Guerrilla Marking for Job Hunters 2.0 - Jay Conrad Levinson [21]
Here’s a final tip on how to uncover the dollar value for good things you’ve done on the job. It’s this: don’t be afraid to call up current and former coworkers to ask for help. You may not know how much money your top client brought in last year or what the budget was on the X-14 project you managed, but someone in the accounting or marketing department might. Leave no stone unturned in your search for accomplishments.
Let me reemphasize this critical point: when you do the thinking for the reader and include specific results in your Guerrilla Resume, good things will happen in your job search.
If you do nothing more than use the instructions in this chapter to come up with at least 3 solid, specific achievements for each job you’ve held, you will immediately improve your resume. You should start getting more calls from employers to interview. And you will have received full value for your purchase of this book.
But this is only the beginning. You’re not just going to improve your resume. You’re going to create an eye-popping Guerrilla Resume and cover letter that will produce rapid results in your job search in Chapter 5.
GUERRILLA INTELLIGENCE
Social Media and the Guerrilla Job Hunter
Dennis Smith
Why is our brand such an important part of our job-searching efforts? Because our personal brand creates a strong, consistent association between us and the perceived value we have to offer an employer.
And, like it or not, our brand precedes us in the interview process. That’s right. Think of it this way: long before the wide-eyed hunter focuses his scope on the massive profile of the hairy beast, he hears the thumping sounds of the gorilla (Note: Gorilla, not Guerrilla) methodically beating his chest in the jungle. The gorilla-noise (and his reputation) precedes the inevitable meeting.
Similarly, you—like all job seekers—send signals to prospective employers. They precede you—by a jungle mile. However, the difference between the aimless job hunter and the guerrilla job hunter is this: a carefully crafted brand. It whets the appetite of the potential employer, laying the foundation for a dynamic, chest-thumping interview supported by well-defined facts of goals smashed and lessons learned.
Besides a knock-your-socks-off Guerrilla Resume, there are few tools as compelling as social media to help the guerrilla job hunter spread the word about his or her carefully crafted brand. Spanning 29 countries and 17,000 Internet users, recent research by Universal McCann found that almost 60 percent of Internet users are members of an online community such as LinkedIn, YouTube, Facebook, or WirelessJobs.com. Even more mind-blowing: 78 percent of Internet users read blogs (up from 66 percent in the previous study). No longer confined to the realm of the college set, today’s online social networks are an extremely powerful platform to connect with colleagues and industry professionals. As someone once said, “If you are not online, you don’t exist.”
Chances are, then, long before you arrive for a personal interview, your hiring decision makers will look you up online. Will they find you? If so, what will they find? Are you sharing your knowledge in professional forums? Connecting with like-minded professionals who share your passions? Establishing yourself as the resident expert in your profession? Is your resume up to date? Does it match the profiles you highlight in your social networks? Who is in your network? And most importantly, does your online persona really reflect the brand you’ve been working so hard to create?
A lot of questions—all worth asking. Undoubtedly, this information works together to represent your online digital footprint. More importantly, it contributes to how a potential employer “sees” you. As a savvy guerrilla job hunter, you understand this, and you can carefully position yourself to be “findable” online.
Need an easy place to start? Here are 10 social media activities