"I Can't Find A Job!"

The title of this post is so often repeated in the media — all the way from college students who have just graduated to middle managers who have lost their job to workers in the sunset of their career. "I get up — I check out the job market — I send out a few resumes — and I never get a call back!" "What should I do?"

TAKE CHARGE OF YOUR LIFE.

It's easier said than done. But the reality is, there are more workers than jobs out there right now. And the premium jobs (management) are disappearing at a rapid pace due to productivity gains, technology, and the current economy. Check out this article.

BUT WHAT CAN I DO?

One option is to start your own business. It's never been easier in the history of people working. To start your own business, you need to clearly understand a number of areas:

• Knowledge of the Marketplace - is this needed?, is there a market for this?, are people willing to pay you for it?
• Drive & Hustle - a 'get off your ass' attitude to make it happen AND a drive to help you through the hard and complex times.
• A Vision - what is the future of this business?, where is it going?, who is your competition?
• A Mission - what are you going to do . . . exactly?
• A Plan - what are the steps, the timing, the resources, - the who, what, where, when, why and how?

Now you might say — "Start a business? How will I make money?" Let me give you an example:

There's a small shop in Kentucky called Gil Hibben Knives. You might have heard about them. Gil makes knives. Really good knives.

In addition to manufacturing his own knives, he runs classes where he teaches people to make their own knives:

• It's only offered once a month.
• The class runs for one week, each day from 9 AM to 5:30 PM.
• He only allows four people in each class. (he can probably run the class by himself)
• The classes are held at his shop in LaGrange, KY. (hotel, travel, food, etc. are your responsibility)
• He charges $995 for each participant.

The classes are FULL for the rest of the year.

Let's do a little broad math here: $1000 X 4 Students X 12 = $48,000/year.

And that's only working one week per month! This model allows him to work on manufacturing and other projects the other three weeks of the month! And let's be honest here — his site is pretty basic — it does the job, but anyone can do the same thing to market their services and wares. What I'm really saying is that it's pretty easy — don't let your mind develop obstacles.

And let me hazard a guess . . . he probably LOVES what he does.

So if the corporation work environment is slowly collapsing/changing — maybe you should strike out on your own and start that business?

It will be hard — it will tax you — but in the end, it will be well worth it.

P.S. I know there will be commenters who will say, "He's a famous knifemaker!" or "He's had his business for years!" or "Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah". You may be right, but from my viewpoint, they're just more obstacles you're putting in your way — moving you from success to mediocrity and failure. Get out there and do something!

The Rules Of Job Hunting Have Changed.

Bob Weinstein, a reporter who has interviewed me a number of times on job search, business, and career issues, has hit another home run again yesterday in the Connecticut Post, one of CT's largest newspapers. A whole article about job hunting rules from ME (click image or here to enlarge).

Bottom line:

• Take stock of all social media sites where you have been posting information.
• Step back and view each site with a laser focus — is there anything unprofessional?
• They are looking — especially LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, and Twitter.
• Use these sites to enhance your professional image and stature in the industry. 

A big shout-out to Bob — he's in a rarefied class all by himself - professional, understanding, and informs readers with solid and clear advice.

Social Media Is Ruining Your Life.

How many text messages do you send in a day? How many emails? Tweets? Foursquares? How many quotes/photos/links do you post on Facebook? Pinterest? How many sites do you surf to learn about the world around you?

All of this is GOOD. But it shouldn't be the end-all of what you do to communicate every day.

Do you interact with strangers anymore? Your neighbors? The shopkeeper down the street? The man at Starbucks who makes you that perfect coffee every day?

As we stretch out via the web, we are slowly and subtly closing out many people around us. Not our friends, but those people I call "Strangers". You know, the people you DON'T know and unfortunately, they don't know you either.

As we entwine our lives with more and more social media outlets, it allows us to forgo the opportunity to reach out to people we touch everyday — the waitress, the auto mechanic, the crossing-guard at the school — and have a meaningful conversation with them.

Honestly, we don't even have to talk to them anymore — they are not only strangers, they are 'non-people' in our lives.

You might say — so what? But you might be missing out on your new best friend, your new boss, or your new life partner.

A better title for this post should be "Start A Conversation".

In the next few days, start a conversation with 3-5 strangers whom you wouldn’t normally talk to:

Ask them a question, make them laugh, or give them a compliment (I really like how your arranging those oranges - how do you do that?). You also need to get a response back — and if the opportunity presents itself, have a conversation.

But this is my charge to you — you have to do it this week. Make it happen.

Why Aren't You Working On The Big Stuff?

Your life is filled with small stuff. And sometimes, as Richard Carlson said, "Don't sweat the small stuff". Unfortunately, we get caught up handling the small stuff almost all the time.

And it takes us away from working on that one big thing which will define us. That one project to get us exposure, a promotion, and solidify our position in the organization.

Or the big thing which will allow us to exponentially grow our business to great heights. To give it the perfect acceleration to grow beyond our dreams.

But we still spend most (if not all) of our time messing around with the small stuff. Why?

• It's easy. One and done — small things are simple to accomplish.
• We can do lots of them. We feel we are really making progress when we do them in succession.
• Organization. We can clean off our desk  of all the annoying papers, post-it notes, reminders in Outlook, etc. We are making progress!

Now don't get me wrong, they are important. But they shouldn't take up ALL of your waking hours to complete. You need to allocate a certain fraction of your day to work on the one or two BIG things which will ultimately define your work.

A great example is social media (read this). Lately, we've been indoctrinated to get out there and touch social media 'all the time'. Being hyper-active with social media tends to satisfy the 'small things' part of our workday (and I've been guilty of this lately). You also need to allocate time for your big thing.

So what's the ONE BIG THING you're working on this week?

What You Don't See Will Hurt You.

As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there's a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a "filter bubble" and don't get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview.

TED presents Eli Pariser, who argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.

What Is Social Media? It's Right Here.

This is today's marketplace (click on image to enlarge, click again to zoom in): Brought to you by Brian Solis.

Your Most Successful Social Media Tool.

There's so much written out there on Social Media. There are experts, seminars, books, etc. all on this topic on how to learn it and leverage it for your business. I'd love to find out what works for you. Twitter? LinkedIn? Facebook? GroupOn? Something else?

But here's the catch — What REALLY works? Where do you make money? Where do you get customers?

Let me know - you can either comment on this post or send me an email - socialmedia@richgee.com.

I'd love to hear from you — I will post the responses.

The Most Inspirational Social Media I've Ever Seen.

Every so often, a good friend sends you a story, an article, or a video in this case, that not only gives you hope and inspires you, it knocks your social media socks off. I know this will go viral (259,000 views since Sunday). It's not funny, there's no vitriol, just Carl Sagan talking to us over some magnificent images of our world from Reid Gower with Michael Marantz playing piano. Bravo NASA!

SIMPLE AND POWERFUL.

I Love Chris Brogan.

Go out and buy "Trust Agents: Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust" right now. In fact, download it onto your iPhone immediately (via Kindle for iPhone). I just finished this book and found at least 15 new ideas that I can implement immediately into my business and work routine. Have a product or service and want to increase sales? Then buy this book. Want people to hire you or have you speak more often? Then read this book. Want your lemonade stand to rock out more then the other kids? Then get this book.

In Trust Agents, two social media veterans show you how to tap into the power of social networks to build your brand's influence, reputation, and, of course, profits. Today's 'online influencers' are web natives who trade in trust, reputation, and relationships, using social media to accrue the influence that builds up or brings down businesses online.

The book shows how people use online social tools to build networks of influence and how you can use those networks to positively impact your business. Because trust is key to building online reputations,, those who traffic in it are "trust agents," the key people your business needs on its side.

• Delivers actionable steps and case studies that show how social media can positively impact your business
• Written by authors with over ten years of online media experience
• Shows you how to build and wield influence online to benefit your brand
• Combines high-level theory with practical step-by-step guidance

If you want your business to succeed, don't sit on the sidelines. Instead, use the Web to build trust with your consumers using Trust Agents.

Will Social Media Be of Any Help to CEOs?

Experts believe social media presents good opportunity for businesses to connect with their customers. By Fayazuddin A. Shirazi at Chief Executive Online.

Although industry analysts are increasingly advocating the usage of social media by companies, CEOs apparently are going easy on the suggestions. As against the increased usage of social media – such as Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and the fast growing blogs domain - by general public, CEOs are still lagging behind in adopting to such emerging trends and technologies.

Writing for his blog “My Three Cents”, Ken Makovsky, CEO and President Makovsky + Company, a NY based global investor relations company believes, CEOs are losing, what he calls, a powerful opportunity to connect with their customers by ignoring social media.

Commenting on a recent research piece which pronounced most of the CEOs to be social media slackers, Makovsky thinks social media is a rapidly growing community and CEOs should identify and align themselves with these emerging technologies.

The research by UberCEO.com, a blog watch on CEOs, found most of the Fortune 100 CEOs they surveyed were social media hermits. Out of the 100 CEOs analyzed only two had twitter accounts.

Eighty-one percent of chief executives did not have a personal Facebook page. Only 13 had profiles on the professional networking site LinkedIn. Three-quarters of the CEOs did have some kind of Wikipedia entry, but nearly a third of those had limited or outdated information, such as incorrect titles, or failed to provide sources. While some CEOs contribute to other blogs, not one Fortune 100 chief executive had his or her own blog, writes Makovsky.

However, recent research data from Nielsen revealed that people are spending more time on social networking and blog sites than ever before. Nielsen research found the number of minutes spent on social media in the United Sates is doubling over the past year. “Despite an increase (82 percent) in the total number of minutes spent year-over-year and average time per person (67 percent) year-over-years, the CEOs are still staying aloof from the rapidly growing social media community,” wonders Makovsky quoting the Nielsen and UberCEO report.

So why is that CEOs are wary about social media? Experts believe CEOs fear, their open dialogue could spell potential trouble for them as they are closely watched by the law and the governance agencies.

"No doubt regulations such as Sarbanes-Oxley and Reg-FD make CEOs cautious about communicating freely, but they're missing a fabulous opportunity to connect with their target audience and raise their company's visibility," Sharon Barclay, editor UberCEO.com told Reuters, referring to financial reporting regulations aimed at protecting investors.

Experts feel unless CEOs are motivated to use the social media themselves, they really cannot know what it is.

“You (CEOs) can't understand Twitter, Facebook, or blogging by reading an article in a magazine or a report from your CMO. Sure, they can tell you what they are, but you won't be able to truly understand how they could change your business unless you actually use them,” George F. Colony, CEO Forrester Research and the self-proclaimed CEO Guru had observed in his recent blog posting. He says the only way CEOs can understand social technologies is by using them.

“Social is like sex. It's fun to talk about and read about, but you can't truly comprehend unless you do it,” Colony noted in his blog posting at Counter Intuitive CEO.

According to Colony, the CEO of Zappos, Tony Hsieh, uses social extensively and now has 300 customer service representatives at the company on Twitter. Why? As Tony says..."People don't relate to companies, they relate to people."  “This is important insight. You, the 57 year old CEO may not use social, but that doesn't mean that your customers don't use social. You are not your customer,” Colony points out referring to Tony Hsieh’s view.

Makovsky believes, while not every CEO has the skills, inclination or regulatory freedom to blog, it’s worth remembering that the social media represent a powerful opportunity for a company — or virtually any other entity— to really connect with its most important stakeholders.

“Yes, much of the social technology is a titanic time waster. And yes, much of the technology is crap. But there may be real value here for your company -- something that you can't grasp unless you engage with social,” George F. Colony pointed out.

Build a Social Media Hiring Strategy.

Jon Jordan got a weird feeling recently when he interviewed a candidate for a sales and marketing position. By Chris Penttila at Entrepreneur Magazine.

The applicant’s claim of double-digit sales at another company didn’t parallel with that company’s turbulent history. “It didn’t match up,” says Jordan, founder of Atlantic Business Technologies, a Raleigh, N.C. web development and marketing firm with 30 employees.

He went on LinkedIn and found a connection in the applicant’s network to verify his suspicions. The claim “was completely false,” says Jordan, 30. The applicant didn’t get the job.

Jordan’s not the only one cruising social networking sites during the hiring process. A June Jump Start Social Media survey of 100 hiring managers at small, mid-size and large companies found 75 percent go to LinkedIn to research job candidates before making a job offer, while 48 percent check out Facebook and 26 percent go to Twitter. When asked where they find talent for job openings, 66 percent said LinkedIn, 23 percent said Facebook and 16 percent said Twitter.

Social media sites have become an integral piece of the hiring puzzle; it’s how to leverage these sites most effectively as a recruiting tool that has companies scrambling. These sites are low-cost or free to join, but it takes time and effort to make them truly useful.

“Most companies aren’t doing enough,” says Veronica Fielding, president of Jump Start Social Media. “They think there’s an ROI that’s got to be associated with it immediately.”

Other companies are still trying to wrap their heads about the whole idea of social media. When Oklahoma City-based HR consultant Jessica Miller-Merrell gave a talk about social media at an HR conference this spring, some people asked her how to use “Tweeter,” while others believed social media was the domain of marketing and Generation Y, not the HR department.

“Most of the HR people there [were] not seeing the value yet,” says Miller-Merrell, who blogs about the social media/HR axis on her site, BloggingForJobs.blogspot.com.

On the other end of the spectrum are entrepreneurial firms like New York City’s 5W Public Relations, which is seeing a big payoff from its social media recruiting efforts. The 75-employee firm has a LinkedIn profile, a company Facebook page, a blog and a Twitter account with hundreds of followers. Founder Ronn Torossian, 34, posts job openings to Twitter and recently recruited a great hire with way. He’s recruited other employees through Facebook. “I think social media absolutely does work to help recruit [new hires],” he says.

Atlantic Business Technologies posts job openings on Twitter that direct applicants to the company website and the company’s Facebook page. Its LinkedIn profile offers a company overview and employee profiles. Jordan likes taking the company’s job openings viral on Twitter by “re-tweeting”-- that is, having his followers spread the word to their followers. “Many times it just takes a couple of ‘re-tweets’ to get potential candidates to review the job description,” he says. “Facebook and LinkedIn are great for networking and Twitter is better for broadcasting.”

Twitter is more than a form of microblogging; it’s also a real-time search engine. Miller-Merrell suggests using hash tags that designate a topic (i.e. #jobs) and simplify Twitter searches. “You can actually search for ‘#jobs’ and use advanced options to sort or narrow it down by zip code,” she says. Sites like TweetMyJobs.com and Jobshouts.com will let you post job openings that are fed over to Twitter. For best results, balance your marketing with links and trendy insights that position your brand as a valuable part of the Twitter community, Fielding says.

How to Build a Social Media Strategy This downturn is a great time to develop a social media recruiting strategy if your company doesn’t have one yet. Here are some basic tips for getting started:

Analyze your staffing needs. What kinds of jobs will you fill over the next year, and which social media sites will get you in front of your target applicants? If you run a small grocery, your potential workers are on the more casual Myspace and Facebook. If you need a director of sales, LinkedIn is a better bet.

Start where you’re comfortable. Some sites will feel more intuitive to you, and that’s fine. Dedicate 15 minutes to your favorite social media site a few times a week until you’ve got it down, and then branch out. Learn how other entrepreneurs use social media sites for recruiting, and don’t be embarrassed to ask other members on these sites for shortcuts as you’re learning them.

Remember your manners. Would you walk into a networking event full of people you don’t know and tell them to find the perfect applicant for you ASAP? Of course not; that would be rude. The same manners apply in cyberspace. Join some groups on social media sites and participate actively for awhile before you ask members to forward your job listings and so on. Good manners and common sense give people a good vibe about you, and your company.

Don’t do too little, but don’t do too much. Some candidates might think your company is in the dark ages if its social profile is too low, while others might get intimidated--even suspicious--if your company seems to be everywhere, all the time. Ponder the right level of exposure as you position your company.

Be consistent and responsive. Make sure employees have a uniform way of describing the company on these sites so job seekers aren’t confused, Fielding says. Designate an employee to check the company’s social media pages daily, too. If a customer posts a message to your company’s Facebook page saying the company is unresponsive, you’ll only further this perception if the complaint goes unanswered for weeks.

Realize that it’s a long-term commitment. Don’t expect a quick ROI from your social media efforts. It takes six months minimum to build relationships with people on social media sites “and that’s if you are hardcore,” Miller-Merrell says. Be patient, stick with it and be prepared to make a few mistakes as you poke around these sites.

What you do now will put you miles ahead of your main competitors in finding the right hires when the economy picks up. “If you don’t have good people, you don’t have a good product,” Jordan says. These days, you can’t have a good recruiting strategy without a good grasp of social media, either.

Chris Penttila is a freelance journalist whose work has also appeared in The Costco Connection, Oregon Business magazine, QSR Magazine, TheStreet.com and other publications. She lives in the Chapel Hill, N.C. area and covers workplace issues on her blog, Workplacediva.blogspot.com.