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Rusty Weston

January 25, 2008

Study: Do Social Networks Improve Your Life?

Ever wonder what those millions of other people joining social networks plan to do once they're there?

Beyond throwing sheep on Facebook or becoming a fan of hip-hop stars on MySpace, many people join social networks to better manage and expand their circle of personal and professional relationships. Some people hope to find a date or search for lost friends. Others join just to see what the buzz is all about.

As a journalist & researcher I want to know: Do social networks help you both personally and professionally? Can they help advance your career? Are they more entertaining than video games? Are they a better match for you than dating sites?

I'm pleased to invite you to participate in a comprehensive study called the State of Social Networking 2008. The survey is free, fast (about 10 minutes) and confidential. No one will sell you anything. And the study makes it easy to rate the social networking sites you use most often for business or pleasure.

Completing the survey enters you in a drawing for an Apple iPhone (or equivalent value prize) from an Apple Store.

I look forward to studying the data and sharing it with you. For research wonks: the recruitment drive behind this study is limited to social media such as blogs, community forums, StumbleUpon and social networks. Please feel free to spread the word to your social network contacts about this study - your participation is greatly appreciated! To complete the survey, please visit http://s-kf7uz-25818.sgizmo.com/.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 7:37 PM | Add Comment

January 16, 2008

Careers: Bank of America Hires an Avatar

When I get a warm and fuzzy feeling about a bank it's usually because I'm watching a tearjerker TV commercial. Some bank has rebuilt a blighted neighborhood or loaned an underprivileged mom the dough to build a bakery.

Until recently, I never saw a commercial that made me want to work for a bank. Between the mortgage crisis, the falling dollar, bank consolidations, and layoffs, the financial services field seems just as appealing to me as military service.

Upon learning that Bank of America had acquired Countrywide Financial, the nation's largest mortgage lender, for the bargain basement price of $4 billion most people would have called their stock broker or sussed out the situation on Yahoo! Finance. Not me, I checked out B-of-A's careers site.

So why is this banking giant tugging at our heartstrings? Here's something you might not have considered in view of its layoffs: the giant bank is talent constrained.

You can tell Bank of America has invested a few bucks to create one of the better career sites in the financial services field. I recently interviewed the SVP in charge of the operation. You would think I was probing him about the New England Patriots' playbook for all the answers he gave me.

"It is meant to connect the candidates to the culture," reveals the possibly gregarious Thomas Becker, SVP of Talent Sourcing.

Becker wouldn't tell me what adding video to their site had done, except to say it had done good things. He was non-responsive about any of the following post-video changes:

• Site traffic (percentage increase)?
• Resumes (percentage increase)?
• Better candidates?

Despite Becker's reluctance to discuss specifics of his careers site, here's what I like about it:

• You're greeted by a video-based avatar of an actual bank employee who introduces you to the site. Despite the otherworldliness of an avatar, it has a warm feel to it.
• The site has tools designed to push candidates who don't know the bank very well to target specific lines of businesses and locations.
• The site features interview tips, including a recommended note back to the interviewer. This approach makes sense, particularly for Gen Y candidates who are unfamiliar with the process of applying for corporate jobs.
• There's a separate part of the site for college students - where the bank harvests many of its entry-level workers.
• The site includes global jobs not just those in Charlotte or San Francisco but also in Antwerp, Dublin, Madrid, and Milan.

Of course, the careers site is just one part of the bank's initiatives to tap the global talent pool. "It is the preferred method," allows Becker. To the bank's credit they have managed to apply both scale and a bit of 'culture' to the job applicant's experience. Other career sites will surely follow.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 11:44 AM | Add Comment

January 9, 2008

Careers: Who Wants to Be a Political Pundit?

A political pundit is a thankless job - when you're right it was obvious and when you're wrong everyone points a fickle finger at you.

But unlike a weatherman, who studies meteorology, science and maybe broadcasting communications, political pundits take divergent paths to become gurus. Some wags are old pols; some are TV talking heads with varying degrees of "insider" knowledge. To the untrained eye, it appears the chief qualification is writing off candidates the way a carpenter turns a screw.

The pundits who wrote off the presidential campaigns of Senators McCain and Clinton before New Hampshire are having an especially bad day-after-the-primary.

"When the pundits declared us finished, I told them, 'I'm going to New Hampshire, where the voters don't let you make their decision for them,'" McCain told his supporters Tuesday.

Of course, political prognostications are even more haphazard than weather forecasts. Often, a pundit's harshly premature judgment is built upon poll numbers that turn out to be wrong. Well, the pollsters weren't wrong, really, they were just talking to the wrong voters. Then again, maybe the voters were to blame for changing their minds in the voting booths?

There's plenty of blame to go around.

Still, for sheer chutzpah, it's hard to top this one: A visit to the Drudge Report today spotlighted a survey that asks "Is Hillary Finished?" (Shortly after 2 p.m. ET, however, the survey itself seemed kaput.)

If the political pundits can't shoot straight, possibly the pundits will devour their own.

"No matter what you think about Hillary Clinton, no matter how this campaign turns out, there is undeniable satisfaction in watching the pundit class being forced to eat the words of its premature obituaries," wrote Marty Kaplan, a USC Professor turned blogger in the Huffington Post. Kaplan is a former speechwriter for Vice President Walter Mondale.

Is there such a thing as a neutral political pundit? No, and that's what makes them entertaining - and wrong - as often as not. But being wrong about New Hampshire is yesterday's news. There are always more elections to get it right - or wrong - again.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 2:24 PM | Add Comment

December 20, 2007

Careers: More Dazzling Than Dull

The Wall Street Journal says being a motivational speaker is a high-paying gig. Actually what they say is it one of the five most overpaid jobs in the country.

Apparently that's a bad thing.

For some of us, overpaid is ample motivation. But you really can't make a name for yourself on the lecture circuit until you write a book.

And if you're going to write a non-fiction book, quite often you need a novel thesis or - barring that - a gimmick.

Alas, cleverness is a technique which some authors push too far. Take, for example, a book that arrived in my mailbox this week called Release Your Brilliance. The book promises to deliver "4 steps to transforming your life and revealing your genius to the world." And I thought that's what blogs were here for.

Previously unknown to me, the author Simon T. Bailey once worked as a Disney executive but left it all behind to become a motivational speaker. I have no idea how well Bailey motivates people, but he sure has a way with conceits and affirmations.

I am skeptical of affirmations. Oh sure, sometimes I give myself a pep talk, but usually it's on the tennis court where respectability is my aspiration, rather than say brilliance. But I digress. Bailey's book offers an exercise he calls The Brilliance Continuum. Let me know if this works for you.

"Dazzling of course is what you're striving for," he writes. "Draw a vertical line to indicate where you believe you are right now on the Brilliance Continuum."

Dull < --------------------------------|---------------> Dazzling

I'm going to place a vertical line where I think I fall on this continuum today. You'll see that I'm slightly more dazzling than dull, but that's because I haven't finished reading this motivational book yet.

Bailey includes helpful sidebar comments, which he calls Gems. I'll share one with you now. "Everything you need to be brilliant is already inside you," writes Bailey. If that's the case, you need to choose wisely about whether a book will help you unlock your inner brilliance. It stands to reason that people who don't take this advice to heart run the risk of having their brilliance bottled up so tightly they will never find it again.

Bailey is a busy guy, but he takes time each morning to "guard his energy and protect his spirit" with a "personal Hour of Power ... twenty minutes of meditation, twenty minutes of exercise and twenty minutes of reading out loud."

Hard to knock that advice, although I'm unclear on the reading aloud thing when you're alone. Should you read aloud with inflection, you know, expressively, or just in a flat 'let's get through this' kind of tone? Maybe it depends upon what you're reading. For a motivational book I suggest you read it as loud as possible - it's therapeutic.

I leave you today with one final Bailey gem: "If you want to expand your brilliance, expand your thinking."

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 1:16 AM | 2 Comments

December 7, 2007

Careers: Rain Falls on Social Networking Parade

I wander through life empowering experts to deal with chronic problems such as product safety, cancer, poverty and Internet privacy. Like taxes and dry cleaning, I often don't want to know the nitty gritty of how things get done.

Don't worry, that still leaves me plenty of issues to wring my hands over, like finding a job, a new client or perfect business partners. Yet when it comes to the Net I'm hands on enough to protect my personal data - and I favor penalties for firms that exploit vulnerable people. Privacy intrusions could lead to regulations that wreck the party for all of us.

Those of us who use social networks to help manage or advance professional relationships have paid rapt attention lately to rapidly evolving privacy policies on Facebook among other social networking sites. Facebook is the wild frontier of cyberspace.

Why do I say that? I don't want other sites reporting to Facebook what I have purchased - or whether I'm looking for a new job, a house or a car. That's nobody else's business - information I'm not planning to release to my social network contacts.

Here's 99% of what you need to know about privacy policies on social networks, job boards or blogs. You are the decider! You want to be the one who decides which contacts view or gathers information about you. Anything short of an opt-in by you is a non-starter.

On the other hand, if you opt to publish information about yourself - and I choose to subscribe to it - then I applaud social networks for helping to propagate this information exchange.

Continue reading "Careers: Rain Falls on Social Networking Parade"

Posted by Rusty Weston at 1:33 AM | Add Comment

November 29, 2007

Careers: Why a Job Interview is Like a First Date

Have you noticed any similarities between your dating experiences and your job searches?

What these two puzzle parts have in common is a quest for better relationships. Granted, for some of us, both of these personal quests are fraught with frustration.

But in Shawn Graham's new book Courting Your Career, he spins the metaphor in amusing and insightful ways. Networking is matchmaking. Career fairs are akin to clubbing. Cover letters are like pick-up lines. And job boards are linked to online dating (and about equally successful).

Graham, a fellow Fast Company Experts blogger, has served as a career counselor at UNC-Chapel Hill where he field-tested this metaphor and found that it resonated well with students. When you're looking for a job you want to work with amiable people, right?

Yet, how do you know if a job is "your type"? Why naturally you date around! Although dating in this context may be informational or job interviews and internships. A sturdy metaphor, Graham even compares group interviews to group dates. "Sometimes, what started out as a romantic, one-on-one date can unexpectedly turn into a group outing without warning," he writes. "The same holds true with job interviews." He recommends having extra copies of your resume on hand in case this happens because you will appear well prepared.

The key to a successful interview is a good two-way conversation, he explains. He doesn't explore the non-verbal side of interview chemistry except to suggest that you present yourself well including carefully selecting what to wear.

Graham clues into the often confusing part of a first date: the goodnight kiss. "The close of an interview is a lot like the end of a date," he writes. "Although you'll never, and I repeat never, actually go for a goodnight kiss at the end of an interview, there are some things you can do to seal the deal." Well, I won't kiss and tell, but Graham offers some good advice here.

He explores a wide range of job search issues, including the trendy question about video resumes. Like me, Graham's not sold on the value of putting your skills and accomplishments on video instead of on paper. He cites three main problems including inconsistent content; the employer's inability to search or organize video; and possibly subjecting yourself to a recruiter's biases that may work against you.

The book includes lots of useful resources including sample resumes, cover letters and a job evaluation worksheet. There's also a helpful list of action verbs for resumes although I'm not quite sure how I would use the word "liquidated" effectively.

I unhesitatingly recommend Graham's book, particularly to graduates just starting their careers. I don't know about Graham, but I recall having better dates - and interviews - once I had a decent job.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 2:15 PM | Add Comment

November 14, 2007

Careers: A Tale of Two Self-Optimization Experts

In the burgeoning marketplace of self-optimization gurus no one is hotter than the ubiquitous Tim Ferris. For someone who purports to only work four hours a week, he apparently classifies the other 36 hours of self-promotion as rest and relaxation.

I was skeptical, but on the advice of a respected comrade I tuned into a video presentation by Mr. Ferris that was taped at Google headquarters. While he dominated the hour long appearance with fellow author Marci Alboher he talked sensibly about time optimization and outsourcing unsavory parts of your life.

Granted, you have to be willing to see beyond Ferris' bluster; he asserts that languages can be learned in a couple of months, kickboxing championships won with half a year's training. I could go on about him, but there is an exploding field of Ferris literature available to you with a Google search.

On the other end of the spectrum, meet Rich Moran, like Ferris a renaissance man - venture capitalist (Venrock), author & wine maker - who last year released his sixth book, Nuts, Bolts & Jolts. A close observer of startups, management (he's on lots of boards) and the Silicon Valley scene, Moran favors work/life balance but is clearly more conventional than the younger Ferris.

I can't say that I buy into everything Moran recommends, such as this: "Wear nose rings only if you work for MTV, a messenger service, or yourself." Were you on the fence about that, too? (Actually, I would defend nose rings in the workplace, although mine stands out enough as it is.)

Despite our difference about piercings, Moran is wise and not afraid to pull punches. In our recent conversation, Moran explained to me that "A career is a continuum. I still stay in touch with people because after a while that's all that matters. At the end you're going to be looking at relationships and community more than travel and pay."

Moran also believes in the power of social networks to advance your career. "The larger your literal or virtual rolodex the better your life will be," he told me. "People ask me what I do for a living and I tell them I collect people. Social networking is a totally efficient way. Relative to sales, job leads, a community around wines - it's so efficient."

A sampling of the career wit & wisdom of Mr. Moran:

• Career planning is an oxymoron; the most exciting opportunities tend to be unplanned.
• Manage the paradox of being 100% committed to what you are doing while keeping an eye open for other opportunities.
• Always get a title and sufficient money going into a company; promises about future potential are always overstated.
• Have lunch once a month with someone outside the company who someday might hire you.
• Understand the core of the business and bond with it. Don't take a job at Electronic Arts if you hate video games.
• When you hear words like restructuring, de-layering, and/or rightsizing, get your resume together.
• If you even think you're vulnerable, you should probably find another job.

Ferris is trendier, but if I were self-optimizing for a career, Moran might be the better way to go.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 7:38 PM | Add Comment

November 7, 2007

Careers: It's A Brand You World

Close readers of Fast Company are hyper-aware of the power of personal branding. My colleague Wendy Marx does a terrific job in these blog posts of exploring the virtues of a well-branded career.

Apparently it's been a decade since Tom Peters wrote his prescient but at the time controversial Fast Company article called The Brand Called You.

If you're ready for a deep dive into the power of personal branding, I suggest you tune in Thursday, Nov. 8^th to A Brand You World, billed by its organizers as a "global telesummit." In twelve hours, some of the sharpest personal-brand savvy authors, bloggers and career coaches will provide a series of free, one-hour phone conferences on topics such as:

• Writing a great business blog
• Building an employer brand to win the war for talent
• Promoting your brand with viral marketing
• Personal branding for job searches
• Adding international flair to your personal brand (a favorite topic of mine)

Some of the sharpest career experts I know will be presenting at A Brand You World, including Richard Nelson Bolles, Liz Ryan, Jason Alba, William Arruda, and Kirsten Dixon.

Personally, I plan to listen in and hear more about podcasting, that's high on my list of personal branding goals for 2008.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 12:09 PM | 1 Comment

October 31, 2007

Careers: Would You Fall Into The Gap?

Until recently, Gap Inc. was on my short list of leading socially responsible corporations in this country. This is a company that has trailblazed new paths in how it treats employees, the community and the environment.

How many companies produce reports that ask What Is A Company's Role in Society? How many companies have an SVP of social responsibility? Well, the Gap needs this executive now more than ever.

Although the Gap's credentials as a progressive employer are unassailable, the company has consistently failed to enforce its own policies with regard to managing its outsourced manufacturing suppliers around the globe. On Sunday the UK's Observer broke the story about underage workers toiling in a New Delhi sweatshop run by one of the Gap's outsourced manufacturers - a subcontractor. Unfortunately, it wasn't the first time this has happened.

And there's this: one month ago the Gap lost a laptop containing the personal data of 800,000 job applicants. What these sensitive records - some contained social security numbers - were doing on a laptop held by a third-party service provider was never explained.

So while how you treat your employees, the community and your environment is extremely important, let's also not forget that relationships in orbit around the Gap - with job candidates and third-party contract workers - are also part of what defines a socially responsible employer.

For starters, the Gap needs to make a deeper commitment to how it manages third-party manufacturers - 90 people to watch 2,000 suppliers aren't enough.

If I worked there, I might not quit but I would try to push them to change. If I were a customer, investor or business partner, I would apply whatever leverage is possible to impress the Gap about the need for serious reforms. If I were a job candidate I would pass, at least for now.

What about you?

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 1:45 AM | Add Comment

October 24, 2007

Careers: On Again, Off Again Engagement

Most of us want to fall truly, madly, deeply in love with our work. But the vast majority of us aren't what HR experts call "engaged" by our jobs.

What can we do about that? First, we can realize that this is a universal problem. A just-released study of 88,612 workforce members in 18 countries by Towers Perrin finds that only 21 percent of employees are engaged in their current work. In fact, 38 percent of workers feel partly to fully disengaged.

Does this sound like the weather report for your cube? Patchy clouds of engagement, followed by chilly co-workers, and a chance of hot air from your boss.

The litmus test goes like this: If you care about the future of the company and are willing to make a discretionary effort, then it's likely you are engaged. Translation: You're willing to work 65 hours a week because you like your job and you like your company.

If you're working those 65 hours just out of fear, chances are you're partly engaged but probably not for the right reasons.

The company cares about your effort for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is that an engaged workforce helps it outperform its competition. And there's more: "half of the engaged employees had no plans to leave their company, compared with just 15 percent of the disengaged."

"Job satisfaction or employee happiness doesn't necessarily extend itself to the financial performance of the company," explains one of the study's architects, Julie Gebauer, leader of the firm's Workforce Effectiveness consulting practice.

Gebauer says the study finds three factors that all must be in sync before a worker is properly engaged:

• Head: I know what I need to do to make my company be successful.
• Heart: The emotional connection. You have pride in your company and you're connected to the mission and vision.
• Hand: The action or motivational part of the relationship. Now I'm willing to put in more effort than is required to help the company succeed.

Sounds nice. But let's assume for a moment that your engagement is called off - it just isn't going to happen on your current job. How would you choose your next employer based upon the likelihood that they will engage you? The study offers some intriguing ideas about this:

• Employees want to work for a company that is seen as a leader
• Employees want senior leadership to demonstrate inspiration, vision and commitment
• Employees will work hard but they want a clearer picture of what's in it for them

In a job interview, ask about the corporate culture. Do they practice social responsibility? What are the company's programs or views regarding work/life balance? Does the company have a "no asshole rule"?

Intriguingly, the study explores engagement (and what drives it) by country and age groups. Some workers value organizations that stress social responsibility, while others prefer employers that help them achieve a work/life balance. Later this year, Towers plans to release industry cuts showing which fields have high or low engagement levels.

Is your engagement on or off?

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 8:08 PM | Add Comment

October 18, 2007

Careers: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams

Until today I had never heard of Professor Randy Pausch of Carnegie Mellon University. I hadn't heard about his trailblazing work in computer science studies - particularly in virtual reality and creating a playful way to teach computer programming to children.

But then someone sent me a link to his final lecture, which CMU recorded on September 18^th and streamed on the web. The 47-year-old Pausch, who is dying of terminal pancreatic cancer, is worth listening to - and remembering - because he has something to teach all of us about achieving our childhood dreams.

In his hour-plus long talk to an audience of 400 friends, faculty and students, Pausch liberally weaves humor, storytelling and multimedia tools to convey invaluable advice about building a career and managing relationships with bosses, co-workers, students, and family.

"We're not going to talk about spirituality and religion," he says. "Although I will tell you that I have experienced a deathbed conversion. I just bought a Macintosh. ... Now I know I'd get 9 percent of the audience with that."

It had been too many years since I heard a really inspirational and informative college lecture. What if you had one last lecture to give - what would you say to your friends, colleagues and loved ones?

"I don't know how to not have fun," he says at one point. "I'm dying and I'm going to keep having fun every day I have left."

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 3:52 AM | Add Comment

October 10, 2007

Careers: Work Among True Believers?

Do you work in a predominantly Christian workplace? Increasingly, Christian job boards are making this mission, as some put it, a reality.

My take on the job boards that match "followers" with "Christian employers" is that a Christian workplace is at least partially about excluding non-believers who may undermine their value system.

This statement on Christian Staffing's website summarizes the mindset: "Have you dealt with staff problems including stealing, fraud, sexual harassment, lack of work ethic, tardiness, etc? We did, and so we have decided to try to hire people we knew had a good reputation ... and more specifically followers of Jesus Christ."

In a pitch to Christian recruiters and employers, Bill Clark, Director of Sales & Business Development for ChristianJobs.com, writes on About.com that there are 200,000 job seekers on their site each month. "These folks are in need and we believe that it is our responsibility as members of the body of Christ to help them in every way possible," writes Clark. "As such, we invite you to visit our site and see if you can embrace our mission ... expressing your faith by posting your positions ...."

What is unclear to me is how a Christian employee differs from, say, a Hindu, Islamic or Jewish employee. Of course, it's no secret that religious cultures and subcultures often hire amongst themselves; what's different here is these job boards are explicit about it.

Biases are part of the American fabric, right? The federal government, including the U.S. Justice Department, recruits from Christian law schools and colleges. (That hasn't gone so well.)

I wasn't able to reach several of the larger job boards directly, but a Christian recruiter took my call. "We network with people who believe that Jesus is the Christ," explains CJ Elliott, a recruiter and co-owner of Christian Recruiters Affiliated in Hoopeston, Ill. Speaking of the Christian employers to whom she supplies candidates, she says, "We like to work with people we feel are trustworthy and we can count on."

Elliott, who says she worked for a big oil company for 10 years, tried to lead by example rather than evangelize in the workplace. She adds, "I know there are people who are not born-again who still have a good work ethic."

Still, for those who wish to explore a faith-based workplace, a site called FaithInTheWorkplace.com offers some interesting content, including legal advice, about what's permissible in terms of expressions of faith.

And here are a few job boards that appear to be leaders in this specialized field:

• ChristianJobs.com - a job board "focusing on employment within the Christian community ... catering to the hiring needs of Christian-friendly companies." The site is a subsidiary of Salem Communications Corp., a powerhouse in Christian-based media.
• ChristianStaffing.org - "Connecting Christian staff with Christian employers. For the result of a Christian work environment."
• ChristiaNet - It bills itself as "The Worldwide Christian Marketplace."
• AllChristianJobs.com - "A Christian career job site with the added benefit of a global freelance marketplace."
• ChristianOpportunitiesOnline.com - Although this appears to be a work-at-home kind of site, which doesn't qualify, I like their Google ad: "Use your God-given talents to do something extraordinary."

Christians are not the only religious group with job boards or career sites. However, based on my Google searches, Christian boards appear to this observer to be more prevalent than many other religious-based job sites. I visited New York Jewish Jobs Board; the Musalman Career Center (Muslim, not really a board); and, by contrast, Hindu job sites - which seem to seek candidates with Hindu language or cultural skills. The Church of Latter-Day Saints provides a range of different job boards and states that it is not exclusive to Mormons.

For many cultures and subcultures a homogeneous, immersive environment is the most appealing way to live and work. But where are the winners here? People who seek faith-based work environments lose the value of collaborating with people from different cultures, who offer different ideas and perspectives; and people who are excluded from faith-based workplaces may be victims of discrimination.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 8:09 PM | 9 Comments

October 2, 2007

Careers: Crossing the Line to Evangelism

There's a thin line between mavens and evangelists.

We trust mavens to recommend movies, restaurants or even dry cleaners. We fear incurring the wrath of evangelists who contend that it's a huge mistake (or worse) not to drive a Volkswagen, buy an iPhone or skip reading The Kite Runner. (It's on my list of things to do, really.)

Perhaps we're just a little wary of evangelists (and I don't mean the religious kind). A case in point: hard-selling corporate recruiters. I can empathize with them, though, because not all jobs or companies are an easy sale.

Mavens tend to feel strongly, even passionately that their advice is ideal for their friends, readers or acquaintances. Speaking as a maven and connector, I can tell you that it's pretty hard to switch it off. When a friend asks: "Seen any good movies?" We're not the types who reply, "Who has time?"

The funny thing about discussing social networking is it, like politics, can knock me off the comfortable perch of mavendom onto the outer limb occupied by fire-breathing evangelists. I would never say social networking is for everyone, nor would I say it is always the preferred method of networking, but it's a topic that gets my juices flowing more than say O.J., Britney or college football.

When New York Times' columnist David Pogue asked readers to respond to his provocative blog post called LinkedIn ... Why? I had to stifle myself from investing a few hours composing a reply.

I commented back to Pogue: "If you need (or simply want) to meet new contacts/experts, make new friends, establish a sense of community or want to establish a venue for others (not just your friends) to contact you, it's hard to beat social-networking sites."

In retrospect, that reply sounds too mavenesque, and doesn't reflect my true feelings.

Of course, I wasn't alone; there were nearly 100 replies to Pogue's post. Scott Allen, who writes a blog called Linked Intelligence and also a column for Fast Company, clearly is a true believer: 'LinkedIn's core value proposition is simply this: the ability to answer the question, 'Who do I know who knows and can recommend somebody that ... works at XYZ company? ...is an expert in widgets? ... Is a good lawyer specializing in whatever my problem is?' ... It's like being able to search not only your own contact database, but those of your friends, and their friends, and then ask for the introduction when you find the right person."

Although Pogue doesn't think about social networks as a career advancement utility, that's precisely the way recruiters harvest social networking sites. And that's why savvy job searchers should use them too. You can quickly learn to advance your career by building and maintaining professional relationships on sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Xing and Doostang among others.

At the risk of sounding like an evangelist, your career advancement isn't based solely on what you know, it's also who you know, and social networking sites make it easier to meet the right people and manage professional relationships. As I said, they're not for everyone; for example, some people prefer to wait for a school reunion to work their alumni network. And there's always a fallback: you can call a maven & connector who knows the guy you need to know.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 12:03 AM | 1 Comment

September 25, 2007

Careers: Forget the Laws of Supply and Demand

It's no joke: there really are too many lawyers. And there are too few nurses and accountants. At least, that's the employment outlook this year.

What if you could glimpse the future and foresee low demand for your skills in 2012? Would you change careers based on that data or would you continue to chase your dream?

Most of us would pursue our passion - after all, we only get one shot at life. Still, amid an oversupply of lawyers (was it ever otherwise?), many of whom are struggling to pay off six-figure law school debts, you have to wonder shouldn't they have seen this coming?

The trouble is most of us lack "visibility" into both the supply & demand sides of our chosen profession. Either that or - and this is my theory - no one pays attention to job forecasts anyway.

Why? A friend of mine who handles public relations for several financial services firms calls this rationale "The bigger fool theory. You can get a job even if the other guy won't," he explains.

Perhaps he is right, but are there sufficient, credible sources of job forecasting data? I searched the web and found a few associations that forecast job demand for specific industries. Most of these studies forecast one year ahead - not much use if you're in the career planning stage. (If you have sources you trust for specific industries, let us know.)

Fortunately, there is a notable exception, the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Occupational Outlook Handbook, which is both free and searchable. The online report contains valuable insights about the fastest growing occupations and goes in-depth with information about specific careers such as:

• the training and education needed
• earnings
• expected job prospects (demand forecast)
• what workers do on the job
• working conditions

BLS job forecasts also include projections by zip code, which is nice if you can wade through that much data. Of course, these facts and figures exclude intangibles such as quality of life or your career connections.

Is there a handbook that can tell you whether it is better to launch your web production or teaching career in Austin or Dallas? I haven't found one, but if you didn't want to live someplace, the odds are you would discount the study's conclusions anyway - that's human nature.

Even though we are better off knowing the outlook for our chosen profession, for better or worse, most of us wouldn't change a thing.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 8:07 PM | 1 Comment

September 19, 2007

Careers: Working Abroad is Less Foreign to Women

Will working abroad fast-track your career? The answer has often been yes for men, but a question mark for women who used to be passed over for foreign assignments.

In the book Get Ahead by Going Abroad authors C. Perry Yeatman and Stacie Berdan contend that women are better suited for foreign assignments than men - and they have the results to prove it.

"It comes down to a couple of personality traits as well as skills," says Berdan. "Women have great communication skills, team building, and adaptability - the things we have noticed successful women overseas have." According to their research, "The success rate is 15-to-20 percent higher for women as opposed to men. That's pretty astounding."

A former media executive, Berdan says that her career blossomed as a result of a successful overseas assignment that began in her late 20s. Berdan, who consults multinationals on how to prepare employees for overseas assignments, moved to Hong Kong the day after she was married. Her "trailing spouse" to use the vernacular of globe-trotting executives, is a writer who could work from anywhere. Often it's the trailing spouse - particularly those that don't work - who torpedoes an otherwise invaluable career and life experience.

Berdan and Yeatman say that their personal experiences, combined with several hundred interviews in preparation for the book, revealed to them that women possess soft skills that can make a foreign assignment successful. It's also true that these two network with a lot of successful people. Berdan's co-author, C. Perry Yeatman is a SVP of Kraft Foods, who had the experience of working in Singapore, Moscow, and London.

In researching the book, "83% of the people said [their foreign assignment] was successful," says Berdan. "Everyone said it was hard and had their share of failures along the way. Many were very personal stories a lot to do with gender stereotyping and female roles around the world. "

Berdan's former employer, WPP is an example of a company that understands how to manage globally-distributed employees. "They have 70,000 employees all over the place and they treat them like global employees, not expats," she explains. She says that unfortunately many companies have HR departments that lack empathy for workers on foreign assignments. "If you have never been in the situation," of working overseas, she says, "It's hard to understand how crazy" life abroad can be.

How do you know if you're ready to embark on a global career or a foreign assignment? The authors suggest that you ask yourself these questions first - if you can answer yes or even "somewhat" to most of them, you may have right aptitude to succeed.

Do You Have the Right Stuff?
(From Get Ahead By Going Abroad - Harper Collins 2007)

• Do you have a real sense of adventure? Do you enjoy the unknown, the different, and the unexpected?
• Do you operate well outside your comfort zone, even if you are feeling alone and isolated from all things normal for you?
• Do you thrive on diversity - language, ethnicity, religion, currency, culture, social norms, foods, politics - lots of it and all at the same time?
• Do you consider yourself extremely flexible?
• Can you build relationships - even if you have to communicate in your or someone else's second language?
• Do you know how to really listen? Can you read between the lines and understand what is being said even if the faces you're reading look like blank pages - and vice versa, i.e., when the facial expressions are clear but the words are confusing?
• Can you handle failure and learn from it? Can you keep it in perspective? Do you have a sense of humor about it?

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 3:07 PM | Add Comment

September 6, 2007

Careers: Keywords of the Rich & Famous

Are you buzzword compliant? Maybe that's the problem - in the careers field they're no longer called buzzwords. They're called keywords, and without them, your résumé will slide into a black hole in cyberspace from which no search engine can find you.

Sounds dire, but getting the right words into your résumé is pretty simple according to Wendy Enelow, executive coach, résumé expert and author of more than 30 careers books including some on keywords and search engine optimization (SEO). "You can be the single most talented integrated-logistics manager but if you don't have those words in your résumé you will get skipped over," says the Virginia-based author.

To be clear, no one equates keywords with actual job experience or accomplishments. But in this highly competitive, technological age, the résumés that stand out are the ones that satisfy filtering software. As for keywords, says Enelow, they are no more or less complex than "nouns and noun-phrases that describe what you do every day in your position."

According to Enelow, typical keywords for the $100,000+ executive include:

• Strategic Planning
• Organizational Leadership
• Profitability Improvement
• Performance Optimization
• New Business Development
• Joint Ventures & Alliances
• Consensus Building & Teaming
• Corporate Administration
• World Class Organization
• Best Practices & Benchmarking
• P&L Responsibility
• Multi-Site Operations
• Budgeting & Finance
• Decision-Making

But what if, like much of the job world, you're not yet a $100,000+ executive? And what if you haven't yet worked for, much less created a world-class organization? And what if you're a school teacher or a nurse and you're completely disinterested in P&L responsibility?

No worries, Enelow has an idea for you anyway. "Use the Objective to integrate the appropriate keywords into your résumé," Enelow advises. "If you're looking for a job in accounting, you write, 'I'm seeking a position in a corporate accounting where I can develop skills in accounts receivable, accounts payable, cash management and financial reporting'. So the Objective can become an extremely valuable tool for people trying to transition from one career to another."

Enelow, who's latest book is The $100,000+ Entrepreneur, says that while keyword compliance is critical - it's not the solution to your job search. Don't count on corporate job boards to properly scan your keywords. Be sure to send - via e-mail or snail-mail - a copy of your résumé to the powers that be at the company where you're applying to work.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 2:44 AM | 2 Comments

August 29, 2007

Careers: What's New on My Social Network?

I'd like to announce the launch of AfterRusty, a social networking site for my friends, fans, relatives, creditors and associates. You may have heard about corporate alumni networks where ex-employees bitch about their old company. I want to start a social network for people who survive me - while I'm still alive - if it's all the same to you.

AfterRusty is for people who know me, wish they knew me, or thought they did.

For a limited time, I will waive the $50 annual fee, at least until my viral campaign escalates to Facebook proportions. So-called "alumni social networking" sounds hip and trendy, but by the time I die it will "tip" to an epidemic.

It's a virtuous circle: If I prosper, AfterRusty membership will have even more cachet than it does now. Sure, there's competition for your social networking capital, but if you only have time for one network, then this one is it. Here's why:

• I know some cool people and they know some really cool people
• I lived a happening life - from the Apple II to the iPhone. Technically it's not over - so there's still scads of upside

What will AfterRusty members talk about once I am permanently "offline"? You know me! I have compiled a handy list of things to do and discuss:

• Rusty's career. There is a lot of material to excavate. The word is some direct reports, creditors and ex-girlfriends are still in therapy and I haven't even retired yet. I recently joined several corporate alumni networks and while they're terrific, let's face it, they're not all about me.
• Ex-girlfriend stories. My friend David will moderate this group since he once listened to my tragic-comic tales in a taxi ride between San Francisco and Oakland - although he claims it absorbed a thirteen hour road trip to Las Vegas.
• Group blog. Don't assume that news stops once I'm six feet under! On the contrary, that's when the juicy bits will really surface. To fuel the discussion, I plan to dish my friends in a multimedia diatribe to be released upon my demise.
• Raw footage. Photos, videos, and surveillance tapes go into this bucket. This is the most convenient place to stash those pesky transcripts, flaming e-mails, and unedited articles, too.

Like any world-class social network mine begins with a set of questions aimed at lubricating links between AfterRusty members.

1. What was running through your mind when you first met Rusty? (essay)
2. What's your current relationship with Rusty? (multiple choice)
3. What was your most memorable experience with Rusty? (provide URL, videotapes or other admissible evidence)

I am here for you now, but I won't always be. That's why I'm inviting you to join my alumni social network. Find out what you have in common with other people I have thrilled - or pissed off - over the years.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 2:43 AM | 1 Comment

August 21, 2007

Careers: From Babysitter to Astronaut

Until recently none of my babysitters made much news. I think one turned out to be a minor league baseball player. The others are mostly forgotten.

I want to give a shout out today to Barbara Radding Morgan, a babysitter, brilliant student, school teacher, parent, and astronaut. You may recall that she was the alternate for teacher Christa McAuliffe, who died in the 1986 Challenger disaster.

It would be tempting to say that Barbara always reached for the stars, but it wasn't like that. My parents told my sister and me that the Stanford grad was a bit of a hippie when she opted to become a school teacher and move to Idaho.

There weren't a lot of hippies in Fresno, Ca. and we were certain that this wasn't a great career move.

After Endeavor landed today, Barbara was quoted as saying "The room is still spinning a little bit but that's ok. It's actually pretty interesting if you could be in my body."

Barbara is all about giving back. She's returning to Idaho next week to meet former students at McCall-Donnelly Elementary School, where she taught English and mathematics before joining NASA's astronaut corps. It's hard to imagine how many students or teachers she has inspired.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 7:48 PM | Add Comment

August 16, 2007

Careers: Misadventures on Facebook

If my friends hear me utter the word Facebook one more time they are going to excommunicate me from their buddy lists.

I'm adding to the noise only because Facebook demands the immediate attention of all 30 million of us members. Today's poll reads: Which brand is the best toothpaste?

Frankly, if I could entice 30 million people to take a poll, that wouldn't be it. At first glance, it may seem improbable that a site serving up this kind of fluff could advance your career or put you back in touch with a funny former co-worker, but there you have it.

Sometimes I feel that Facebook is AOL on steroids, or that I'm having a Prodigy flashback. Weren't there about 30 million AOL members back in the dial-up days?

I wholeheartedly agree with Newsweek's Steve Levy when he writes that "At this point, though, much of the grammar of the site (as well as much of the first wave of applications) is still tilted toward student life."

Today I was greeted by a request from a stranger whom I recently added to my 'friends' list. I forget why we connected. She asks whether I want to become one of her "Top Friends." Becoming a Top Friend, I learn, requires that I install an application that enables me to rank all of my connections.

Because your friends need to know where they rank it says. By rank, they literally mean one through one hundred or whatever. (I do not wish to know this information.) What if one of my friends is my boss and another is my wife. Which one should I rank higher? Of course, the smarter idea is not to install the application.

Trying to connect to another adult who isn't a co-worker or a member of a Facebook network (group) is fast but a bit awkward. But I quibble (professionally).

My blogging guru, whose site's pageviews are like mine multiplied by the population of Rio de Janeiro explains to me that he's on Facebook, but not under his real name. Only his family & friends know his real Facebook address.

While he's not looking to Facebook to advance his career he is trying to utilize its communication strengths. Facebook, like other social networking sites, is good at keeping track of members who bother to update their status and latest achievements.

For those people interested in using social networks to advance their career or manage professional relationships the main case for Facebook isn't that it's a perfect site. For better or worse, it's the site seeing the most rapid growth and functional innovations (mostly by third-party developers). Despite its apparent immaturity, Facebook is arguably the place to be.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 4:20 AM | 3 Comments

August 8, 2007

Careers: Do Jobs Spread Virally Across Social Networks?

When the scientific study hit the wires recently establishing that obesity spreads virally across large "social networks," I figured that science was simply appropriating a popular cyberspace term.

After all, if obesity could spread across Facebook, or MySpace, science would have a larger problem on its hands than excessive girth. Are my contacts on Facebook really that susceptible to my suggestions? If so, I have a get-rich-slowly scheme to sell them.

Still, it's obvious that some news and ideas spread virally over the Net; think about how many times you have spammed your friends or associates with jokes, links to articles, blog posts or videos. Before there was e-mail there were fax machines and (lawyer) jokes made the rounds pretty quickly, too.

Are there limits to this principle? For instance, does news about job vacancies spread virally over the Net? If I were fired from my job I imagine that word would spread quickly by voice, IM or e-mail between my friends and colleagues. But what if it's simply "news" about a job opening in my company?

I might not spread that news unless I knew someone seeking that information. By contrast every one of my friends is constantly looking for a laugh (it's a pre-requisite).

In this sense, maybe job vacancies are a bit different than jokes. And maybe that's because there's so much noise in the job world - job ads are always in our face - on search engines, e-mail advertising, website homepages, and, of course, on job boards, too.

Yet, here's how job openings move virally on social networks:

• When you're seeking work, you put out feelers, especially among your network of contacts, and if they hear about an opportunity they notify you.
• You can be a passive job candidate - and if there is compelling information about you in your social networking profile, a recruiter might find it and contact you. (Odds are multiple ones will.)
• For those more actively seeking employment, on social networks you can send appeals to your contact list's contacts - an exponentially larger universe.

Rohit Bhargava, who leads the interactive marketing team at Ogilvy Public Relations in Washington DC, is an avid blogger and an adept social networker. He believes that social networking is making it possible for job searches to become viral. "It used to be that you would send an email to everyone you knew and they might send it to somebody else," says Bhargava. On Linked-in, for example, Bhargava says you can "very easily reach [your contact's] second tier of network," meaning friends of friends.

Although at times it may seem that there's a bright line separating social networks in the 'real world' from those in cyberspace, the truth is much blurrier than it appears. Job searches fall into the category of ideas that can spread virally. Especially if you lose a job and everyone hears that you're a free agent - that's the tipping point.

Here's something for social scientists to puzzle over: one of my real-life friends (a Linked-in connection) just became CEO of a company. Does a rising social connection lift all of his or her network contacts - or only the suggestible ones?

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 9:17 PM | 1 Comment

August 2, 2007

Careers: How Many Social Networks Are Enough?

When Groucho Marx famously told the Friars that he "didn't want to belong to any club that will accept me as a member" he notified them via telegram.

If Groucho were on e-mail today he would be spammed by invitations from friends, acquaintances and total strangers to join dozens of social networking sites. I picture him rolling his eyes at the pointlessness of belonging to clubs that don't serve cocktails or fat cigars.

Unlike Groucho, I am checking out multiple social networking sites as part of a careers research project. One observation: Social networking sites are often the first place where professionals actively manage relationships that may advance their careers.

It's no secret that quite often in life who you know is more important than what you know. These sites help automate the former so efficiently that I would unhesitatingly recommend them to everyone.

Choosing the right social networking site to advance your career isn't a serious problem. If one doesn't pan out, you can always try another, perhaps more or less specialized one.

The biggest problem is a lack of differentiation between the sites, although each has its own peculiar rules of engagement. There's no getting around the fact that it's boring to set up a profile on multiple sites.

For some social butterflies the process of amassing contacts, especially experts or old friends, is a bit addictive.

Chuck Hester, corporate communications director at iContact in North Carolina, has gathered more than 1,800 connections on Linked-in. I'm one of them. "I constantly receive invitations from Linked-in contacts that are on XING, Blue Chip Expert and other social networks, but my standard response is I only have time for Linked-in and Facebook," says Hester.

To understand why Hester uses two networks it helps to know that his 22-year-old boss, CEO Ryan Allis also uses Facebook. Apart from that, says Hester, "What I look for in a social network is the value of the connections, the ability to connect with like-minded individuals I can help and can help me in business and in my personal life."

Makes sense, but of course time is an enormous consideration for Hester and everyone else. If the sites offer similar benefits, such as access to recruiters in your field, access to your alumni network, or people to date, why bother with multiple sites?

B. Lee Jones, a CIO in the Bay Area who found his most recent job on Linked-in, has grown his network of connections to more than 1,600. He followed me over to Xing and then invited me to join him on a new network called Doostang. I'm tempted to up the ante by inviting him to join me on eCademy or maybe Orkut.

"Do I want to go through the pain and suffering of building up on another site to that kind of level?" wonders Jones. "It can be fairly consuming to add people and maintain it."

Though they seem similar, social networking sites aren't interchangeable, meaning that joining one site doesn't open you up to others. Don't be afraid to try something completely different - like an online club that isn't your usual fare. Sometimes a new set of connections is the perfect way to broaden your horizon.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 1:01 AM | 1 Comment

July 25, 2007

Careers: If Only You Could Work Here

Have you ever wandered into an office staffed by 55 employees who are mostly 24-years-old and in their first job out of college? It might be kind of fun, right?

And in this particular office above Union Square in New York City, they throw the occasional staff party billed as the "Thursday Night Hang." The workers in this firm called Connected Ventures run three pretty cool companies: a site called CollegeHumor.com; a t-shirt company called Busted Tees; and a video community site that predates YouTube called Vimeo.com.

One evening at a company party, they recorded the following video, for fun, on a single take. It wasn't intended to be a recruitment video; it just turned out that way. Note, it takes about 40 seconds or more to get grooving and some of the words in a song you will hear are mature. Don't worry, nothing else about the video is mature, it's all in fun.

Lip Dub - Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger from Vimeo.

There were unexpected outcomes to this exercise:

• Four million people have "viewed" this video since it was posted in May
• The video has been widely discussed on blogs around the world, including on Tech Crunch's CrunchNotes site. Many of the comments are variations of this: "I want to work there"
• In homage to Connected Ventures' groundbreaking effort, an office of Paris-based designers (Heaven.fr) recorded a lip-dub to Weezer's Sweater song. (Some say it is better, but I don't think so.)
• Résumés are streaming into Connected Ventures

"We put it on online so we could share it with friends and so people," says Ricky Van Veen, one of the founders of the company and Editor-in-Chief of CollegeHumor.com. "It didn't occur to us that anybody outside of the office would want to see it."

Amandalyn Ferri, who works in marketing at Busted Tees, has won a lot of admirers for her "performance" that marks the beginning of the video - a "lip-dub" to Harvey Danger's Flagpole Sitta. "I work here and I think that people are under the impression that as a company we all just sit around and do nothing," she says. "We definitely give off the impression that we hang out and it's like a college dorm 24x7. Realistically it's not a surprise to come back and see people working at 8 or 9 p.m."

If most of us could stop working by 9 p.m. we would be pretty happy.

"It has been such a great recruiting tool for us," says Van Veen, who performs in the video. "We saw a couple of hundred résumés just blindly. People said, 'I don't know what you do but I just want to work at your company.'" They're hiring.

Rusty Weston, My Global Career • San Francisco, Ca • http://www.myglobalcareer.com/ •

Posted by Rusty Weston at 1:14 PM | 8 Comments

July 17, 2007