Sunday Brunch Reads with Social Media ReInvention: 05/31/15 to 06/04/15

Sunday Brunch Newspaper

Photo Credit: Anton Diaz

 

Can you believe it? American Pharaoh won American horse racing’s elusive Triple Crown. Affirmed last accomplished this feat 37 years ago. Wow.

Exciting stuff and I hope you enjoy these additional selected articles for your Sunday Brunch Reads (along with Your Sunday Brunch Silicon Valley Catchphrase of the Week) . Eat well and have a great Sunday.

Your Sunday Brunch Silicon Valley Catchphrase of the Week: Solutions That Scale / We’re All About Scalable Solutions.

1. LinkedIn Pulse: 7 Best Ways to Customize A “Connection Request. J.T. O’Donnell, CEO of CareerHMO and CAREEREALISM Media is a LinkedIn Influencer for a reason: She writes and shares brilliant and valuable articles like this one. Her article teaches us how to differentiate and customize our LinkedIn Invitation when we’ve never met someone in-person (IRL).  (more…)

57 Resources to Help College Graduates Land that First Marketing Job

 

The Number 57

57 Resources to Help College Graduates Land that First Marketing Job

How CONFIDENT are YOU in LANDING a JOB After Graduation?

Low Confidence? Most college students would say things look bleak for finding full-time work after graduating.  According to the CNBC article, Job Picture Looks Bleak for 2013, the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), plans to hire only 2.1% more graduates from the class of 2013 than from the class of 2012.

A Significant Gap Between Student and Employer Expectations.  Furthermore, a recent Business Insider article shares survey results from the academic services company, Chegg describing skills assessments by both college students and potential entry-level employers. In multiple skills areas (especially those relating to writing and critical thinking), college students are overestimating their skill levels and preparedness for business success in the following areas:

  • Writing to summarize results and convey information
  • Writing to communicate ideas or explain informaton clearly
  • Incorporating information to develop strategic insights


57 Resources to Land that First Marketing Job

There's Hope, If You're Willing to Put in the Work.  These various resources are categorized to aid recent college graduates who majored in marketing and communications (or current students majoring in these fields) during their full-time job search (or an internship search for current students).

These resources (along with resources from previous posts in this series) can give recent graduates ideas, strategies, and tactics providing a competitive advantage not only in the job search but also in developing several of the requisite skills and knowledge employers say recent graduates lack.

The categories are listed below with a make-shift table of contents:

  • Resource 1: Your Online Portfolio, Evan Kirsch and FolioMatch.com
  • Resources 2 – 9: Resources / Ideas from Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Mitch Joel, and David Meerman Scott
  • Resources 10 – 18: Career Success Ideas from Dan Schawbel for Young People and Millenials  
  • Resources 19 – 20: Job Search 101
  • Resources 21 – 28: Interviewing 101 (and Beyond)
  • Resources 29 – 30: Using Twitter's Real-Time Capabilities to Power Your Job Search
  • Resources 31 – 46: 21st Century Marketing and Communications: Walk-the-Walk and Talk-the-Talk
  • Resources 47 – 49: LinkedIn
  • Resources 50 – 51: Preparing Your Resume
  • Resources 52 – 57: Inspiration on Demand

Resources 2 – 57 are in no particular ranking or order. I included numbers to track the number of items and subsequently group them with some logic.  

Plus, having a high number for list-type blog post titles is scientifically proven to attract more readers.

 

Start Here — Number 1: Your Online Portfolio, Evan Kirsch and FolioMatch.com

1. FolioMatch.com. FolioMatch.com is the Kansas City-based brainchild of its President and CEO Evan Kirsch.  I met Evan during the 2012 UMKC Regnier Family Foundation Venture Creation Challenge.  UMKC's Henry W. Bloch School Management honored him as its 2012 Student Entrepreneur of the Year.  

Why Evan and FolioMatch.com are Number 1.  Evan created this company for an honorable mission and intent: To Put America's Young People To Work by Helping College Graduates Land that Ever-Elusive First Job.

Addressing Unmet Needs. FolioMatch.com fulfills HUGE unmet needs for young people who may have recently graduated, will graduate in Spring 2014, or are current college students seeking internship opportunities while in school:

  • Providing a living/breathing, on-demand online portfolio capturing all relevant projects, class assigments, internship deliverables / work products, accomplishments, awards, etc. throughout a college student's four-year college career
  • Devoting a career-focused, portfolio-centric, social network for a narrow audience (college students AND ambitious high school students)

I Think the World of Evan Kirsch and FolioMatch.com.  About a year and a half ago, I remember having lunch with him and listening to him passionately describe what drives him to make FolioMatch.com successful (at the time of our lunch the company was orignially named Folioboy.com):  

  • It isn't money
  • It isn't glory
  • It isn't fame

Evan founded FolioMatch.com because he genuinely believes:

Helping Others is THE HONORABLE WAY to Lead One's Life.  

I'm admiringly jealous of his guts to accomplish so much at young age.  20+ years ago, I lacked Evan's unshakeable vision, heart, passion, and resolve.  But, I'm working on that (because it's never too late to commit to becoming a remarkable artist).

Here's a video describing FolioMatch.com:

FolioMatch Introduction from FolioMatch Team on Vimeo.

Here's a video Evan and FolioMatch.com created to inspire talented, hungry, and go-getter millenials to embrace their call-to-action to create something remarkable via entrepreneurship:

FOLIO MATCH and MO CHALLENGE from FolioMatch Team on Vimeo.

From the Video.  "We started FolioMatch to be a one-stop resource for a student to keep track of all the projects they've completed over the years. Since then we have started sponsoring educational challenges so that we could help boost the content of students' portfolios."

  

Required Full Disclosure / Am I Receiving Any Money / Am I Receiving Any Equity / Am I an Advisory Board Member and other Boilerplate B.S. I Have to Write For Speaking So Highly of Evan and FolioMatch.com. I receive zero, nada, nothing, and any other cliche, etc. in financial compensation for talking up Evan and FolioMatch.com.  

I'm writing about Evan/his company because he leads a committed/dedicated tribe who rightfully deserves it.  I'm spreading the word about Evan and FolioMatch.com because it's THE RIGHT THING TO DO.  

And, that makes me feel good …

… please spread the word about Evan, his company, and FolioMatch.com's honorable mission.

If you're a college student (or an ambitious high school student), go to the FolioMatch.com site and register.

If you're a parent who's worried your son/daughter who graduates from college in Spring 2014 may face difficulty in this brutal job market (because the odds are he/she will), go to the FolioMatch.com site and register.

If you're a Spring 2013 college graduate and you're still actively looking for that first giggo to the FolioMatch.com site and register.  Learning how to leverage LinkedIn to your advantage during your job search is important.  But, it takes more to win an interview slot AND stand out among thousands of applicants.

 

Resources / Ideas from the Best Marketing and Communications Teachers:  Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Mitch Joel, and David Meerman Scott

Common themes running through the resources 2 – 9 are entrepreneurial hustle and creativity. Standing out in an unfavorable economy within an ocean of candidates requires the courage and true grit to aggressively market yourself.

2. Tom Peters / Fast Company: The Brand Called YOU: This August 1997 article is the original classic highlighting the rising importance of personal branding.  Mr. Peters was ahead of his time in publishing and describing these timeless career management principles.

3. Seth Godin: Graduate school for unemployed college students

4. Seth Godin and Inc.com: 5 Ways to be Known as a Groundbreaking Thinker

5. Mitch Joel: 8 Ways to Score that Elusive Entry Level Marketing Position

6. Mitch Joel: 20 Best Marketing Books of All Time: Mitch literally posted this article a few days ago. He's often asked what are the best marketing books he recommends studying.  If you go to the comments section of his article, you'll see four (4) additional recommendations I suggested.  I would also add Six Pixels of Separation and Ctrl Alt Delete to this list (because the author of these classics is a pretty cool dude).

7. David Meerman Scott: Lindsey shows how to market to millenials and how to get a first job: David's blog post describing how Lindsey Kirchoff aggressively and uniquely marketed herself personifies her entrepreneurial hustle an creativity.

Here's a great video David filmed with Lindsey Kirchoff (who started working full-time with HubSpot's Content Creation & Blogging Team in September 2012):

 

 

8. David Meerman Scott: Tough love for marketing & PR job seekers

9. David Meerman Scott: 5 ideas for marketing and communications professors' success in the classroom

Bonus. David Meerman Scott — Inbound Job Search: David published this video on December 2nd. He shares five (5) inspiring stories about people publishing creative and remarkable content to win dream jobs.  One of the stories is how his daughter, Allison Meerman Scott, leveraged her personal blog to differentiate herself from thousands of outstanding Columbia University undergraduate applicants to win admission!

 

Dan Schawbel: Have the Courage to Promote Yourself (Because It's a Good Thing)


No one understands more about personal branding for young people than Dan Schawbel
. It's why I literally carved out a "Dan Section" highlighting his work.  The man knows what he's talking about so take his advice seriously.

I do. And, even though he's 20 years younger, I believe his teachings apply to any age group or professional experience level.  He's the epitome of entrepreneurial hustle

10. Dan Schawbel and Forbes.com: My 10 Best Pieces of Career Advice for Millenials

11. Dan Schawbel: Top 5 Job Search Tips for Millenials

12. Dan Schawbel and Time.com: Somebody's Gotta Get Hired, Right? 6 Tips to Help New Grads Land Job Offers  

13. Mitch Joel and Dan Schawbel (from Six Pixels of Separation – The Podcast): SPOS #379 — Dan Schawbel Wants You to Promote Yourself  

14. Dan Schawbel and Time.com: How Recruiters Use Social Networks to Make Hiring Decisions Now  

15. Dan Schawbel and Forbes.com: How Globalization and Social Media has Impacted the US Economy

16. Dan Schawbel: Millenial Branding and Student Employment Gap Study

17. Dan Schwabel and Forbes.com: 5 Reasons Why Your Online Presence Will Replace Your Resume in 10 Years

18. Dan Schawbel and Time.com: The End of the Full-Time Salaried Job

 

Job Search 101

These Mashable articles do a great job in describing the basics AND the things to do to stand out. The common theme here is "put in the work." No magical formulas. Just get to work.

19. Mashable: 35 Surefire Ways to Stand Out During Your Job Search

20. Mashable: How to Nail Your Entry-Level Job Search


Interviewing 101 (and Beyond)

The common theme throughout these articles: Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. Do this and you'll eliminate 50% – 60% of your competition before walking in the room.

21. Fast Company: How to Nail Your Next Phone Interview

22. Lou Adler and LinkedIn Today: Moneyball for Job-seekers: How to Increase Your Interviewing Odds

23. Lou Adler and LinkedIn Today: Five Things You Must Not Do in an Interview and Five Things You Must Not

24James Caan and LinkedInToday: The 3 Questions People Always Forget to Ask During Job Interviews

25James Caan and LinkedIn Today: 5 Ways to Avoid Losing Out on that Dream Job

26. Mashable: INFOGRAPHIC — Top Job Search Mistakes Millenials Make and How to Fix Them

27. Mashable: 6 Job Interview Questions and Answers to Avoid

28. Lea McCleod, M.A.: 5 Big Reasons New College Grads are Failing the Job Search

 

Creative Ways to Use Twitter in Your Job Search 

When it comes to real-time news and responsiveness, there's Twitter and then there's everybody else. Leverage its real-time capabilities to your advantage. Finding out about that open, entry-level position before other candidates is a competitive advantage.


29.
 Mashable: How a 140-Character Twitter Resume Could Land Your Next Job

30. 20 Twitter Resources for Job Hunters

 

21st Century Marketing, Communications, and Public Relations Knowledge

Talk the Talk Like Seasoned Marketing Pros. The interviewing team will deem you credible only if you "speak their language."  Therefore, learn how to speak it.  Learn about the movements impacting marketing now (and in the future).

You don't have to memorize vocabulary lists by rote. But, you have to credibly demonstrate your awareness of how marketing, communications, and public relations are constantly changing.

Walk the Walk Like Seasoned Marketing Pros. The following resources provide ideas and suggestions for developing skills in writing, storytelling, and critical thinking.  Remember, the Internet turns every moment before, during, and after a job interview into a show-me you're different opportunity — Take the Initiative and Take the Advantage.

21st Century Marketing and Communications Fundamentals Bootcamp


31
. HubSpot Inbound Marketing Blog: You Were Too Embarrassed to Google (But Should Definitely Know)

32HubSpot Inbound Marketing Blog

33HubSpot Academy 

Content Marketing

34Marketing Profs Daily Fix Blog

35Content Marketing Institute Blog


Online, Digital, eCommerce Future Trends and Patterns

36The Mitch Joel Six Pixels of Separation Podcasts on iTunes (and their free)

37eMarketer Articles

Blogging

38Copyblogger Blog

39. Darren Rowse: PROBLOGGER Blog


Measurement and Analytics

40Occam's Razor Blog By Avinash Kaushik

41The Future Buzz Blog by Adam Singer

42Google Analytics Blog

43Google Analytics Academy

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

44Rand Fishkin's MOZ Blog

45The MOZ Blog

46Danny Sullivan's SearchEngineLand.com Blog

 

LinkedIn

47. Forbes: 7 Ways to Make LinkedIn Help You Find a Job

48. Forbes: 5 LinkedIn Strategies You Haven't Thought of Before: the suggestion to use LinkedIn showing you've researched a company's competitors and the point of "sales reinforcement" has powerful applications in a job interview

49. Lou Adler and LinkedIn Today: Networking Rules for Job Seekers — The Good, The Bad, and The Almost Perfect

Preparing Your Resume 

50. Mashable: Why You Need Several Versions of Your Resume

51. LinkedIn Labs Resume Builder: This handy app transforms your LinkedIn Profile into a PDF resume. Therefore, fill out your LinkedIn profile with as much detail as you can. 

Inspiration On Demand 

52. to 55. LinkedIn Influencers — My First Job Job Series: If you're getting down on yourself during the process, GO HERE IMMEDIATELY. Everyone had to start out somewhere. That includes some of the world's most influential movers & shakers in every industry.  

Don't believe me?  Here are some samples how:

My First Job. I started out as an unpaid, summer laboratory tech intern / dishwasher at The Washington University School of Medicine.  Luckily for me, the department's head researcher paid me that fall because my boss said I was a good guy.

56. Jonathan Fields — The Good Life Project: Jonathan is an A-List entrepreneur and a person driven to help others succeed personally and professionally via entrepreneurship.  His video interviews are inspiring.

I subscribe to his free podcasts on iTunes and listen to them repeatedly.

Check out this video on overcoming and reframing risk and the fear of failure and judgment.  Pure Gold.


 

 

57. Video: Best Day of My Life (Dog Version) by American Authors: Trust me, this video will make you feel soooooo good after watching it no matter how bad you feel. And, it's probably why American Authors are my new favorite band and why this song is now my all-time favorite.

 

 

Closing Thoughts

This is post five (and the final one) in a series to help new college graduates and current students land full-time jobs or internships.

Here are the respective links for posts 1 to 4:

Your Turn

If you're a college graduate looking for work, a concerned parent, a worried relative, or a current college student, please let me know in the comments if the content here helped (or if it didn't).

What should be kept on this list?  What should be taken off? What resources did I miss?  What should be added?

Please help me in continuously improving this page as a helpful resource to others.

Tony Faustino is a marketing and corporate strategist.  He writes about how The Internet reinvents marketing strategy for organizations and individuals in his marketing strategy blog, Social Media ReInvention.  Follow his tweets @tonyfaustino or circle him on Google+. 

Photo Credit by STV Photos via flickr

LinkedIn Lessons Part 1: Monitoring Your Personal Brand with the Popular Profile Section

It’s hard to believe I graduated from Washington University twenty-plus years ago.  Since that time, I’ve made many important professional relationships.  “It’s not what you know, it’s who you know” is more than a clever cliché.  Relationships and access to key individuals is vitally important to succeeding in any organization, conducting a job search, executing a strategic plan, or selling a solution.

I started using LinkedIn more than a year ago to build, centralize, and maintain my professional relationships.  LinkedIn is a social networking site targeted to business professionals.  According to its website, LinkedIn counts 43 million+ members in over 200 countries.  In many ways, it’s the business audience version of Facebook.  Similar to growing and keeping in touch with Facebook “friends,” your primary purpose is to grow and maintain your LinkedIn “connections.”

Participation in LinkedIn is Important for Personal Branding and Online Visibility
When I started documenting ideas for The Social Media Reinvention Blog, I naturally thought of writing a LinkedIn-related article, and its importance in personal branding.  Here are some helpful online resources describing the importance of participating in LinkedIn:

·     HOW TO: Build Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn by Dan Schawbel

·     4 Minutes to Optimize a LinkedIn Profile for SEO by HubSpot

·     10 Ways to Use LinkedIn to Find a Job by Guy Kawasaki

Your individual, LinkedIn Profile is a personal branding opportunity that promotes your skills, capabilities, and connections to:

·     Your current employer

·     A prospective employer

·     A prospective connection

Even more importantly, LinkedIn public profiles rank very high in Google Searches which significantly increases your online visibility.  My public LinkedIn profile consistently ranks as my highest Google Search Engine Result when searching for “Tony Faustino.” 

The Popular Profiles Section Measures Your Personal Branding Efforts Within LinkedIn 
LinkedIn Popular Profile Cropped Many LinkedIn features are highly useful in personal branding.  For this post, I will focus on the “Popular Profiles” feature found in the LinkedIn Company Profile Page of a respective company. 

In a LinkedIn Company Profile Page, the top five Popular Profiles are displayed for that respective organization.  According to LinkedIn’s Frequently Asked Questions: Origin of Data for Company Profiles, a Popular Profile is defined as: “These are LinkedIn users who have the most Profile views for the Company Profile page you are viewing.”

Therefore, the Popular Profiles Section measures your LinkedIn Profile’s “findability” or “searchability” to other LinkedIn members.  This is extremely important so I monitor my profile’s popularity on a weekly basis.  This monitoring activity helps me gauge how well I’ve optimized my profile with important keywords and the effectiveness of my comments in various LinkedIn Discussion Group forums.

Note: I checked with LinkedIn Customer Service if the Popular Profile algorithm also factors in the number of views of one’s public profile – it does not (e.g., LinkedIn profiles views resulting from Google Searches).

I’ve Maintained a Popular Profile on my Firm’s LinkedIn Company Page for 22 Consecutive Weeks
Maintaining a Popular Profile on LinkedIn takes significant time and commitment.  When I discovered the Popular Profiles feature, I made it a personal goal to get my profile listed in this section.  Here are the four tactics I employ to continue achieving this result:

·     Optimize Your Profile for Important Keywords (Particularly The Specialties Section)

·     Thoroughly Describe Your Work Experience

·     Frequently Update Your Status with Useful Content

·     Actively Comment in LinkedIn Discussion Group Forums

In LinkedIn Lessons Part 2, I will describe in further detail how I specifically employ these four tactics.

LinkedIn Lessons Part 2: Four Tactics for Creating a “Popular Profile” on Your Company’s Profile Page

Note: This blog post is Part 2 of a two-part series on LinkedIn Lessons.  The first blog post is titled, LinkedIn Lessons Part 1: Monitoring Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn with the Popular Profile Section.

For 22 consecutive weeks, I’ve maintained a LinkedIn Profile that’s listed on the Popular Profiles Section of my firm’s Company Profile Page.

Here are the four tactics I employ to continue achieving this result:

·     Optimize Your Profile with Important Keywords

·     Thoroughly Describe Your Work Experience

·     Frequently Update Your Status With Useful Content

·     Actively Comment in LinkedIn Discussion Group Forums

Optimize Your Profile with Important Keywords
LinkedIn Specialties It’s important to include keywords in your profile so a prospective employer, recruiter, or connection can easily find you.  In particular, the Specialties Section provides an outstanding opportunity to highlight your skills and capabilities.  Make sure this section fully lists and describes the knowledge you’ve acquired throughout your entire professional career.  Too often, people make the mistake of not fully elaborating on the many skills they’ve implemented in different jobs.  In the leaner world of Corporate America, you’ve probably developed additional skills that weren’t part of the original job description by frequently multi-tasking.  Make sure you describe those skills in the Specialties Section!

LinkedIn Who Viewed My Profile p1 A leading indicator of your profile optimization is the “Who’s Viewed My Profile” Section.  This section is located on the right side bar of your LinkedIn Home Page.  “Who’s Viewed My Profile” measures how many people recently viewed your profile, and the number of times it appeared in search results.   


Thoroughly Describe Your Work Experience
LinkedIn allows you to host and exhibit your entire resume online.  Take full advantage of this opportunity!  I recommend copying and pasting every bullet point from your resume into the LinkedIn template.  A full explanation of your work experience ensures your profile contains several keywords.  In addition, LinkedIn provides the option to make your public profile available with a customized URL that includes your name.  A customized URL with your name provides another search engine opportunity for Google or Bing to identify and display “your name” in search results.  Remember, LinkedIn Profiles rank very high in the Google Search algorithm so take advantage of the customized URL option.  Doing so will maximize your online visibility to prospective connections or employers.

Frequently Update Your Status with Useful Content
I view the Status Section as channel for sharing content that other connections will find personally or professionally beneficial.  This philosophy is similar to my strategy for crafting a tweet on Twitter.  Whenever possible, I link an article or online reference to my status update.  Using a URL shortening service like bit.ly makes it easier to accomplish this task because you’re limited by character spaces.

Here’s an example of a LinkedIn status update that connections favorably commented on: “A permanent job is a temporary one disguised with benefits.” Reinvent Your Job-Forbes http://bit.ly/EuuO8; One connection even tweeted this article to his Twitter followers and referenced me.

I wrote this updated linked to a New York Times article on the recent Yahoo-Microsoft deal: Why Carol Bartz Sold Yahoo Search: Matching Google & Microsoft's investment level is unsustainable strategy; NYTimes http://bit.ly/g5G8D.

Here’s the status update I provided this Friday morning: Is Universal Care & Cost Containment Viable? France's universal healthcare experiencing challenges|WSJ http://bit.ly/1U412E

Actively Comment in LinkedIn Discussion Group Forums
Joining and actively commenting in LinkedIn Discussion Groups allows you to demonstrate your knowledge in particular topics or industries.  It’s important to write thoughtful and helpful comments because this is how other LinkedIn members will primarily interact with you. Essentially, these discussion forums are the online equivalent of a 24/7 networking event.  After all, it’s called social networking for a reason!

Starting or posting a Discussion Topic is one of my favorite ways to establish a presence on LinkedIn.  In my own experience, trial and error determines what types of posts other members will favorably respond to and provide comments.  When a particular post strikes a favorable chord, the results are absolutely rewarding.  Four months ago, I posted a provocative article in my graduate business school’s LinkedIn group.  The article, RIP MBA: The Economic Crisis has Exposed the Myth of Business-School Expertise, and the ensuing discussion generated 33 comments.  I acted as the discussion moderator and let commenting activity take a life of its own.  More importantly, it gave me a credible entrée in connecting with other business school alumni that I otherwise would never personally meet.  And ultimately, isn’t that what we all would like to achieve through LinkedIn …