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Tips on how to get on the gravy train – breaching the hidden job market from CVTips

Jobs For Seniors and the hidden job market.

Being proactive can bring you a good deal of success in life. This principle works exceptionally well in the field of job seeking, particularly with regard to gaining access to the hidden market.

The most effective techniques involve ways and means of keeping yourself fresh in the minds of as many people as possible in your profession. How can you achieve that? You will find the following tips highly effective:

1. Research the market and adapt – know at all times what professions and jobs are in demand in the market. You also need to know what level of importance your profession occupies. In case the market is low for your type of job/profession, it would be good to seek and acquire allied training/ expertise. People who can multi-task with ease are highly sought after everywhere.
2. Check out companies’ websites – often knowing how is the key to finding/achieving your goal in the shortest possible span of time. You are aware that above 75 percent of the jobs are never advertised and you wish to be privy to that intelligence. The best place to start is the company’s own website. In more than 90 percent of cases, the vacancies in any company are immediately posted on their website. Starting here would give you a great edge in searching and possible getting a job in the hidden market.
3. Cold calls – there is a lot of power in cold calls even today. The emails have made it possible to reach anybody at anytime. You need to keep people aware that you are ready for a career move, you draw-up a crisp self-marketing letter (mailer) not longer that three paragraphs and send it to the recruiting managers of the companies you seek to join. Be careful to differentiate between the HRD Head and the recruiting manager – many times these are two different people.
4. Network at grassroots level - most of the time people aim to catch the attention of the highest echelons. However, often you will get the push in the right direction from those who mind the files and office work. For example, a job has come up and the receptionist/ secretary are among the first persons in the office who comes to know about it since they usually type and circulate the memos. At this time, a slight mention of your name could be just the right break for you. Therefore, it is good to network with those who mind the office of the highest echelon officials. Treat them well, keep them on your list for Christmas and Season greetings and you will reap rich rewards.
5. Become an expert – while this might not be applicable in all conditions and jobs, it is an excellent stepping stone into the limelight of the hidden job market. Organizations always need people who excel in their profession, and hence if you get a reputation of being an expert in your field, offers will seek you out wherever you are. In order to become an expert, you should always endeavor to stay one step ahead of what is the demand in the market, i.e. you should never rest on your laurels. Go ahead and train yourself extensively, take up professionals’ courses, up-dating courses, and tangent courses. Be always totally in charge in your profession. Build up a brand of being an expert.

The above tips can be further complement by your ability to stay in the news. In order to do this, you should be able to attend conferences, training programs, write articles, publish and stay on the top of things, generally speaking. This is a continuous and ongoing process which will end only when you wish to retire or fade into an ordinary professional existence.

Keep up the momentum during a job interview

The last few minutes of a job interview present a crucial opportunity to set yourself apart from the rest of the flock.

With a must-have job on the line, you have done all of the pre-interview preparation: printed copies of your résumé, practiced your responses to popular questions and dressed to impress.

But so has the competition. Can you give yourself an advantage over other qualified candidates?

You can, experts say, in part by being on point from the beginning to the very end of your interview. While you may approach the end of a long interview feeling as if there’s nothing left to say, by keeping a few smart questions in your back pocket, you can regain momentum and impress hiring managers one last time. That way, you’ll never stammer when an interviewer asks, “So, any last questions for me?”

Some smart background research on the organization you are applying to will likely supply you with a few good questions, suggested Dorothy Stubblebine, president of DJS Associates, a human resources consulting firm in New Jersey.

If possible, obtain a copy of the annual report and read it thoroughly, she said. Then use your familiarity with the organization to ask an incisive question directly related to recent news. It might be about projects the organization has taken on, contracts it has won or high-profile moves at the top.
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Ten Interview questions you should always expect

1. What can you tell me about yourself?

Don’t respond with a full-scale autobiography; instead, help the interviewer by focusing the question: “What about me would be most relevant to you and what this company needs?” Then answer this more specific question.

2. Why do you want to leave your present company?

If you have a good, positive reason for wanting to leave, use it. However, avoid negative reasons. Redirect your response to explain why you want to move to the target company. For example, instead of answering, “I don’t get enough challenges at XYZ Industries,” respond like this: “I am eager to take on more challenges, and I believe I will find them at ABC Industries.”

3. What do you know about us?

Learn all you can about the target company. There’s no substitute for research. If you’ve done your homework, this question is your chance to shine.

4. How much experience do you have?

If your pre-interview research has revealed areas in which the company is concentrating its efforts, cite your relevant experience. If your research has failed to reveal any clear-cut areas of concern to the target company, answer the question with a question: “Are you looking for overall experience or experience in some specific area of special interest to you?” The interviewer’s response should allow you to frame your answer in a way that will directly address the target company’s needs.

5. What do you most like and most dislike about your current job?

Minimize the negative part of this question by replying, “I like everything about my current position.” Then list some vital skills, abilities, and qualifications you’ve developed or honed in your current position. Conclude with, “I’m now ready for a new set of challenges and an opportunity for greater advancement and greater responsibility.”

Answer the positive part of the question — What do you like? — by citing the opportunity your present job has given you to develop assets useful to the target employer.

6. How many hours a week do you need to get your job done?

If you reply with something like 40 hours, you risk labeling yourself as a clock-watcher, but if you give a higher number, you risk implying that you’re slow, inefficient, and easily overwhelmed. Instead of pinning yourself down to a specific number, reply like this: “I make an effort to plan my time efficiently. Usually, this works well. However, as you know, this business has crunch periods, and when that happens, I put in as many hours as necessary to get the job done.”

7. How much are you making now and how much do you want?

You cannot avoid answering the first part of the question, but you can frame the reply effectively: “I’m earning $35,000, but I’m not certain that helps you evaluate my ‘worth,’ because the two jobs differ significantly in their responsibilities.” As to the second part, do not state a specific figure. Instead, itemize the skills, talents, abilities, and responsibilities the target position entails: “If I understand the full scope of the position, my responsibilities would include…” Then: “Given all of this, what figure did you have in mind for someone with my qualifications in a position as important as this?” An alternative is to reply, “I expect a salary appropriate to my qualifications and demonstrated abilities. What figure did you have in mind?” Or: “What salary range has been authorized for this position?”

8. What’s the most difficult situation you ever faced on the job?

Don’t respond by bringing up a situation so difficult that it resulted in personal failure or general disaster. Instead, prepare yourself in advance by thinking of a story with a happy ending — happy for your company, that is. Avoid discussing personal or family difficulties, and avoid discussing problems you’ve had with supervisors, peers, or subordinates. However, you might discuss a difficult situation with a subordinate, provided that the issues were resolved inventively and to everyone’s satisfaction.

9. What are you looking for in this job?

Stand this one on its head. You may be looking for money, self-fulfillment, an easy commute… whatever. But don’t tell the interviewer any of this. Put words such as contribute, enhance, and improve in your response. “At ABC Industries, I discovered just how much one person could contribute to a company. As production supervisor, I increased efficiency an average of 14 percent, which meant a quarterly bottom-line increase of $27,000 in net revenue for our department. I’m looking to do even more for XYZ Industries. That’s what will give me satisfaction in this job.”

10. Why should I hire you?

This is really a request for an “executive summary” of what you bring to the company table. Keep the response brief. Recap and repeat, in laundry-list fashion, any job requirements the interviewer may have enumerated earlier in the interview. Point by point, match your skills, abilities, and qualifications to those items.

Job-hunting executives must adapt some new behaviors

Why is it that the most successful and accomplished executives can sit unemployed for months or even years after a termination or closure of their companies? It would seem that these people are the best connected to find a new landing spot. Yet we often see them languishing in the dead pool of the unemployed for a long time.

The explanation is simple. The very traits and habits that make an executive successful work against their success in finding a new position.

Here are some problems and a few solutions.

* You’re used to delegating many things - The higher up the corporate ladder you’ve moved, the more you delegated. In fact, the ability to delegate is one of the real markers for executive success.

Unfortunately, once one is without a position, there are few people to whom to delegate things. A spouse or a few friends might help some, but the degree of delegation you’re used to is almost impossible to perform without an office and staff.

This means you need to do those pesky things that “Mabel” used to do, including making phone calls, producing résumés and cover letters, and taking care of each and every detail.

* Your network probably stinks - Hey, you’ve been running a company, not attending networking events. And while there are golfing buddies and the like, a true network requires intense amounts of time that you probably haven’t had.

There are several solutions to this.

First, find top-level networking events and start to attend.

Second, ask all of the networking contacts you do have to introduce you to their buddies. This won’t entirely solve the networking problem, as most of them have probably neglected their networking as well.

Third, immediately sign up on LinkedIn (www.linkedin.com). The Wall Street Journal has called this “MySpace for suits.”
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Boomers have discovered the joys of truckdriving.

When Daniel Cruz, 57, lost his job counseling HIV patients last year, he hoped to find a new job in the social services, where he had worked for more than two decades. But after several months of interviews, nothing came up. One afternoon, while hunting for jobs online, he saw an ad for a driving position with Schneider National Trucking, the nation’s largest trucking carrier. He decided to apply, though he’d never been behind the wheel of anything larger than a minivan, and joined a growing number of baby boomers who are breaking free of office life to become truckdrivers on the open road. “I don’t want to be sitting behind a desk anymore,” Cruz says. “I did that for too many years.”

At Schneider, the number of drivers 50 and over has increased by 46 percent since 2005—they now make up one third of its driving staff of 15,000. Others are starting to follow Schneider’s lead. At Watkins and Shepard Trucking of Helena, Mont., the number of drivers over 50 has steadily increased in the past few years. And hits on GetTrucking.com, a recruiting Web site that targets drivers older than 50 and minorities, have gone from 500 to about 4,000 per week over the past few months. “This is something we’re seeing across the board,” says Ray Kuntz, chairman of the American Trucking Association.

These numbers are good news for trucking companies. A 2005 study showed the industry has a shortage of 20,000 drivers—many workers have been lost to better-paid construction jobs—that will likely increase to 111,000 by 2014, out of about 3 million drivers total. By tapping into the baby-boomer market—largely empty nesters, or second-career seniors who have experienced burnout or layoffs—carriers hope they will be able to keep their rigs running.

Truck drivers over 50 are safer, more dependable and more aware of their driving limitations, employers say. Mark Brown, an instructor at the Central Transportation and Safety School in Drumright, Okla., says that older drivers follow instructions more closely and are less likely to drive too fast.

And, despite the grueling hours and physical demands, it can be a win-win situation. Cruz, who spent 20 years working in windowless offices, has driven to nearly every state. He now spends his days singing along to Italian opera, with no one to complain when his notes are off-key. Former IBM engineer Earl Gooch, 54, says the best part of his new job is that he can wear whatever he wants: “It’s easier to kick back in work boots and jeans.” Recruiters are also attracting couples like Jack and Eileen Murtaugh, who drive as a team and see truckdriving as an enjoyable bridge to retirement. “We can semi-retire in a semi truck,” says Jack, 52.

Other industries are now hoping to have the same success. In 2005, AARP launched a National Employer Program, which aims to match mature workers with companies that want them. So far 30 employers have signed up, including Borders Books, Staples and Toys “R” Us, and thousands of workers have been placed.

Cruz says manning a big rig has turned out to be one of the best experiences of his life: “I’m like a little kid in the candy shop.”

Social Networking and LinkedIn Tips by Susan Guarneri, Career Goddess

Networking has been the number-one way to find jobs – and good ones – for years. In fact, for the past 20-some years I’ve been in the careers industry as a career counselor/coach and outplacement specialist, it has been the first strategy I’ve recommended to my job-search clients. With the advent of Web 2.0 and social networking, this strategy now makes it possible to connect with vast networks of professionals and peers for information interviewing, job leads, company information, and more.

But this globalization of networking has also led to dilemmas like what social networks to choose, the netiquette of social networking, and how to optimize networking time and tools. The following list should help:

1. “The 15 Top Social Networking Sites” as compiled by Selfgrowth.com contains what it describes as the 15 most important websites primarily for people running self-improvement, business or health-related sites…I would expand that statement to include job seekers and career changers, career professionals seeking promotion and career development, recruiters, and HR folks too. The bonus here is that even more sites are listed beyond the top 15; check them out as they may be just the “niche” where you want to stand out with your personal brand.

2. “LinkedIn Tricks for Networkers, Job Hunters and Hirers” by Lisa Takeuchi Cullen of Time Magazine offers tips anyone on LinkedIn can use for research, connecting with those in the network, getting answers to specific questions, people and company background info, and raising your search-engine ranking if you have a website (such as a website portfolio) or personal blog.

Lisa’s blog contains links to more postings:
“Ten Ways Journalists Can Use LinkedIn” by Penelope Trunk – again all of the tips could easily apply to job seekers, hirers, and anyone interested in developing and managing their career.

“Ten Ways to Use LinkedIn” by Guy Kawasaki – which contains some fascinating statistics like “people with more than twenty (LinkedIn) connections are thirty-four times more likely to be approached with a job opportunity than people with less than five”.

For job-seekers, I’d also like to add “Join a Social Network Before You Need a Job” (again by Penelope Trunk), which reveals how gung-ho recruiters are about social networking candidates.

3. “I’m on LinkedIn – Now What?” book preview by author Jason Alba which shares his rationale, chapter content and structure, and timeline for the upcoming book. Judging from the thoroughness of the book’s content and knowing Jason’s penchant for meticulous detail and strategic thinking – this should be a bestseller!

All in all, the tools are out there to make social networking work for you. Don’t let the number-one way to find jobs go unused in your toolbox of job-search tactics. BTW, remember face-to-face networking as well, with everyone you meet…you just don’t know who others may know and what referrals they might have for you. Have you got your personal branding 30-second statement (elevator pitch) ready?

Resumes, Networking, Headhunters - Useless Without Marketing Sweet Spot by Marta Driesslein

A career transition is no longer about getting your hands on a list of contacts, networking with headhunters, or going online to look for work. It’s better than that.

Want to neutralize most of your rivalry* Hot-swap the traditional means of securing a job with these new tactics and you’ll warp-speed your search:

* Stop looking for a job

* Increase your visibility

* Decrease your competition

* Create buzz and you’ll multiply your exposure to decision makers

* Create need and you’ll generate quality interviews, simultaneously

* Create solutions and you’ll gain an opportunity to design your own position

Stir up the buzz and you’ll stand out in a saturated market. Develop a reputation for being a subject-matter expert. This time you’ll want to be the topic of the next water cooler gathering. Make sure that you use your full name when identifying yourself on any of these venues, not a pseudonym. You can’t stir up the buzz about you, if you’re hidden behind some funky moniker. Don’t forget to create an email address that sounds professional wherever your name publicly appears.

There are eight over-the-top ports to gain higher visibility:

* Chamber of Commerce (networking events and / or committee participation)

* Local trade associations (meetings and / or committee participation)

* Blogs (industry trade associations, online publications, job boards)

* Teleseminars (trade association-sponsored, industry-oriented)

* High-profile volunteerism (civic, community, business projects)

* Broadcasting (radio and television guest appearances)

* Ask-an-Expert content venues (online and print)

* Newsletters, white papers (online and print)

Get employers drooling for your talents by demonstrating a consistency in your marketing message. Recruiters and decision makers routinely perform a Google* or Yahoo* key word search to learn more about you. Put your name (and its variations) into these mega-search engines to find out what pops up.

If you’ve made disparaging comments about anyone or anything, either on or off record, these will harm your marketing message. For the sake of your professional branding, publicly, shut up. If what you want to say or do communicate oddity, inappropriateness, or lack of civility and good taste then you become a liability to your industry’s culture and you’ll be blacklisted.

Branding is a yardstick that measures not just what you do, but who you are and the perception others have of you. Make sure that whatever you say or do (professionally and personally) sends a consistent positive message about your leadership, industry competency, ethics, maturity, and interpersonal relations. This constancy is your branding; an awareness of you which captures an employer’s attention and interest in you.

Mastermind solutions and you’ll improve the odds of a securing a customized job role. Borderless thinking solves problems, particularly those deemed by others as too troublesome or impossible. You’ll release yourself from dependency on open or publicly-known positions when you pitch personalized remedies for an employer’s toughest business challenges.

Annihilate your competition by doing the thing that they wouldn’t dare to do?stop looking for a job. Concentrate on subterranean research to uncover ’spot opportunities’ - patterns that would signal upcoming hiring activity. Yeah, it’s labor-intensive, but the pay-off is huge in terms of edging past Human Resource department screeners.

Classic market research involves S.W.O.T. Analysis. Successful marketing thrusts are achieved using a thorough analysis of Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats for Growth. Can you count the times on one hand, your buddies took the time to do this kind of extreme exploration when they were on a job hunting expedition?

The more you know about a targeted company, its industry, and the associated threats to its success, the stronger your posture. Instead of seeking a job, pursue opportunity to use your talents to better an organization’s own branding before its employees, customers, and business relationships. Pitch directly to first-string decision makers.

Slamming a baseball out of the park isn’t rocket science; it’s about reading and reacting to the pitch - knowing what you have to do, and when to do it. It’s also capitalizing on the bat’s sweet spot to connect the raw capability of the bat to the sheer force of the batter’s swing.

A professionally-run job search does the same things; you pitch your solutions to the right target, at the right time, using the right resource and strategy. The career marketing sweet spot is that critical moment where targeting and timing intersect. Goal sighted, energy harnessed, successful outcome achieved.

Marta Driesslein, CECC (http://interviewing.com/) is a management consultant for R.L. Stevens & Associates Inc. For over 24 years R.L. Stevens & Associates has been the Nation’s most successful privately-held firm specializing in executive career searches generating quality interviews through both advertised and unadvertised channels.

Personal Branding & the Business Card: Tips for Appearing More Professional, Legit and/or Possibly Employable. PLUS! Dead Give-A-Ways of the Dangleberries and other Personal Branding Screw-ups You Want to Avoid! by Daviod LaPlante’s blog

OK, take that swank bluetooth dangle-dongle berry outta your ear and read’up! That plan of yours to have you’re next professional Sears photo-session for your “Avery print-at-home business card” sporting that killa’ bluetooth headset of yours is a bad bad very very bad bad idea. Bad idea. True story. Bad idea. Here’s some other tips you should know/consider:
#1: ‘Get Yo’ Global Look On’ your business card

A 44-year-old unemployed ’seasoned senior executive vice president of sales’ person says to me, “Why’s there a plus sign in your phone number? Is that a typo?” Nooooo!

Business cards that are “global friendly” immediately communicate that you have a passport and are capable of surviving outside the US on your own. Or that you’re aware that the US is not the only place in the world that has phones. That maybe you actually know/interact with someone outside the US.

More than likely you are experienced/capable of interacting with other professionals outside of the US and you do that frequently enough that it’s important to have a global-friendly phone numbers that include the country-code. I can run through a pile of 1,000 business cards from folks I’ve met recently and immediately tell you who has gold/platinum status on United and is capable of speaking in front of large audiences by this simple little trait alone. (For now, I guess. I just blew the secret!)

The international seasoned professional simply includes the mobile-phone friendly country code, i.e: +1.775.555.5555. The key here is to simply include the County Code (CC). Here in the US it’s “1″. +1 on mobile devices. We do this because phone numbers in pretty much every country outside of the US and Canada are totally f’n confusing. Want to send a txt to someone in another country, you have to use the +CC.86.311.456.12345

(BTW, seasoned globe-trotters carry ATT or T-Mobile phones. Sprint & Verizon largely don’t work outside the US.)

#2: UPPER CASE EMAIL ADDRESS IS BAD. lowercase everything communicates way emo-hip-startup-with-not-a-lot-of-revenue

You’re email address should always be all lower case. BAD: DAVID@IMADORK.COM. Weak: David@ImADork.com. good: david@imadork.com. Punctuation still matters on everything. Typically well designed business cards that are in all lower case shouts: Hey! I work at a small start-up where we jobbed our corporate collateral to an emo identity designer/we’re trying waaaayyyyy to hard to be hip and cool!!! Companies over 10million in revenue largely care about proper punctuation on their business cards. Startups that are too cool for school are less than 1 million in revenue.

#3: No mobile phone number on the business card.

This guy interviewing with us sporting a sweet Motorola Star-Tac said to me: “I’m sorry, I keep my mobile phone number private and only give it out to my close friends and family.” That was in 1994.

Sorry to bust out the big news on some of you: It’s 2007. If you still have a land-line, you’re getting kinda weird. I absolutely think it’s quaint of those folks that still think of their mobile phone a private luxury only to be used to call AAA for a flat tire or to let their honey know they’ll be late for dinner. Yeah, back in 1992 when I paid CellularOne $1.25 a minute with “no free anytime minutes” (yeah, shocking!) I was kinda stingy too. Now I chaw down 2000 minutes, 3000 sms and an all-u-can-eat data plan for ~$100.00/month. And guess what? You can too!

Seriously, get over it. Give it up. There’s nothing gained by being stingy with that mobile phone of yours. And guess what, it get’s stranger: I actually don’t want to call you! I’ll be more likely sending you a text message.
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12 Résumé Tips to Get You Hired - from Express Personnel

Your résumé is your introduction to a prospective employee. What it says, or doesn’t say, will be a major factor in whether you land an interview – the first step to getting the job.

To craft a résumé that highlights your strengths and sells your skills, check out the tips below.

1. Tailor your résumé to fit the job description. By rephrasing a few key words and phrases, your résumé will showcase why you’re the right candidate for the job.

2. Find out the hiring manager’s name and send your résumé directly to him or her, instead of just sending it to a generic company e-mail or mailing address.

3. Include specifics such as how big a budget you managed or what percent you increased sales.

4. Use descriptive verbs like “streamlined,” “accelerated” and “oversaw.”

5. Don’t list the reasons you left past jobs. This can be discussed in an interview, if necessary.

6. Be consistent. If you list contact information for one of your past employers, do so for all of them. If you capitalize some job titles, capitalize them all.

7. Don’t use the words “I,” “me” or “myself.” Instead, just start each sentence with a verb. For example, “Oversaw the work of 15 CNAs in a long-term care facility.”

8. Keep your formatting simple. Excess bold, italics or underlining is distracting.

9. If you provide an e-mail address, make sure it sounds professional and isn’t something like hotstuff4ever@email.com.

10. Don’t oversell yourself. Only list skills and training you actually possess.

11. Proofread. Typos and grammatical errors make your résumé look sloppy and may land your résumé in the trash. Mistyping your contact information can also prevent an employer from being able to get a hold of you.

12. Include a cover letter with your résumé. Making the extra effort to create a brief cover letter can do a lot to help your résumé stand out.

A well thought out résumé always makes a better impression than one that is thrown together at the last minute. So, if you really want to grab an employer’s attention, take the time to create a solid résumé.

How do you try to make your résumé stand out? What are some of your struggles in creating a résumé?

The Top 10 Tools for 21st Century Career Success!

Career success isn’t rocket science–it’s a simple 3-step process. (1) Know what you want to achieve. (2) Define what success looks like (how will you know you achieved it?) and (3) Take action. The more you do, the faster you’ll get there.

Circumstances do not make or break success. It’s determined by believing you can achieve your goals; by adopting specific, more useful patterns of thinking; and by preparing yourself mentally and physically to develop the habits of success. Success may be an “inside job” but it still requires a lot of work! Here are ten tools to help you more easily make your mark.

TOOL #1: A contact relationship management (CRM) system

Everyone is a job seeker. Some are active job seekers; others are passive ones. Passive job seekers become active job seekers every 3 to 5 years. If you are a student now, the US Department of Labor estimates you will have 10-14 jobs by age 38!

Looking for work can be grueling. Don’t spend valuable job search time trying to invent an organizational system. Get yourself a great contact relationship management (CRM) tool called JibberJobber instead. It’s free and lets you track all the critical information you collect during a job hunt and when networking. Track companies you apply to or think you’d like to work for someday. Track each job you go after and log the status (date of first interview, thank you letter sent, etc.).

Jibberjobber has great reporting tools and offers excellent advice too. Setting up a CRM puts all your critical information in one place where you’ll have access to it for your entire career!

Find out more at http://www.jibberjobber.com/faqs.php

TOOL #2: A professional online presence (your web site, MySpace, and LinkedIn pages)

Employers are now using the internet to find and qualify new hires. At the very least, you should have your own name reserved as a web site domain name where you can post an online version of your resume and other pertinent career information.

Many domain registrars have low sign up and hosting fees and offer tools for building a web site that require no technical expertise. For example, my web site, www.lindalopeke.com, was built in a single weekend using only the service provider’s web page templates. It costs just $0.35 per day to make up-to-date information about my career and my resume instantly available to anyone. No more mailing or photocopying expenses!

Having an online presence makes you stand out from your competition. Start by reserving your domain name. If you have a common name, like John Smith and the domain is not available, try a variation such as MrJohnSmith.com or MsJaneDoe.com. If that doesn’t work, try adding your initials, profession or city (e.g., JSmithArchitect.com or JaneDoeMiami.com).

Create free MySpace and LinkedIn pages designed to market yourself professionally not socially (and don’t forget to screen your “social” pages for career-killing content).

Check your “Google factor” periodically. Search for your own name and see what comes up! As you grow in your career, so too will your online presence. However, always remember “What goes on the net, stays on the net!” so keep that in mind when posting in favorite blogs and forums.

Video resumes are becoming increasingly popular but can work against you if you aren’t careful in what you do and say in them. If you decide to do one, get professional help with it (services are available for < $200). Some, who have created video resumes on their own, crashed and burned and few examples posted on YouTube are good models to follow.
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