Liz Lynch Smart Networking – Official Website
Founder of the Center for Networking Excellence
The “Groups” feature of LinkedIn has continued to grow in popularity and utility. Groups are a powerful tool for expanding the depth and breadth of your LinkedIn network. Many Groups treat members similar to FIRST DEGREE connections — allowing you to make direct contact with a Group member without a referral or “Inmail”.
I am currently an active member in over 30 Groups (LinkedIn allows you to join up to a maximum of 50 Groups). I highly recommend finding AT LEAST 10 Groups to join — AND becoming ACTIVE in. Activity is key; simply joining gives you some benefits but being active in Group news and discussions is where the real value and leverage is.
Some of the things you can do as a Group member, all of which help you to GIVE VALUE TO YOUR NETWORK and expand your network reach and network quality include:
Give consideration to the following ideas when searching for Groups to join:
Original post on Career Success! Partners
Author:
Andy Robinson (@AndyInNaples) is a leading authority on career success and 15-year career coaching veteran whose passion in business life is “helping people love what they do for a living and achieve incredible career success.” Andy is CEO of CRG Leadership Institute and co-host of Career Success Radio Show.
Are YOU Getting Noticed?
Do YOU Stand Out from the Crowd?
Try the following idea every once in a while to ”research” and confirm your brand awareness:
OK, so what exactly have you accomplished with the above. Consider this:
Use your personal branding program to stay on the radar screen of your contact network base – by keeping them current on what you do for a living and how you add value to your clients. Your branding program should include newsletters, frequent communication through social media, blogging and “in person” networking at clubs and professional organizations . “Test” your branding program on an ONGOING basis using the above research program and make adjustments as necessary.
All the best to your career success!
Original post on Career Success! Partners
Author:
Andy Robinson (@AndyInNaples) is a leading authority on career success and 15-year career coaching veteran whose passion in business life is “helping people love what they do for a living and achieve incredible career success.” Andy is CEO of CRG Leadership Institute and co-host of Career Success Radio Show.
Smart Networking Radio is back!Tuesdays, 7pm Eastern…
The latest job figures released two Fridays ago showed that the U.S. unemployment rate inched up 10 basis points in September to 9.8 percent. Many companies continue to reduce headcount, and those that are hiring are being very cautious and taking their time to find the right candidate. Yet, many job seekers are still approaching their job search like it’s 1999, when the unemployment rate was just half of that–4.9 percent. While I realize some of this blog’s readership was still in high school back then, those of us Gen X and older can remember the heady days of the last decade. Ten years ago, I had been working for the same company for 4 years and while I loved the industry, I wanted more variety in my job. When I started looking around for other opportunities, I wasn’t firmly committed to leaving so I didn’t push myself very hard. I surfed around a few job boards and submitted my resume very selectively. Even with that half-hearted attempt, I still got three job offers in just a few weeks in industries I had never worked in before and in roles I had never done. But the job market was very different then. The tech bubble hadn’t burst yet and even when layoffs did start to come in 2000, it usually didn’t take workers very long to find that next position. Median duration of unemployment was only 6 weeks in 2000, a fraction of today’s average of 18 weeks, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. So what does this mean for today’s job seeker? At a minimum, you have to show yourself as a perfect or near-perfect fit for the job in terms of qualifications.
A different market
Perfect or near perfect
While you’ll certainly beat out 85-90% of job seekers who don’t even do this much–again, those who still think it’s 1999, or at least, wish it was—you’ll still find plenty of stiff competition. It’s like going into college as va
ledictorian of your high school and realizing your freshman class is filled with them.
While the tangibles are the minimum price of entry, what will often break the tie are the intangibles:
The bar you have to jump over to land a job is so much higher today than it was 10 years ago. Accept that reality and adjust your job search strategy accordingly. Instead of half-heartedly applying for jobs on job boards and hoping you’ll get a call back, spend more time proactively building your case to position yourself as close to the ideal candidate as the company could hope for.
Read the original post at Personal Branding Blog
NOTE: If you’re frustrated by your dead-end job search and ready to ramp things up, read more about my groundbreaking new program, the Job Search Marekting Blueprint.
Networking is something many job seekers get into reluctantly. It can feel awkward if you haven’t done much of it before. What do you do, where do you start? Losing your job, especially, can make you want to hold back from meeting new people and talking about yourself. What will you say when they ask what you do, and more importantly, how will you project confidence when so much of your identity had been wrapped up in a job you were forced to leave? It’s understandable then that as soon as you do land a job, you’d want to stop networking. The desire to dive into your new cubicle or office and bury yourself in your work can be very strong. And it’s easy to use the excuse of being too busy learning your new job to get out there and network. In an ideal world, you’d keep up some networking momentum, perhaps shifted down a gear or two. What this current job market has illustrated is that having a strong network on the look out for opportunities for you, and willing to recommend you for them, is the key to minimizing your time in the unemployment line. Since you never know when you’ll need your network again, before you withdraw back into your comfort zone, there are a few things you can do to make sure your network is ready to go again whenever you are: 1) Close the loops
2) Start making internal inroads 3) Maintain your outside network All of these activities keep you visible and in the flow of new ideas and opportunities that can help advance your career. They also keep you in the right mindset for networking. When you’re not putting pressure on yourself to get something, you put less pressure on others, and at the same time, become more comfortable with networking overall. Read original post and comments at Personal Branding Blog.
An ever ready network
According to a veteran Chicago search consultant, most executive job seekers focus on recruiters and job boards to land their next position. Yet, “recruiters get 15% of all executive job searches and fill half of them, and only 1% of anybody ever gets a job from a job board.” Hmmm, that sounds like the 80/20 rule at it’s absolute worst! Expending 80% of your effort on the strategies that work only 20% of the time, or in this case maybe closer to 90/10. With the national unemployment rate creeping up closer to 10%, and the average job search taking 6+ months to complete, it’s obvious that job seekers need help. Over the summer, my good friend Lynn Strigh and I created an amazing program called the Job Search Marketing Blueprint to show unemployed professionals how to tap into hidden job opportunities and position themselves more effectively in this ultra selective buyer’s market. On top of that, I’ve put together a brand new teleseminar but I need YOUR help in setting the agenda. So, I want to know… * * What’s your single biggest question about accelerating your six-figure job search?” * *
I want to focus in on the things you’re most interested in hearing about. On this special call, I’ll be answering the 10 most popular questions and telling you more about the Blueprint. Once you register below, you’ll be directed to a web page where you can submit your burning question. But even if you don’t have a specific question, you’re more than welcome to join us for the call and listen in to the questions and answers. Oh, and even though the main audience for this is six-figure job seekers, truthfully, whether you’re looking for a job that pays $50,000 a year or $500,000 a year, the approach is not that different. So if you’re not making six figures yet, the answers to these questions may help you get to that level a lot sooner. Enter your name and a valid email address, then click “Send Me the Details” to have all of the teleseminar information emailed to you. Space is limited so be sure to claim your spot right away: Attending the teleseminar is FREE; register above to get access to the call-in details.
EVENT: Liz Lynch answers your burning questions about accelerating your six-figure job search DATE: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 TIME: 8:00 PM Eastern (7:00 PM Central, 6:00 PM Mountain, 5:00 PM Pacific) FORMAT: Join us from the comfort of your home or office. Listen via phone or the Internet through a live webcast. No special software is required, you just need a telephone OR a computer with an Internet connection. COST: It’s FREE to attend the LIVE event! However, you must register to get the call-in number and webcast details. Audio recording will be available after the call if you can’t be with us live. Remember, space is limited, so be sure to reserve your spot ASAP! Update 10/2/09: If you missed the LIVE call, you can still register above to get access to the replay…
I was interviewed by CNN last week to give some quick tips on using social networking for a job search beyond just updating your status to say you’re looking for a job. In the segment I focused most on LinkedIn not only because there are now close to 45 million professionals who are members of that site, but because more and more recruiters and hiring managers are using it to find candidates directly rather than relying on job boards. With the unemployment rate at its highest level in 26 years, a posting on an online job board can inundate a recruiter with hundreds or thousands of resumes, a large percentage of which are likely to be unqualified for the job. An article in The Wall Street Journal last month, for example, told of a law firm that posted a position and received responses from almost 1,000 people, half of whom did not even have a law degree! But I also focused on LinkedIn because I feel there are some underutilized features that job seekers can leverage to help them find opportunities that are just starting to bubble up before they’re widely advertised. And by the way, it’s a great tool for entrepreneurs too to help them be proactive in identifying unmet needs and proposing solutions. One of these features is the Companies page. From the top menu of the home page of LinkedIn, click on the “Companies” option and type in a company name or keyword in the search box. LinkedIn will show you an employee listing, including specifically anyone in your network who works there, used to work there, or is connected to someone who does. Speaking to a few people within each group can be enormously valuable for getting different perspectives on the potential opportunities within your target companies. For example: This is incredible market intelligence that would have been near impossible to perform just a few years ago.
The company who’s who
To assist you in crafting your outreach emails to these folks, I’d like to point you to two recent posts from my Personal Branding Blog colleagues: Monica O’Brien outlined a terrific sample template for requesting a brief informational interview over the phone, and Chad Leavitt shared great strategies for how to effectively contact recruiters you might find on that employee list.
All the information you need is at your fingertips, now go for it!
Read the original post in Personal Branding Blog.
There is no doubt about the
importance and effectiveness of networking in your career search. Networking, both online and in person,
provides you the opportunity to present yourself and your career objective in a
much more personal way.
Networking is essentially active personal
branding, which can be defined as the process of:
Many experts have said that when it comes to
job search networking, “It’s not what you
know, it’s who you know.” However, I couldn’t disagree more.
First of all, what you know is part of the
value that you bring to the table (a.k.a. your personal brand) and therefore, it
is of the utmost importance in your networking efforts.
Second and more importantly, it’s not who you
know, it’s who knows you, or better yet, who knows your personal brand enough
to reach out to you with an opportunity where they know you and your brand
would contribute the most value.
You may know a lot of influential people, but
do they think of you when an opportunity arises? No matter how outstanding a candidate you may be, networking
really comes down to getting your personal brand out there in front of your
career stakeholders and communicating what you have to offer in a memorable and
consistent manner.
So, what are some easy ways to network your
personal brand out in front of others?
There are many more ways you can get your
personal brand out there in front of others, from introducing yourself to your
neighbors to talking to someone sitting next to you on the subway or on a
plane.
In the end, networking really falls on how
well you have branded yourself to those whom you have identified as potential
stakeholders in your career. Therefore, remember that in your career search efforts, and happy
networking!
About Chris Perry:
Chris Perry is a
Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding
Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.
