K.Mo's Blog

Conversations here, conversations there. Where am I? I’m late to the Twitter party. A lot of people have written about Twitter, the micro-blogging platform that connects people all over the world. I was hesitant to join Twitter because I didn’t see it much different than posting your status on Facebook. And while my first impression was a bit superficial, there are some differences worth tweeting about.

First, Twitter is more like a slow online chat session than a blogging platform. That’s because while the posts are instant, not everyone who will respond will be online at the same time as the person making the first post, or tweet. Ah, but many strangers are online and can respond fairly quickly. The public nature of Twitter is what I find most fascinating. Typically, online chat sessions and email are private conversations. Twitter, if you let it, will make all of your posts and status updates available to the entire world. Complete strangers can comment on what you’re eating for lunch. If they find what you’re eating for lunch is super-special, they can “follow” you. When you get followed, people basically subscribe to receive all your posts.

Twitter becomes like a Grand Central Station, you overhear conversations of thousands of people in a short amount of time. It’s this voyeuristic quality that makes Twitter interesting and have such broad appeal. Facebook, by design is a closed network. You often need to be invited to participate with friends. Twitter is public, and you can search for any topic using the service to pull up reactions for that topic. For example, I searched tweets to determine if Slumdog Millionaire was worth seeing. Many people posted that the movie was amazing. I saw it based on what people said about the movie. It was amazing.

Web 2.0 and public relations professionals love Twitter because news stories and Web sites can go viral when posted to the service if there are enough followers tracking the poster. Darren Rowse, a prominent blogger, credits Twitter with generating a lot of traffic to his site.

Want to know what celebrities are up to? You can follow Britney Spears and Al Gore on Twitter if you like.  If someone of importance tweets about a news article or video, it’s easy to see how it can generate a lot of traffic. It’s like having a podium available to you 24/7. What celebrity wouldn’t like that? Another application:  imagine a modern-day evangelist with “followers” on Twitter. Interesting.

Twitter is an open platform, so there are many applications and ways you can post tweets. You can SMS them on your phone, use one of the many iPhone applications, or use the Web. You can syndicate your tweets and post them on your Web site or blog.

Wanna find out what’s going on with me? Go ahead, I’m an open Twitterer.

Filed under: Social Media, Web 2.0 Trends by Ken Morico
Tags: « Facebook - Twitter »
1 Comment »

Times have changed, and so has the way recruiters have been getting resumes. Job search sites cost lots of money for recruiters and companies. When companies cut costs, search memberships get kicked. How can you adapt your resume for the new way recruiters will find you?

CareerBuilder is the job search leader, so I’ll use it for examples.  Currently, CareerBuilder charges $469.00 for 1 job posting with a company logo. One year of enterprise-level resume searches will cost a company $9,553. Twenty jobs with logo gets you a discount – $6,800. Want a microsite to go with your postings? $2,160. If you’re a CFO and someone tells you could save $18,513 this year, would you listen?

So what’s the solution for companies looking to cut recruiting costs? Google searches. Using specific syntax in Google searches, companies can find qualified candidates. So how do you prep your resume for recruiter Web searches? Can’t you just post your Microsoft Word resume and be done? NO! Resumes need optimization tweaks just like real Web pages.

Where Are You?

I’ve noticed a steady increase in the number of searches for my resume using Google. Many times recruiters look for candidates in certain area codes or cities. Make sure your location is at the top of your resume. You don’t have to post your address, but your city / state name and phone number should be at the top. Information at the top of pages is given more relevance in search results, so put it there.

Place a bulleted profile list highlighting popular phrases it the top of your resume above jobs and job descriptions. Google will give these more weight and it will make your resume more attractive to recruiters as well since it will save them from having to read your whole resume to get a feel for your skills and experience. For example, “Certified project manager for Fortune 500 companies.”

Where Have You Been?

Based on the fact that location based searches are popular, make sure you list cities and states for past jobs. If you are willing to relocate, that will help you because your resumes will probably come up for searches of several locations. For me, my cell phone has a California area code, but I live in Texas. So I get contacted for positions in both states.

Besides states, recruiters search for companies you might have worked for before, or are already working at so as to snag you for a competitor. Help them find you. List all the company names you worked for, including subdivisions and conglomerate owners. Here’s an example of a recruiter search for me that got them to my site:

filetype:doc resume and nissan and software and michigan

So what do we make of it? This recuiter was looking for software resumes online in Microsoft Word format, with experience at Nissan and experience in Michigan. My resume came up because I did work for Nissan at one point in my career, I did work in software, and my resume has some relation to Michigan because I designed a Web site for the University of Michigan Business School. So it wasn’t an exact fit, but you see the possibilities with the right keywords and places in your resume.

What Do You Do?

Like a regular print resume, you need to put your skills and software skills on your online resume. Be specific. Recruiters are looking for very specific skills and software packages. Take this recruiter search that landed them on my resume:

(intitle:resume OR inurl:resume OR intitle:cv OR inurl:cv OR intitle:vitae OR inurl:vitae OR intitle:homepage OR inurl:homepage) “web developer” (ca OR california) (sql and EKTRON and c# and .net)

This is a very specific search. Look at what’s defined. A position, a location, and specific software skills. If you knew how to use content management systems (CMS) for updating Web pages and you put that on your resume this search  would have missed you. That’s because EKTRON is a specific type of CMS. So ideally you should put broad terms that define your skills and software as well as very narrow terms. If you were a project manager, you would have the phrase “project manger” on your resume with all types of specific project management software such as Microsoft Project, Visio, and others.

Are You on the Map of the Web?

Like I mentioned in a previous post, Quit Looking for a Job – How to Use Web 2.0 to Get Found, your resume and the Web site it’s hosted on need to have good content to give it credibility with search engines. Given two equal resumes online, the one listed higher will be the one with more credibility with Google. I posted some SEO resources to help you with this task. If a recruiter typed in keywords to find your resume, do you come up in search results? Try it. And if you don’t, tweak your resume and Web site until you do.

Use a professional networking service like LinkedIn to steer recruiters and companies to your professional profile and resume. You can post links in your LinkedIn profile, so be sure to do so and mention in your profile you have an online resume. Make sure you post a photo to help you get noticed. You are a real person, right?

Over here!

Tough times call for a solid resume. They call for a Web 2.0 resume posted on your own Web site or blog. Your resume doesn’t necessarily need to be tech related, it just needs Web 2.0 marketing behind it to highlight you. Show them who’s the boss.

Filed under: Self Promotion, Web 2.0 Trends by Ken Morico
Tags: « Add new tag - job search - resume - SEO »
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Tired of looking for work? Don’t look! With the advent of Web 2.0 and social media, headhunters can find you using new methods. Even if you are the type of person needed to fill their position, can they reach you online? If you are online, are you easy to find?

In the past, I’ve always had luck getting freelance opportunities and jobs because of my online portfolio. But was it just luck? In 1999 a project manager for Learnlots.com contacted me about writing tutorials for AOL version 4.0. I had no idea who this person was and they were several states away. Clearly he didn’t hear about me through networking because I was in college at the time. How did he find me? A search engine. My Web site always did well at search engine ranking.  Having a higher ranking gives you authority. Authority gets you jobs.

Build Your Online House

Ever since 1999, headhunters and corporations have found my Web site. How do I stand out? How can you stand out? First thing to do is get a Web site. Your own yourname.com site. You are your brand. Differentiation makes one person get hired over another. Research other people in your field you want to emulate. What do their Web sites look like? How do they present themselves on their Web site? What makes them stand out? Remember that it’s not easy to gain trust over the Web. The Web is becoming more personal, but by design it is an impersonal technology. Having your own domain name lends a sense of trust. Anyone can setup a fake Yahoo! account. Putting your name online says you’re serious.

Post a photo. So many people online don’t post a photo in their online profiles and Web sites. I don’t get it. You can’t be “sticky” in the minds of headhunters if you’re just a name. A photo can convey a bit of your personality and make you seem real. Seeming real on the Web matters to people who make hiring decisions.

Make Your House Presentable

Once you have a Web site address, you’ll need to build content for your site. This depends on your industry, but why not first start out with a description of yourself? When I analyze Web site statistics for the sites I manage, some of the top pages are always bios of the people behind the company. People want to know who you are and what you’re about. Write a short and substantial bio about yourself. Get friends (ideally a writer friend) to review your bio and make sure it sounds professional. Next, you’ll need content on your site. Maybe this is a portfolio of art, music, Web designs, or if it’s something that isn’t visual, just go into detail about projects you worked on and post some visuals that represent your projects. You won’t believe how many Web developers I know who don’t have Web sites, much less blogs. Whatever industry you are in, you should be online.

Post Signs to Your House

Okay, you built your online house with fancy shutters and Spanish tile roof. How are people going to find it? Search Engine Optimization (SEO). I’m sure you’ve heard the term before. The reason it’s mentioned a lot is because it’s so important. You must understand that without good SEO, you’ll never be found. Google is blind, literally. Google reads text on a Web site like braille; it can’t see visuals on Web sites. So no matter how pretty your Web site looks, it will never compete against a site with excellent textual content.

SEO items in your site are like signs that point Google to your site instead of another’s. I do everything to make sure each all of my pages have all the details search engines need – descriptive titles, meta descriptions, content with keywords, and all-original content. My resume is posted in both Word and PDF formats. My resume describes what I do and the specific software I use to get my projects done. Since my site has been around for over 10 years, search engines give it some authority over sites that have been up for just a few weeks. You need to be around for a long time, too.

If you’ve ever used Google, you know that oftentimes the results on the first page of your search are very, very good. It’s almost like Google can read your mind. Headhunters know this, and when they find resumes at the top of the online search pile, they are pre-conditioned to have some trust in the site and its owner. I have an online resource page that can help you with marketing your site and connect with decision-makers.

Meet Your Neighbors

Search engines, Web site, yadda yadda yadda. What about Web 2.0? Haven’t things changed? Yes, in fact you’re in a whole new neighborhood now. Headhunters can reach you in more places now.

Build a profile on LinkedIn. Fill out every field with accurate, descriptive information. Post a photo. Post links to your new Web site. You may even have a blog. Post a link to that too. Headhunters are watching you on LinkedIn. Give them a show.

Start a blog. If you’re an authority in your field, you should have one. Headhunters will read it and place you in a different realm if they think you’re an expert and have a following.

Get on Facebook. While Facebook is primarily a social networking tool, you can get job offers and freelance projects from people in your network. Make sure you post links to your Web site and blog on Facebook. Headhunters and business owners are on Facebook too.

Spruce Up the Neighborhood

With Web 2.0, contribution and sharing are in style. Voice your opinion on forums in LinkedIn and Facebook. Write answers to questions people have that you can answer. Improve your online neighborhood. Networking is more important now than ever. People want you to reach out to them if you have something intelligent to say and can help them in some way. They will return the favor. You might have heard the term “be sticky” when it comes to job seeking. Send follow-up emails, forward links, present yourself in a memorable way. The same goes in the social media / Web 2.0 world. You need to be unique and everywhere headhunters and business owners congregate.

Own Your House

By using these tips you can control your career. And you don’t even have to be in the news or have written a book to be found.

Don’t search for jobs. Be sought-after.

Filed under: Self Promotion, Social Media, Web 2.0 Trends by Ken Morico
Tags: « Facebook - job search - LinkedIn - marketing - resume - SEO »
1 Comment »

It seems the Los Angeles Times have written themselves into a paradox. News is bad. News is good. The Los Angeles Times recently announced plans to lay off 300 workers on January 30th. The cuts are aimed at the California section in the print edition. Nielsen Online reports online traffic to the Los Angeles Times Web site is up an eye-popping 73% for 2008. What’s going on? 

While the print news industry has been in decline for some time, and the Los Angeles Times have already cut back staff several times in the past year, online versions of newspapers are doing much better. Readers have shifted to online versions of newspapers as the total number of users online grows. Like I mentioned in my first blog post, the Web makes it easy for consumers to get information when they want. With the multitude of media competing for our attention along with new ways to get on-demand content, time shifting has occurred.

Blogs, radio, and TV might seem to divert readers away from online editions of newspapers… but that hasn’t been the case. Why?  I theorize that part of what makes news “worthy” of our attention is location. News that is local has more relevance to us than national or international news. Many bloggers and alternative newspapers are not local. You need men on the street to gather news in many cases. Another reason for online newspaper success is authority. People for most part trust large newspapers. They have research departments. They verify facts. Blogs and some online news channels can’t afford these luxuries. I think it also says something important to readers when the Los Angeles Times prints that they themselves are in serious trouble. From a journalism standpoint, they must report this. But would a blogger or independent news source report they were doing poorly?

So even if a shift has occurred from print to online, they principles of what makes great news articles still apply. Veracity. Authority. And what about style? Yes, style. Newspapers hire professionals. Writing is their job. Storytelling is their job. Bloggers oftentimes aren’t skilled writers. Anyone can comment on articles, but it takes skill to present information in ways readers enjoy.

In the stock market trading, they say the “trend is your friend” and “don’t fight the trend.” I see parallels here. The shift to online news, that has been in process in the past decade, will continue. The layoffs are evidence that the shift continues. They say stocks bottom when all the bad news has been factored in and everyone who wants to get out of stock has moved on to other investments. At some point in the future, falling print edition subscribers will level off. I expect once that happens, we will reach another point where print editions will stop all together because there will be too few people that will want a printed newspaper.  

Newspapers won’t die. They’ll reincarnate.

Filed under: Web 2.0 Trends by Ken Morico
Tags: « layoffs - Los Angeles Times - newspaper »
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