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Give to Get

Attended a wonderful dinner and conversation last night with some of the smartest, hardest-working, innovative people in the NYC advertising technology community last night.

One of the most fascinating aspects was to observe the networking. Dinner was followed by a moderated discussion of the industry, and with a room full of senior professionals and entrepreneurs who've grown or are growing the companies whose success will shape the industry itself, the opinions were deeply held and candidly expressed.

Afterwards, as we mingled and discussed the debate and got to know one another, I was struck by one participant, the most outspoken and forthright in his ambition to win big and define the industry on his company's terms. Terms at odds with several of his competitors in the room.

But in person he was charming, gracious, and seemed to put one thing ahead of all others, how he might be able to help you. And not consultative/sales help, investing social capital help. 

Now this individual was one of the most professionally successful in the room, and had already displayed a very healthy competitive instinct. Watching him looking for ways to help, questioning, learning more to see if there was any way he could be useful, was for me a powerful lesson of "give to get" in action. 

I believe the smartest entrepreneurs and professionals use this concept in virtually every situation, excepting perhaps the witness box of a courtroom, because they know, or have learned from experience, who "wins" in these situations. When one person receives your help, that's one person getting some help from you, be it knowledge, an introduction, a bit of free consulting, whatever. But when you /give/ your help to fifty people, and 20% of them "convert" on returned favors, that's 10 lifts for you and/or your business. Those focused returns can be the difference between closing or losing the next deal, the next investment, or in our case, landing the next job.

Give to get. Follow the lead of countless winners in the game of life and help as many people as you can in as many ways as you can possibly think of, and you will get back far more than you will ever give away.

Three Job Development Tips

Gina Trapani has a good post on effective working that you can apply to your job development activities. 

Here are her suggestions, along with my thoughts on how they can be put into practice developing your next job.

Choose three important tasks to complete each day.

1. At least one significant networking-related activity: a phone call, a lunch, coffee.
   
2. At least one targeted job application per day. Writing the cover letter and mapping your experience to the position will keep you thinking about these details and provide ammunition for your next interview.
   
3. At least one psychically/emotionally rewarding activity. Read these tips for the upside to looking where your passions lead you in finding your next job. 

Turn off your email client.

Hmm, well this is a tough one for me. :) But I understand the interruption problem only too well. Personally, I find the "squeeze it in" approach of author Cory Doctorow more applicable to my own style. Of course sometimes you have to close down everything. In those moments I like to walk away from the computer entirely and work from paper.

Set up a weekly 20-minute meeting with yourself.

Assess the week past and prioritize the week upcoming. Over a longer term of a few weeks to a month, think about what's worked and what hasn't. If a particular event was productive then look for analogues. Having great conversations with old clients? Keep running down the rolodex. And remember again to make time to recharge the batteries in your personal life. 

The Interview: Question Tips

One of the areas I always feel most challenged by in an interview is the "Do you have any questions?" portion. In almost every situation, it is incumbent upon the interviewee to have a question, you do not look interested and/or maximally intelligent otherwise.

Of course every interview is situational so there are no specific scripts you can rely on, but here are three "question themes" you can take into an interview

What part of ________ is making this issue important for you now?

Intention: Get more background detail, firm up your understanding of the high-level motivation for the position. Example:

"So is this team expansion driven entirely by your recent growth or are you reacting to a recent competitive development?"

Near-term/long-term, how do the priorities break down?

Intention: Understanding what matters when you land at the desk and down the road. This depends on the presentation of the position up to that point. Example:

"I understand you are addressing A, B, and C in the near-term, and that D is your long-term goal. Who else is looking at B in the near term, or do I own that issue entirely?"

Has the company dealt with a similar issue in the past?

Intention: Is this a new strategy in response to a new issue, or are you being hired to manage a validated program?

"Where are you looking for any innovative thinking to be a focus, in creating the solution or executing the process?"

Again, these need to be tailored to the situation and your approach and language, but I've found them to be useful reminders that keep me on the lookout during an interview, and generally lead to a more detailed/pointed question during the follow-up.

What about you? Have any "question cues" that you rely on? Please comment and share.

Job Development Overview

My job development philosophy can be summed up in two points:

1. Get your money straight.
   
2. Be helpful.
   

Map your job development strategy to your budget. If you need personal finance help, here are some great posts on managing your budget during unemployment.

How to Survive Unemployment

Personal Budget Worksheet

Creating a budget

Being helpful is shorthand for aggressive networking. The goal is similar to business development, look for creative ways to develop win-win relationships with new partners and/or build on existing relationships.

Yesterday's Reverse Indirect Networking post was one idea. Over time I hope to bring you many more. But if you have the budget to give time to developing these relationships, rewards will cycle back and generate opportunities for job development.

Reverse Indirect Networking

David Szary shares a tip for recruiters that can just as easily be flipped around and used by job seekers on the make.

Have you managed entry-level employees in your industry? Look for entry-level jobs comparable to your direct reports posted by companies in your field. 

When you find a position where you can make a referral, contact your former report and let them know you're seeing some interesting opportunities for them in parallel with your own search, and ask if they'd like to get connected and learn more. 

Then connect with HR and/or the hiring manager behind the position (this is probably the hard part) and let them know you have a referral for them. Make it clear you're not seeking quid pro quo, but looking to build new relationships in the industry.

Make the connection and create a new relationship with a potential employer. This is not likely a fast-track to a new position, but a long-term strategy that can put you on the radar of multiple companies/departments of interest to you.

Good luck with your search! Join us at jobscout.net and please send any feedback on the service and what you want/don't want to jonah@jobscout.net.

Hacking job search -- Getting around the recruiter

One of the things we do at jobscout is to generally link directly to postings on the hiring company's career's page. Sometimes, we find an interesting posting by a staffing firm/third party recruiter and want to make sure that it's not a bait-and-switch ad.

For example, today there's a job posting on Monster for an International Product Manager posted by a staffing firm:


Clicking on the posting takes us to the job description:
One way to sniff out the actual company is to search for some unique copy in the posting on Google. In this case searching for the text:

"International Product Manager will play a key role in migrating our highly successful PredictoMobile service into international markets"

...delivers the below results on Google. The second result shows a link to what seems to be the same job description by the actual company on SimplyHired:Clicking on that second result takes us to SimplyHired and shows that the company name is NextWeb Media. The link there takes you to another posting on Monster.
But, a quick search on Google for "NextWeb Media", and voila, you can apply to the job directly via the company's web site and/or do further research to see if there's someone who might be able to refer you to a hiring manager.
I'm not saying that you should always skip the recruiter.. sometimes they might have a better line to the hiring manager than applying directly. But, I will say it's helpful to know that (1) it's a real job and (2) by knowing the company you're able to see if you can find a contact to help put in a referral.

It might seem like a bit more work, but in this economy, it's likely time well spent.

Dreaming of soul-enriching work in a non-profit?

An article in the January issue of the Harvard Business review has some interesting stats and tips about the trend of professionals and executives moving toward nonprofits and the social sector.

• almost 10% of workers between 44 and 70 moved to a nonprofit from a corporate job
• and 50% of "trailing edge" boomers between 44 and 50 say they'd like to make the switch, too
• the nonprofit sector must find 330,000 senior executives by 2016 to replace those that are retiring
  

If you're hoping to make the transition, here's some advice from the article:

For the untold numbers of corporate executives who dream of soul-enriching second careers in the social sector—but have no idea how to make that dream come true—our advice is to lend your expertise: Volunteer for temporary positions or board memberships at several different organizations until you find your joy and discover what you are really good at.

Along those lines, here's a short video of an interview with Patty Stonesifer, the former CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, about bridging into the nonprofit sector.



There's a more in-depth article here.

Tips from Sarah Needleman of the WSJ about starting an online job search

Sarah covers career and tech related topics for the Wall Street Journal. She has a couple of articles with tips about starting an online job search (It Isn't Always a Job Behind an Online Job Posting and Experts Weigh In on Job Boards).

The first tip is a word of caution about the postings on many job boards:

If you're launching an online job hunt for the first time in a while; take caution. What may look like an ad for employment may lead to something entirely different, like a hard sell for career services or job-training manuals. Or worse, it might be a plan by identity thieves to get you to share sensitive personal information via "phishing" expeditions. Some of the job postings -- sometimes for positions long filled -- also could be from recruiting agencies looking to collect résumés.

The problem of job postings that aren't what they seem is adding to the frustrations of the more than two million recently laid-off workers who are competing for an increasingly limited number of jobs. The good news is that there are several tip-offs that indicate an ad is likely to lead you down the wrong path. And as long as you don't give out any private data, getting duped into responding to a fruitless job ad will likely only cost you time and energy.

The second tip is where to focus your online job search as there are over 60,000 job boards on the web today, it's hard to know where to spend your time and effort. She asked several experts in the field and the responses were generally along two lines: (1) focus on niche sites for better quality postings for mid-to-senior positions and (2) to try and not spend too much time searching for jobs online, and focus more effort on networking your way to a job.

Q: What advice do you have for job hunters searching employment boards?

A: Don't put too much time into them, advises Mr. Cohen. He recommends investing heavily in networking in person and online.

Four tips for those considering the freelancing option

Marketwatch has a nice interview with Sara Horowitz, executive director of Freelancers Union, about folks turning to freelance work as a temporary option to help make ends meet or as a springboard to a new career.



For Sara's four tips, the marketwatch article is here.

Let the Sun Shine: US is still hiring

"Double-digit unemployment" and "the worst X since Y" sell lots of newspapers. So if you are, like me, a recent job-hunter with 5-10 years of experience, the atmosphere is probably one of the gloomiest you've ever seen.

The reality is, as usual, better and worse than the headlines, which average out the details to give you a 10,000 foot view. Some sectors of the economy (education) are holding their own. Also undiscussed are the 14.5MM US workers over age 60 (my estimate). Just like the deaths from a natural disaster include people who happened to die of natural causes at just the right time, there is a gray zone of indeterminate size in all of these layoff stats. How many of the 1.5MM jobs lost in Dec'08-Jan'09 were due to "natural" or "slightly accelerated natural" attrition, aka retirement? 

Very few employers have the luxury of burying their heads in the sand until it all gets better (and with the USPS talking about reducing service, even the government workforce is getting the message that change is afoot), and companies that can't stand still need FTEs to move forward. 

Case in point, the spreadsheet of sunshine, which is documenting tech positions in the broader economy and broader positions in the tech economy. There is no doubt that the next year or two will be brutally darwinian at all "market cap points" on the corporate food chain, but scroll through this list and you'll see almost all industries and firm sizes represented. Whatever your tolerance for risk, chances are you can still find opportunity.

Outside of technology, particularly in construction and retail, the pain is acute, and I won't even attempt any pat words of advice or cheap comfort as my expertise decays rapidly outside of technology. If your career in one of the harder hit sectors has gotten knocked down in the past year, please comment or contact me with details on how you've responded to your situation. I'd love to post (anonymous) stories that might help other readers facing a similar trial.

3.6 million jobs -- not a pretty picture

The chart below shows the number of jobs lost over the last year vs the 1990 and 2001 recessions. Not a pretty picture...

jobscout just launched marketing manager jobs in new york digest

We just launched the marketing manager jobs in New York digest. We now have four digests covering business development, marketing manager, product manager and sales jobs in New York city.

It's been less than a month since we started and things seem to be off to a good start. A number of people have written in about how much they like the digests so far and that's great to hear.

If you're looking for a marketing manager job, please give the new digest a try. And, we love feedback and suggestions, so please leave a comment or send an email to dailydigest@jobscout.net!