer than it should have) and Adobe Acrobat (which should come with the OS installation) and GoToWebinar (for my webinars that I do at least twice a week) and GOM Player (to view videos from my video editor).

So far I’ve loaded all of the mission critical stuff.

So far I haven’t had to load Microsoft Outlook, Word, or Excel.

If I were to have had all of my contact information in Outlook, including names, phone numbers, email addresses (I use Gmail and Google Apps so I have this anywhere I have an Internet connection) then I would have already loaded Microsoft Office.  And then I would have to go to my backup and retrieve the backup.

If you are using a desktop application to manage your professional relationships, I sincerely hope you have the disks for the application so you can easily reload it on your machine.

I also hope you are somehow backing up YOUR DATA so that if something happens, after you reload it, you can get your contact information back.

Managing your career is hard enough without worrying about being your own IT Manager.

That’s why I’ll not use Outlook beyond what it was designed for.

Obviously I use JibberJobber for my Personal Relationship Manager (PRM) and Customer Relationship Manager (CRM).  During the time my PC was down (about a week) I could still access all of that critical information from my laptop, just by logging into JibberJobber.com.

I still have important information in my Outlook, but it hasn’t been important enough for me to load outlook and then figure out how to restore my files.  So far JibberJobber has carried me through the mess of a failed PC.

By the way, I have used and strongly encourage a third party backup system… the one I’ve used is Mozy.com, which is owned by EMC.  It costs $5/month and runs backups when I’m not using the PC.

Use Outlook for what it was intended … and if you use it for more, or don’t have proper measures in place in case it goes down, you are risking sanity and productivity.

There are lots of books on Twitter right now – I was supposed to write one of the earliest but I was in the middle of rewriting I’m on LinkedIn — Now What??? and I wasn’t sure I wanted to write another technical book that would have to be updated every year!  I opted to not do that but instead create hands-on, visual webinar recording that shows you how to use Twitter.

Twitter for Job Seekers (the video) is specifically designed for professionals in a job search.

It is a 1 hour and 24 minues (and one second) video, walking you through what Twitter is, and how to use it in your job search.

It’s based on the idea that you want to find network contacts who can help you in your job search – find people to add to your own personal/professional network, as well as how to communicate with them after you find them.

There is also training on what to do with your own Twitter account. As a professional, what could or should you be tweeting?  (going into personal branding, and how to use Twitter as a Personal Branding tool)

I show you how to get value out of Twitter EVEN IF YOU DON’T HAVE A TWITTER ACCOUNT.  This is essential for many professionals who aren’t excited to jump on this bandwagon, but still want to tap into the power that Twitter.com has created.  There is significant power there – and you can tap into it without even signing up for an account.

I won’t try to convince anyone to get a Twitter account, but I do want you to learn how to use this tool so you can achieve your career management objectives.

To access the recording (as many times as you like) simply do the following:

1. Login to JibberJobber.com.  This is as security measure so this video isn’t shared out inappropriately.  If you don’t have a JibberJobber account, get one on the front page – it takes about 60 seconds.
2. Mouse over the Tools link (from the main menu) and go all the way down to Videos (click on the Videos link).
3. The last tab on Videos is “Premium Videos.” Twitter for Job Search is the last one there.

This $50 investment into your career management is worth it… once you are done you should have your brain wrapped around Twitter as a tool, and know how you are going to incorporate it into your job search strategy.

(if you are already logged into JibberJobber, simply click here)

It’s been a while since I helped write I’m on Facebook — Now What??? Jesse and I have been talking about getting a second edition out early next year, and I’m excited to get a more current book out (although Jesse says the book is still quite relevant, which is cool).

My mind has been in Facebook lately as I prepare a 90 minute presentation called FACEBOOK ESSENTIALS FOR EXECUTIVES: Meet the “new” Facebook.  You can sign up at the Experts Connection website (click the link above) – I’m really jazzed to share what I’ve learned – specifically, what we should be doing with Facebook as part of our social networking strategy.

Monday I blogged about not ever allowing one person to have control over my income again.  Thom Allen has seen me go from job seeker to business owner and professional career manager over the last few years.  I was surprised to see this in the comments from him:

I have seen [Jason (me)] change over the past few years.

Oh boy… here it comes… what exactly has changed?  I’m still the same brilliant (lol) person I was three years ago.  He continues:

He’s more confident, which is probably a far cry from where he was when he started JibberJobber.

Hm.  Interesting observation. I thought that when I started JibberJobber I was pretty confident (or, cocky).  But Thom has seen me in various network settings and lunches over time, and he’s got a different perspective than I do.

As I’ve thought about it I wondered where my confidence level was at back then… and where it is at today.  I admit today I’m more confident because I’m three years into my business, and I have accomplished a lot.  Back then I really had no idea if could measure up to the challenge.

I wonder what people would say about YOUR confidence level, right now?

If you are in a job search, or an extended job search, I bet your confidence level is lower than you might think.

This week at my networking event I met plenty of capable, accomplished executives who seemed to have low confidence levels.

Do me a favor – go read one of my favorite blog posts talking about this very issue – it’s called I Smell Blood.

And think about how you can change your confidence level – because it really does make a difference.

Yesterday I blogged about my cousin who was hired in just a few days from when he found a job posting on Craigslist.

I guarantee he was prepared to have the right conversation when the time came.  He was ready.

Last night I dropped in on a network meeting I haven’t been to for over a year.  The hostess recognized me and at one point said “Jason, why don’t you take a few minutes and tell us about JibberJobber?”  What a golden opportunity to sell the concept to people who needed it.  Two years ago I would have messed it up – last night I was surprised, but much better prepared.

Today I flew into Orlando for a surprise meeting. I was just here 2 weeks ago.  Due to a series of events that happened from two weeks ago, I’m back and here to talk about some pretty serious stuff.

I am ready.  I’ve been ready for a while.

You never know when you are going to meet that key contact – whether it’s online or in person.  It might be from a referral, and it might seem meaningless.  But you have to be ready.  here are some of my suggestions:

• Know what you want. If you know what you want, then when an opportunity arrives you’ll be better prepared to react appropriately.
• Know how others can help you. People will say “how can I help you?”  It is better to know what to say rather than “I’m not sure but I’ll let you know later.”
• Know who you are. So many elevator pitches suck – they are misleading and offbrand.  If you know who you are, who you want to be, and how to communicate it, you can take advantage of those 10 or 30 seconds  you might get.  Not prepared?  That’s okay, you can just mess it up like most people do.

How else can you be ready?