The Art of Job Hunting

In the third chapter of  What Color is Your Parachute?, Bolles' addresses the constantly changing job market. He compares job hunting to dating. An employer and an employee meet, try to decide if they have anything to offer the other, if they can get along, and if the relationship will last long term.  Sometimes the relationship lasts, sometimes it does not work out.  The relationship is not one sided. Both the employer and employee have power to affect the relationship.

We are constantly inundated with bleak job market predictions. These do not necessarily reflect the reality. Often we focus on how many people are unemployed in a month as opposed to how many people landed jobs within a month. The point is, it's a matter of perspective. It's easy to be frustrated with one's inability to find a job. Job hunting is an art, you need to sell who you are to your potential employer. The methods to do this are always changing and depend on the technological environment. The process takes a lot of time and effort.

In May, I'd like to remind myself of these facts. Job hunting is a full-time job. It takes time, effort, and luck to find a job.

From the Perspective of a Facebook page Administrator

It's time to explore the other side of Facebook, the side of Facebook that gives feedback to page administrators. For this activity, I have been given admin access to look at  the various options admins are given on two different Facebook pages. 

• Administrators have the ability to see how many people  their posts have reached.
  
  
  This post for example has reached 24 people

• Administrators have the ability to improve how many people see their posts. Administrator can "boost" posts by paying a small fee to Facebook.
  
  

    This post was boosted and reached 4,066 people.

• In another example, you will find that  hovering over the orange bar on Facebook, shows that the organic reach was 0 people, and that the paid reach was 10,199 people.  Clicking the number of people reached brings up more post details

The NPOEx post above was boosted. It should be clear at this point, that just because you posted something on your Facebook page, it doesn't mean that everyone ( or even anyone) is going to see your Facebook post. Does that mean you should be spending money to boost Facebook posts?  My answer would be maybe. It depends what kind of outcomes you want.

If you want more people to see your page, spending money to put the link in their feed will surely do that. What you can't control is whether they choose to interact with the content put into their feed or just casually scroll past it. Engagement is harder to come by, particularly if your post is not interesting to a person.  The NPOEx post above reached 9,948 people, but it only accumulated one like, 1 share, and 15 total clicks.

For the NPOex admin, using Facebook to reach people interested in the page was not all that sustainable, particularly if advertising was required. For this reason, an e-mail list was created to send people updates. For this method, the admin is able to make sure an e-mail ends up in a person's inbox.

Administrators can do more than just quantify how many people see a post. Facebook is somewhat magical because it is always collecting data on users and their interactions within the larger website. Administrators can quantify when your "fans," or people who like your page are usually online. This may be  useful in deciding what time a post should be made.  There's much more detail than just how many "fans" are being reached and and at what time of the day.

•  Administrators have the ability to quantify location, age, gender, and various other demographics. By clicking on "People" under the Insights tab, a male to female demographic analysis can be found.

Each bar is broken down into an age range. 44%  of the fans of this page are between 18-24 years old with 24% being female and 20% of the fans being males.





Administrators can also see the country and city fans are from. Most of the fans (as you can see in the picture above) are from Egypt. More specifically, 775 fans are from Cairo, Egypt. In addition to location, Facebook breaks down what language fans speak. 1,114 of people who like the Freedom songs page, speak English.

Facebook pages are valuable because they allow for an in depth demographic analysis as well as a better understanding of how many people a page is reaching. Data is collected on  people visiting a page, seeing a post by a page, and liking a page. This is helpful because a company does not have to survey their customers personally, but instead use the data Facebook pulls on people that like their company's page.

Making a Facebook Business or Product Page

Since everyone from 13 year old kids to my neighbor's grandmother are on Facebook, it's no surprise that businesses create Facebook pages to reach out to possible clients. Facebook pages are like having a website within a larger website (Facebook). Owners can post text, pictures, videos, etc.

Theoretically, if someone likes a Facebook page, They should be getting notifications from the page when there is a new post. In the old days, this was true. These days, Facebook charges money to boost reach of posts to an audience.

If you already have a personal Facebook, making a Facebook page is easy!

1.  Log into your personal Facebook page
2.  Go to facebook.com/pages/create.
3.  Choose whether you're creating a page for a local business or place, a company, organization, or institution, a brand, a product, a artist, band, or public figure, for entertainment purposes, or a cause or community.

The next steps are relatively self explanatory. Follow the prompts on the screen to create your snazzy new page.  Eventually, you will want to add a profile picture, a cover photo, and more detail about your page.

One thing to consider before making a Facebook is whether or not it's worth it. Is the ROI ( return on investment) worth it? I personally have the motto that if you have it out there, you're more likely get an interest than if you didn't have a Facebook at all. But also, if you don't post on your Facebook page, you will not have worthwhile interactions either. It's easy to forget that Facebook is business that makes money from advertisement rather than just allows you to link up with friends, family, businesses, products, and ideas that interest you. I f you want to increase your presence, you can pay money to "boost" your post or reach more people.

Here's a link to the Facebook page I made for the sake of practicing making one. I chose to make a photo blog like page.  At this point, the page is pretty boring. It's blank, gray, and undeveloped.




I still need to complete filling out my profile. When I eventually do, I can fill my page with content so people are interested in visiting it. For me, this will probably be bad iPhone photography, but that's okay. At this point, it's just an experiment whose outcomes can be applied to real world idea marketing.

If you have a business, product, or idea you want to share with the world, I suggest you go do it. Try making a Facebook page. If you don't like it, you can always delete it.

The Internet Has Parts of Your New Resume (and You Might Not Even Know It!)

Thanks to the internet age, we have an abundance of information at our fingertips. You may be using this internet's  wealth of information to figure out how to properly poach an egg in the microwave at am or to see what your friends,family and complete strangers are up to. It's easy to get lost searching! It's as easy as typing into Google!

Seeing as finding information on the internet is so easy it's not surprise that employers look up their interview candidates too. According to Richard Bolles, in What Color Is Your Parachute, 91% of U.S. employers have visited a job hunters profile on social networks and 69% rejected a candidate based on their discoveries.

This being said, it is important to maintain an online presences that is up to date. LinkedIn is an important site to keep a digital resume. Through a LinkedIn profile, besides just having a photo, job title, past job experience, a summary, and experiences listed you can add more to resume without page  limits! One can link to project sites, blogs, forums, twitter (if it is professional), and YouTube videos within one's expertise. Friendly reminder, your online presence should show who you are, but also remain professional.

Although having an online resume sounds great, it is still important to have a traditional resume. Traditional resumes are not dinosaurs. They are still regularly used, but your online presense can supplement a traditional resume.

Your traditional resume should include segments such as:

• Volunteer, community, and unpaid work
• Education
• Administration, customer service, and accounts
• Responsibilities taken on
• Event planning and management experience
• Memberships
• Technology experience
• Published or presented works

There are not official rules for a resume. The goal is to persuade the person that wants to hire you, to invite you in based on an appealing resume.  Some companies even post resumes of their employees to give an idea of what future employees should expect.

Your best shot of finding a job is writing your resume and sending it out into the world. So, embrace having both an online presence, an online resume, and a traditional resume. To find a job, you're marketing yourself, your skills, and your ideas and with today's standards that involves marketing yourself in few different ways.

The importance of Content!

When it comes to content I've  assumed that companies create content and send it out into the world.  I did not really consider they could curate content that already exists to raise awareness of their business. I admit, I probably prefer creating content because it's unique and interesting. It seems like unique content may have a larger impact for a company because it is personally tailored.

There also seems to be a way to combine content. This comes about through collaboration with other companies! I think it's pretty interesting to see the twitter conversations between brands. The person that writes the taco bell twitter has some pretty funny stuff! From a marketing perspective these short less than 140 character exchanges can provide a boost for both brands involved!

So, the big question when it comes to content is, Where do you put it?

There are a variety of place to put content. You can even link content together on different social media channels.Some main ways to create content are the following: First, by curating a blog (Like this one!). Another way is by  creating a website (yes, a blog is technically a website, but websites can cater to different needs that blogs do not traditionally do.) A website for example, can act as a carefully curated portfolio.  Photos and videos are another great source of content. Thanks to smart phones and new technologies, taking photos and videos to make content is incredibly easy.  

What Color Is your Parachute?- The changing world of job hunting

The book What Color is Your Parachute? A Practical Manual for Job-Hunters and Career-Changers by Richard N. Bolles is not what I was expecting.

In college I have become accustomed to reading books that do not have a very good application to the real world; particularly the idea of finding a job upon entering the real world. Yes, I've read Plato and Socrates, and I do value the importance of the ideas of said philosophers.  I however, do not know how well I could use that knowledge to land myself a job in my field that I'm interested in as a biology major with a business minor.


The book lists reasons why the book is a good choice, for me the line "If you are trying to figure out what you want to do next, with your life, this book is for you." resonated with me.

Currently, the job hunt is frustrating.As Bolles points out, employers do not hunt for jobs in the same way as they have in the past. Employers have such a large pool of possible employees that they want the perfect dream employee. They may hold out on hiring  perfectly competent applicants because are not the mythical unicorn the company is waiting for. Similarly, the length of the job hunt has been increasing while the length of time of a job has been steadily decreasing. Many people are taking part time jobs and short time contracts  Job-seekers have also been having more and more trouble finding a middle-class salary.  To even be considered for many of this jobs, applicants are expected to have a college degree, or even sometimes an advanced college degree like a masters, PhD, or a doctoral degree.

We are spending more time hunting for jobs in our lifetimes. Maybe it's a blessing, maybe it's a curse, but we are able to hunt on the internet through various job board outlets.  As social media becomes more of a norm, they can also be used in the job hunt.  The job hunt is different then it was 20 years ago.

Luckily, Bolles argues that  "getting hired today is about who knows the most about how to get hired." To be hired, you need to BE CREATIVE.  Sure he listed expected suggestions like use contacts, don't rely solely on a resume, but he also made of very interesting points.I think all of these ideas are relevant to me as a prepare for a career post college. Bolles suggests job-seekers search for something that they are passionate about as opposed to a nine to five job that leaves one spending most of the day wishing it was five already. To do this, you need to define who you are and find a job that fits it. Don't research the job market, find out what is important in a job to you. Also, know what skills you want to use, where you want to use them, and in what way.

A suggestion I didn't expect was to avoid HR and aim to connect with a contact who has power over whether or not you get hired, HR department aside. He also suggests  asking for the job at the end of the interview. The author argues that it really does work, his readers say so. I think it'd be interesting to survey employers about how they respond if an employee asks for the job at the end of the interview. I'm curious if a study already exists.

My biggest take away from this chapter is that as a soon to be college graduate, I really need to prioritize skills I want to use in my career. They cannot just be skills I have, but hate, but skills I enjoy using. I am excited to continue reading this book as it makes me less anxious about entering the big scary "real world."

Week 2- Introduction to Social Media Marketing

Social media can be overwhelming and difficult to understand. Posts are made on a variety of different channels. Social media does not coincide with one specific platform. This can be demonstrated by a simple google search. If you type Social Media marketing into a google image search you get this:

The search is full of info-graphics showing different platforms linking companies and people through the internet. If you're optimistic, this will lead to increased interaction between businesses and consumers to make revenue.

Revenue is important! The use of social media for it to be beneficial needs to give an ROI, or a return on investment. Return on investment is important because without a return, no money is made, and a social media marketing employer cannot be paid. Also, a misstep in social media usage can lead to people feeling negative towards a company or product and not using it overall.

An important idea to consider is that social media does not just appeal to consumers. I had not really thought about this in too much detail before reading this chapter.  B2B is an acronym used for business to business oriented marketing. It is aimed at selling a product or service to another business. Social media works great for interacting with businesses that you likely wouldn't have even heard of before the internet age.  B2C, or business to consumer is aimed at giving consumers information about a product. Consumers can be every all around the world and can instantly get updates from you on their Facebook feed, twitter page, or many other social media platforms. Engaging the consumer is a very  important part of social media marketing. Businesses wants to  get their audience talking about the product. This does run as a two way street however. Businesses should be listening to the word of mouth (WOM) exchanges between consumers. As mentioned in the previous post, SocialMention.com is a great way to gauge how people feel about a company on  various social media platforms. Knowing how to better cater to your consumer can largely increase your consumer base.

The main idea of social media marketing is to make content catered to your audience and send it out into the world through a variety of channels such as Facebook, YouTube, and twitter. This will then create "buzz" about your company or its product and help your company grow.

Week 1- The Websites Social Mention and Google Trends as Marketing Tools

Our society is inundated with social media. There's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Flickr, Google+, YouTube and those are just some of the main platforms. The internet is full of all sorts of various social media platforms large and well known as well as small and independent. As a business, brand, or organization, finding out how your company is being received can be a daunting task. There's a lot more on the internet then a yelp review.

Luckily, the website Social Mention is a well put together tool to analyze social media presence and opinion. Google trends can  analyze interest in a subject overtime as well as where a subject is searched regionally.  In this post, I will analyze results for a political figure, a celebrity, a brand name, a product name, and a company.

1. Political figure: Hilary Clinton
   Hilary Clinton’s sentiment analysis is 2:1 meaning that there are twice as many positive post for every one negative post about Hilary. This includes blogs, microblogs (twitter, Instagram ect), bookmarks, images, and videos. She has 46 % Strength which shows she is being discussed in social media but not too high in the spectrum
   
   Social Mention: Hilary Clinton
   
   Google trends shows interest in Hilary peaking in 2008, but also at it’s second highest point in 2015.These peaks correspond with Hilary’s presidential runs.
   
   Google Trends:Hilary Clinton
   
   
2. Celebrity: Steve Irwin
   I decided for my celebrity choice to search Steve Irwin. He is not traditionally in the spotlight as a living person, but through his legacy of his zoo and various conservation efforts. He’s most known for his TV show and his untimely death.  I didn’t expect social mention to give very many results, but surprisingly it did. He has 71% strength of discussion on social media. The first page was full of results from just 2 minutes ago.  People also tend to post 5 positive posts for every negative one. There also was a rate of 1 mention every 30 seconds
   
   Social  Mention: Steve Irwin 
   
   For Google trends, most interest is located in Australia which is not all that surprising. Steve Irwin after all is from Australia. I am somewhat surprised that the regional interest for the United States was ranked at number four on the list of interest.  Finally, the peak in news articles occurred between2006 and 2007 which is right around when Steve Irwin passed away.
   
   Google Trends: Steve Irwin
   
3. Brand Name: Dawn
   The brand name I searched was Dawn.  Dawn is the brand whose soap is used to clean up animals after oil spills as well as clean your dirty dish. Across all platforms, the brand has 48% strength on social media with a 2:1 sentiment rating, a 31% passion, and a 55% influence.  Dawn is mentioned in quite a few  cooking blogs, but not very many other places.
   
   Social Mention: Dawn
   
   According to google searches, the interest over time has been increasing overall, but seems to repeatedly go up and down.
   
   Google Trends: Dawn
   
   
4. Product name: Rite in the Rain
   I searched RiteintheRain for my product name because I’m an ecology nerd. The company makes field notebooks that you can write on in the rain and if you use pencil, the writing will not smear or fade upon getting wet. This post had a 5:1 Sentiment rating, but only 1 % strength. There were only 2 pages of results, but most reviews were overwhelmingly positive and pretty much exclusively from Reddit.
   
   Social Mention: Rite in the Rain
   
   
5.  Company: British Petroleum ( BP) 
   I decided to analyze the company British Petroleum. I thought it would be interesting with people’s dependence but dislike of oil companies. They have a very low strength on social media at only 21%. Surprisingly the sentiment is 4:1- so people are overall positive towards the company. BP’s reach is low as well at only 34%.
   
   Social Mention: British Petroleum 
   
   The google trends show an increase in interest in June 2010 when BP was a part of a large oil spill.
   
   Google trends: British Petroleum