5 Twitter Directories That Will Most Help Grow Your Personal Brand

Like the classic phone book, being listed in the most popular directories is a surefire way to be found more on Twitter.
Directory listing tips

• Popular directories became popular because they are generally easy to use, and specifically so for listing yourself. Take advantage of all the options to give yourself exposure is as many relevant categories as possible.
• When a directory limits the number of categories (or tags) where you can list yourself (such as 5 for WeFollow, 10 for Twellow), browse all the categories that are relevant to your personal brand and then choose the best trade-off among the categories that you ‘must’ be in and the categories where you can rank highly e.g. on the first page of listings for that category.

User directories
WeFollow – to add yourself, click here. Then, enter your city and choose your 5 ‘interests’ which will determine in which categories you appear in WeFollow (elsewhere on the site, they’re called tags). One annoyance- be careful of the fine print at the bottom of the page, in particular where WeFollow ‘offers’ to have your Twitter profile page link to your WeFollow profile page. Otherwise, I like WeFollow for the simple reason that it works- it has definitely brought some people to me and vice-versa.

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The Conan O’Darwin Show

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In the thick of the triangular feud between Conan O’Brien, Jay Leno and NBC, one of the nighttime word warriors decided to cut to the chase and reveal what was going on behind the curtain.
What he said was no surprise to business people, but it provides a continuing lesson and a reminder of the rules of the jungle.
After his monologue, Jay Leno sat down alone on his stage-no jokes, no props-to reveal the set of events that led up to the mayhem on the broken, Keystone Cops network that broadcasts his show.

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You Lie, You Pay. Don’t Fudge Your Resume!

I really didn’t mean for this title to rhyme, sorry! Two great articles caught my attention this morning on resume lies! One will really make job seekers sweat because in the end the employee had to pay wages back to his employer. The other captures the essence of one of my favorite books; Freakonomics by Steven D. Levitt. The themes in both are the same, a lot of people lie on their resumes, many get caught and the penalty could be huge. Here is a wake-up call folks, a thorough background check is going to be done and your misdeeds will be uncovered!
First we have a “Doctor” who misrepresented himself to have not only a PhD but also a BSc and MSc. Are you kidding me? Didn’t he read our white paper on diploma mills and resume lies? Insead of lying at least he could have done a better job and bought a fake degree on the internet!!

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Beware of Money Mule Job Listings On Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed, And Simplyhired

Yesterday, G.L. and I were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to participate in a Careerealism webinar for job seekers organized by career advice expert J.T. O’Donnell. During the discussion about how to effectively use online resources in a job search, we mentioned the risks associated with traditional pay-to-post job sites such as Monster and Careerbuilder as well as job aggregators such as Indeed and Simplyhired that republish job listings from Monster, Careerbuilder, and thousands of other pay-to-post job boards.
The risks we mentioned result from the prevalence of fraudulent listings that include scam jobs, phishing posts, identity theft, and work-at-home scams. Additionally, criminals mine resumes on job sites to recruit new victims. In the current high-unemployment environment, this kind of activity is worse than ever. Because LinkUp’s job search engine eliminates these risks due to the fact that we do not collect resumes, only index jobs from company websites, and do not allow anyone to post jobs directly onto LinkUp, this is a major point of differentiation between LinkUp and other job listing sites on the web.

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Top 5 Reasons Why Job Hunters Fail

Employers are being extraordinarily picky about whom they offer a job to. Recent US Labor Dept reports show that the number of people looking longer than 27 weeks has continued to grow each month during the last year. In this tough market, one slip-up on your resume, or goof at the interview, and you’re dead in the water. Many common mistakes can be avoided. I divide my time between talking to hiring executives, HR folks and working with job search clients. This gives me a very broad view of what people do that works, and what trips them up – often without realizing it.
To shorten your search length to re-employment, here are the top reasons job hunters fail.
1. Failure to quickly sell your accomplishments and results. Resumes get glanced at and rejected in 15 seconds or less. Generic job descriptions, vague, and unfocused resumes don’t work. Employers now complain that most applicants simply don’t have the skills to DO the job. The Internet’s ease of use and the job hunter’s ‘click and send’ mentality has added to this problem-increasing by the thousands the number of resumes received. This has made it very hard to get noticed.

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Helpful Tips to Advance in Your Entry Level Job

Every year, college students and recent graduates search for entry level jobs. While many of them would love to start off making a lot of money and obtaining a prestigious position, they must learn to work from the bottom up. Entry level jobs allow people to learn and grow in their particular fields. Recently, I read an article about these positions, and why they are important.

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Recent Law Grads Have Same Job Search Woes as Everyone Else

Things are tough all over. Even recent law school graduates are struggling to find entry level jobs. Employers have reduced law school recruitment, leaving recent law grads with fewer options, according to a press release from JIST Publishing. So, like everyone else, law school graduates have to do all they can to make themselves stand out from all the other law school graduates who are most likely competing for the same few jobs.
Attorney and legal writer, Ursula Furi-Perry, has written a book, Your First Year as a Lawyer Revealed, in which she gives aspiring lawyers advice about how to step up their job searches. Below are some of the helpful hints Furi-Perry included in her book:

• Consider nontraditional legal employers. Interested in practicing criminal law, for example? Don’t just send your resume to criminal defense firms; check out career options in prosecution, public defense or other social justice employers.
• Align yourself with a trusted partner who can help you pinpoint potential leads that may be a good fit for your skill set. A career coach, counselor or recruiter who specializes in the legal field may be able to offer you valuable insights and advice and introduce you to potential employers who are hiring.
• Project a professional and polished image–in person, in writing and online. Clients, supervisors and potential employers alike are impressed by confidence, diligence and professionalism.
• Be proactive about your job search. Don’t expect your first job to fall into your lap: network, highlight your marketable skills and treat job-hunting as you would treat a job itself.

The competition for entry level jobs seems to have increased across all career fields. All candidates must be able to demonstrate, through their resumes and during interviews, that they are the most skilled and the best cultural fits for the employers and recruiters they’re trying to impress.

How to Write an Attention-Grabbing Cover Letter

One of the most important tools used in a job search is the resume – to include the accompanying cover letter. Louise Kursmark and Wendy Enelow have revamped their book, Cover Letter Magic, for the fourth time, in an effort to help recent college graduates looking for entry level jobs to put their better feet forward “when communicating with employers and recruiters.” But Kursmark’s and Enelow’s advice isn’t solely for the young or recently graduated job seeker.
Kursmark and Enelow recommend that all job seekers write cover letters that do more than re-iterate what appears on their resumes. Instead, they should write cover letters that clearly demonstrate what they can do for employers.
To help inexperienced job seekers, Kursmark and Enelow offer the advice:

1. Highlight “professional” skills that you have developed through both professional and nonprofessional experiences. For example, if you have worked on important team projects while at school, communicate that you know how to get results in a team environment.
2. If technology skills are important in your chosen field, be sure to emphasize your skills in this area.
3. Mine your academic experiences for evidence of leadership skills. These are important in a work environment and are evidence of your potential.
4. Highlight your academic achievements. They indicate your intelligence and competitiveness.
5. Relate your skills, experience and interests to the employer’s needs. Show that you understand business priorities and are ready to make a contribution; don’t simply state, “I’ve graduated! Now I need a job!”

Writing a winning cover letter is far from easy, so Louise Kursmark and Wendy Enelow have updated Cover Letter Magic to help job seekers of every age and career level to write cover letters that are sure to get them noticed by employers and recruiters.

What Are the Best Majors for Your Personality?

Article provided by JIST Publishing

Choosing an academic major can be tough–particularly if your education and career plans clash with your personality. For example, imagine a free-spirited student full of creativity. Now imagine this student trying to complete–let alone excel–in classes that require him to crunch numbers and input data all semester.
For students with an artistic personality, this scenario is a nightmare. More conventional-types of students, however, would thrive in classes that allow them to work with details and numbers. Simply put, one major isn’t right for everybody. Continue reading …
Article by Selena Dehne and courtesy of JIST Publishing

Mentor Me: 5 Ways to Make this Free Training Pay Off

These days when job security is not necessarily a given, many workers are taking advantage of mentoring, a valuable — and free — training tool. And no wonder: According to Randi Bussin, a career coach in Belmont, Mass., “it’s a no-brainer for lifetime career development.”
Wherever you are in your career, a mentor can be an invaluable guide. Here are some tips for finding one and making the relationship work.
1. Take the initiative
It’s usually easiest to find a mentor in a formal corporate program, but not all companies offer one. The same workplace stresses that make people wish for mentoring also make it hard for companies to offer it. Not to worry: Some of the most successful mentoring is the result of individual initiative. Continue reading …
Article by Ruth Walker and courtesy of Salary.com&reg