Archive - June 2014

How to

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In the previous article we discussed common “event-turnoffs” and the importance of having a meetup strategy. In this article we will look into coming up with a topic and booking a speaker for the event.

Find a topic

Now that you have your meetup goal(s), it is time to come up with a topic.

Try to get in your audience’s shoes – what would interest them? You can run a brainstorming session with your team; post a question to your community ; use Google AdWords keywords tool and Google trends to see what search terms are trending these days; and more.

Does your community care about content?

Some communities are known for being “content oriented”, while other communities are more “networking oriented”. For example, if you attend a developer conference, you will see that the lecture halls are full and the mingling areas are empty, while in a business related conference the lecture rooms are empty and everybody is schmoozing by the coffee stands. To figure out if your audience is more into content or more into networking, attend a few meetups in your field and observe: are participants reluctant to sit down for the lecture, because they are busy mingling? Or do most of them sit by themselves while waiting for the lecture and leave right after it is done?

If your community is content oriented, focus on finding a speaker who can deliver excellent content. If your community is networking oriented, don’t put too much energy into a lecture topic. Focus on creating an event that will attract like-minded people or potential business contacts, and create an atmosphere that makes it easy for participants to connect. Community members will show up to an event that they believe appeals to the kind of people they want to meet.

Don’t skip the lecture/activity entirely – it can break the ice, providing individuals with something to talk about in anticipation or as commentary afterwards. A 100% networking event may appear lacking (and scare away people who are not super outgoing). Choose event content that your audience will perceive to be valuable: “well, if I don’t meet interesting people, at least I will learn something.”

Interactive events

Some people are into interactive events: company pitches, entrepreneur speed dating, a writing workshop, etc. Others shy away from interactive events, fearing that they will be put on the spot.

Interactive events can be rewarding for you and for your community in terms of engagement, but they are harder to organize than lectures. For a lecture, you simply bring a speaker and add some snacks; you don’t have to plan successful interactions that will hook the audience without appearing lame. Overall, if you have a creative idea and a good meetup commando to help you bring it to life, an interactive event can be a great choice.

PS – don’t underestimate the romantic aspect! Some people go to events with the hopes of finding a romantic partner with shared interests. If you can implicitly facilitate these interactions, you will gain points with your audience.

Book a speaker

If the event is based on a guest lecture/workshop and you don’t have someone specific in mind, use LinkedIn or Google to find professionals in your area. For example, if you are located in Tampa Florida and are interested in offering your community a meetup about automated marketing, search for “automated marketing in Tampa, Florida.” You will likely find a website of a company that will be happy to give a lecture in return for exposure to potential clients. Below are samples of emails you can send them.

Invitation email sample

Hi there (or name),

I came across your profile (/website) while looking for a company to come give a talk about automated marketing to our meetup community (link). We have an open slot next month and we welcome talks by influencers and service providers. We normally get 50 -70 attendees for each meetup we run, most of them entrepreneurs with early-stage startups.

Let me know if you are interested,

Then, if they’re interested you can follow up with the details, something along the lines of:

One hour lecture followed by 15 min Q&A (you can stay for one on one talks afterwards of course).
Suggested topics: sales-funnel optimization for entrepreneurs, creating a winning email campaign, email marketing for entrepreneurs, etc.
Available dates: May 20, May 27, June 3 or 4. We normally start at 6pm.
The event is free (or alternatively: we charge attendees $5 to cover the use of the space and the snacks).
As I mentioned in the previous email, events hosted with us normally get between 50-70 attendees, mainly startup companies
To get a feeling of our audience you can check out our meetup group or attend our upcoming meetup
I’m attaching some photos of the venue.

Let me know if you have any questions,

Phone talk about upcoming lecture

After you have a potential speaker interested, ask him or her to send you a video of them lecturing. If they don’t have any, schedule a meeting or a phone call to figure out the vibe. In your meeting/phone call, make sure you communicate your guidelines, for example:

The talk has to provide value to our audience; talk about stuff they haven’t heard before – don’t be generic
Don’t be too sales oriented during the lecture itself. You are welcome to speak about your business without overdoing it. Give out your business card and stay for one on one talks after the lecture.

If you’re happy with the topic and the speaker, you are ready to move to the next step: pricing the event.

Should you charge for the event?

You have three options in terms of charging: don’t charge (free event), charge a nominal fee ($5 dollars for example), or charge a full price.

Free event can bring a larger crowd, but it is a non-committed crowd: on average, only 30%- 40% of free event RSVPs show up. You will not know the exact number of attendees until the event starts. A nominal fee creates commitment; people are less likely to flake on an event they paid for, even if the sum of money is insignificant for them. Fully priced events can bring a highly segmented/affluent crowd – people who have money to spend in general or are highly interested in the event. Fully priced events usually require significant marketing efforts to reach those who are willing to pay.

Having said that, your choice of pricing should first and foremost fit your community. Different communities have different rules when it comes to pricing. For example, when I lived in Toronto and ran startup community events, we chargeed five dollars commitment fee from participants in return for pizza. In Tel Aviv, it is uncommon to the charge for a startup/developer community event; hosts can provide snacks at their own expense.

If you decide to charge for the event, here are a few points to consider:

Set the price to be an odd number (such as 44.70). Odd prices give the feeling of something exact, well thought of (perhaps covering costs), and not a random number such as $50.
Have an earlybird price and a regular price
Consider a few different ticket types with different prices according to segments: charge a lower price for entrepreneurs than for investors; a lower price for job seekers than for employers, etc.
In some payment platforms you can generate discount codes, use them wisely
Monitor the number of attendees frequently to avoid overbooking, especially if you’re selling tickets over a few different platforms
When overbooked- redirect to a page that offers them to leave their email for future engagement (e.g. “we’re sold out! Leave your email to be the first to know about our next workshop”)

This concludes the second article in the Run a great meetup in 8 simple steps series. In the first article, we discussed understanding potential event pitfalls and defining event goals. In this article, we discussed finding a topic and booking a speaker. Stay tuned for the next article to learn about creating a meetup commando!

Running a great meetup, part 3: your meetup commando

How to

In the first post in this series we discussed how some attendees can get a sour feeling from a meetup. This can happen if they are ignored upon entrance, can’t find the place, don’t talk to anyone, get bored, etc.

To make sure we weren’t leaving attendees with such a sour feeling, I created a “meetup commando” – a dedicated group of roughly 5 people who helped turn every event into a success story. The commando comprised of coworkers, employees, interns, and volunteers.

Together we:

Ran brainstorming sessions to prepare for events and come up with strategies to make people feel awesome
Split operational tasks to create a seamless workflow during the event
Prepared marketing plans for events, and shared forces in executing them
Attended other meetups (together or separately) to get ideas

To start your own meetup commando, choose employees/coworkers who are likely to enjoy taking part in running events. They don’t have to be super outgoing, but they have to enjoy talking to new people. If you already have a community, let it be known that you are looking for volunteers to help run events; if you can’t find others to join in, start a one man/woman commando and implement the tips below on your own. Soon you will start growing your community and engage others.

Let’s look at a few of the things you can do with your Meetup commando.

Before the event

Meet with your commando and brief them on the upcoming event. Main goal: we want attendees to feel great.
Prepare:
- Printed lists of attendees
- Branded shirts for all commando members, so people can easily spot the organizers
- Stickers (and markers) for nametags (if appropriate)
- Brochures with information about your organization, to place at the entrance and in other strategic areas such as: on the snack table, on seats, in the bathroom…
- An artistic blackboard or another cool element to take a picture with
Go over the list of attendees. If it’s a small event, search online for info about each attendee, so later you can chat / engage with them based on what you read.
Remind the speaker to engage the crowd with interesting questions that will prompt sharing an experience / opinion. During or after the event, you can share selected quotes on your social media
Find a way to collect emails – offer a valuable giveaway / draw a prize / offer to send the slides from the presentation

Create an attendee greeting process

Create a flow you take attendees through, from the moment they arrive at the venue. For example: welcome them >> get their name checked >> give a short pitch >> have their image taken by the blackboard >> ask for their email >> introduce them to another attendee >> help them find a seat

Once you have such a flow outlined, proceed to describing it in more detail, so you can delegate roles to the different commando members. Here is a detailed greeting flow based on the example above:

An attendee arrives at the door. He or she is met by a smiling commando member, who checks their name on the list.
Small talk and pitch. Try to include the points below, not necessarily in this order, keeping the natural flow of conversation ( = don’t force it!)
- So.. X, what brings you to this meetup today?
- What do you do?
- Oh great, I’m sure this meetup will be of great value for you! Do you want to give me your email so I can send you the slides later?
- Have you been here before? Do you know what we do?
- Want to take a pic next to our awesome (… painted wall)?
- Are you on Twitter? ( If yes, follow them, and tweet to them “great meeting you today at…”)
- Make them feel important by saying things like: yeah, I think I saw your bio in the attendee list and it stood out (but don’t lie, maybe they’re not on the attendee list… 🙂 )
Prompt them to take a picture for social media sharing. For example – as you start leading them towards the main space, “by the way, do want to tell us what inspires you and take a picture?” Then lead them to the blackboard where people add a note about something that inspires them and take a picture.
“Let me help you find a seat.”
- Here, you walk them to the seating area. Ideally, there are people in the seating area whom you’ve already spoken to, and you know what they do/what their interests are. Introduce them! “Stephanie, meet Mark. He works in the insurance industry and his company is looking for developers, perhaps you know someone.” Such an introduction immediately sparks a conversation between the two people and you are free to go back to the entrance to greet the next attendee.
- If you did a good job, when you are done matching people you will have a lot of mini groups chatting in the seating area. You can join a new attendee to a group: “hey guys, I’d like you to meet Y, she is a marketing consultant that specializes in high tech companies…”
- Since most people are afraid of reaching out to others, you’ll see that during the break people will often keep talking to the same people you introduced them to. Look for those who appear to be lonely. Maybe they got in late, or perhaps they simply didn’t click with the person you introduced them to. Try to tactfully hook them up to each other or join them to a new group (unless you get the vibe that they want to be left alone).

Notes:

In the flow described above, each attendee goes through the process with one commando member, from beginning to end. When the commando member is done seating an attendee, he or she goes back to the entrance to start the process with someone new
You can also experiment with an assembly line approach: each commando member is in charge of one segment of the process. for example, the first person greets everybody and takes their emails. The second person takes their picture, and third is in charge of the seating area. Try both approaches to see which one works better for your team.
The process described is just an outline, make sure commando members bring their own “self” so the process feels natural and not too planned (even though planned is still better than nothing)
Understand that even if you do your best, you can’t control all aspects of the event. You might miss some of the attendees, who will get in undetected. You might annoy some attendees who will feel that the seating process is intrusive. You can’t make everybody happy.

During the talk

One commando member is in charge of taking notes and writing a short blog post about the event. If the speaker is presenting, you can take pictures of the presentation and add to the post.
One commando member goes over the attendee lists gathered from all commando members and merges them into one spreadsheet.
- She can then check to see which ones we don’t have an email for, and approach them after the lecture to see if they want the slides / pictures/ etc.
- If we have Twitter handles for attendees- use them in a tweet, real time.
One commando member remains in the entrance area, to welcome people who are late.
One commando member keeps an eye on logistics – to see if extra chairs are needed, more snacks, etc.

Follow-up after event

Upload the blog post. Consider using your blog to promote and link to guest websites – add a little story about guests if relevant
Upload event images to social media
Create tweets to engage with attendees, perhaps mentioning something controversial you discussed

To sum up

In the last three posts we discussed how to run a great meetup. We spoke about defining meetup goals, finding a topic for the meetup, booking a speaker, charging for your meetup, and creating a great attendee experience with the help of your meetup commando. I hope you will be able to keep these points in mind when planning and running your next meetup. Feel free to reach out with questions in the comment section below. Take care!

A secret tip: gain an advantage in a job interview

When I interviewed for jobs, I always left the interviewer with a “goodie”: something that was of real value to the employer whether they hire me or not. This has given me a big advantage over other job candidates.
Usually, I would print the goodie on paper and leave it with the interviewer once the interview was over. This technique got me considered for jobs even when I completely sucked during the interview.
Examples of such goodies are:
• Some tweets the company can use in its Twitter account. (Make sure they are completely aligned with the style and content of the company’s previous tweets. This will make the hiring manager see that you already understand the company’s branding and culture.)
• Some blog post ideas for the company’s blog, including a bulleted list outline for each one
• Some business ideas or partnership ideas for the company
• Some ideas on how the company can increase its sales
Note: Don’t leave them more than one goodie. (For example, don’t leave them both a list of tweets and a list of business ideas.) Stick to one goodie so that you won’t appear too eager and you’ll leave them wondering what else you’re capable of.
The key here is to tell the interviewer, “I came up with these ideas while I was researching the company. I’m leaving them with you; you’re completely free to use them even if you decide to hire another candidate.” And really mean it when you say it.

Photo credit: gratisography.com

Why you should apply for a job through the company’s website

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Employment websites make it easy for employers to post jobs, and also very easy for applicants to submit applications. Applicants can send many applications in a short time, and also have their resumes auto-sent when new positions are posted. This reduces the average quality of applications, since people are applying for jobs randomly; these applicants work according to the “law of large numbers” – they send many applications, hoping that at least one will make it past to the hiring manager.

Unfortunately, an applicant working on “big numbers” is easy to spot. The quality of the application tends to be lower – it is hard to send high-quality, tailored applications when one is focusing on large numbers.

Now put that idea on hold for a moment as I tell you about my experience publishing job listings: in addition to posting on employment websites, I also posted on my company’s website. Applications through the company website were far fewer but of much higher quality.

How was I able to spot which applicant saw which listing? Applicants that saw the listing on the employment website opened their emails with “I am applying for position X as advertised on indeed.ca…” Those who saw the listing on the company website, opened with “I am applying for position X as advertised on your website.”

Applicants who came through the website got more attention. Why? When someone responds to a job listed on the company website, I know that they at least saw the website and have some interest in the company; they aren’t sending resumes indiscriminately. Therefore, apply for any job through the employer’s website if possible.

Suppose that you see a job you’re interested in listed on a generic employment website and the name of the employer is provided. Go to the employer’s website to check if they are posting it there as well. If they are, include the following sentence in the opening of your email: “I am applying for position X as advertised on your website.” And you thought that the opening line of an application email was just a formality! If the name of the employer is not provided, try to google a distinctive section from the job description. The search might bring up a page with the exact same listing, just on a company website.

Photo credit: http://kaboompics.com/

Catchy one-liners for job applications

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I have seen a few marketing job applications that ask for a “catchy one-liner.” It might be a Twitter-inspired trend, but it is more likely that several companies are using the same application template (which includes the request for a one-liner).

In the one-liner section, you are asked to describe yourself in 160 characters or less. The purpose is not to get more information about you, but to see that you can come up with a good personal tagline. This is crucial when applying for a marketing role. As I mentioned earlier, employers will judge applicants for marketing jobs not only on the content of their resume, cover letter, and portfolio, but also on their delivery. After all, the marketer’s job is to communicate messages effectively. Hiring managers will look at the content of your one-liner and its marketing flair. Make sure you optimize these 160 characters.

Here are two examples of one-liners from the book Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies by Joshua Waldman:

“Recent grad not looking forward to moving back in with parents. Love communications and creative problem solving. Amateur film critic with published reviews.” (157 characters)
“Social media job-search coach. I once traveled the world with nothing more than LinkedIn & a bottle of gin. Let’s trick the economy and get you hired.” (150 characters)

Here is one I just came up with. You’re welcome to take it, polish it, and use it whenever you’re asked for a one-liner:

“Digital marketer, addicted to everything online. I write a blog post and 5 tweets before breakfast. Contact me if you’re serious about your online presence.” (156 characters)

Good luck, would love to hear some of yours!

How to write a kickass marketing resume

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When I started to write my resume, I went to my university’s Career Center Library and borrowed a few books about resume writing and some large books that contained hundreds of resume samples. The Library would loan books for only 48 hours, so there was no time to procrastinate.

I spent two full days with these books and wrote the first version of my resume. After that, I met with a career counselor who went over my resume and said it was good. Since then, I have changed my resume over 40 times, and I can wholeheartedly say that my first resume was crap. But that’s not saying much because the resume I have right now is also crap.

However crappy the whole resume thing is, you have to have one and it has to look good and read well. Even after more than 30 iterations, I could still find typos, grammatical mistakes, and capitalization errors in my resume. I don’t know how this happens, but it just does. And it shouldn’t.

Whatever it is you send a potential employer – a resume, your blog, an article you wrote – the employer will assume that you put a lot of time and effort into it and that it is “your best.” If you send a resume with a typo, it’s very unlikely that you will hear back from the employer. (Especially if you tell them that you are detail oriented!)

I will not go into the details of writing resumes and cover letters. There are plenty of resources on that, and I assume that you’ve already looked at some. I will give you some tips on how to make your resume and cover letter as awesome as possible and how to tailor them to a marketing position.

Note: Everything I will say about resumes applies to LinkedIn profiles as well.

Necessary for any marketing resume and cover letter

Good, standard design. If you can’t do this, ask a friend with a flair for design to help, or use someone else’s template as a basis. Consider hiring a freelancer on fiverr.com or on another freelance marketplace to touch up your resume’s visuals.
Clear information. Present information clearly, without excessive buzzwords or jargon (unless those words are in the job description).
Emphasize marketing. Emphasize the marketing aspects of every job that you held, where it makes sense to do so. For example, if you held an administrative position, focus on when you ran events for your company and had to market them to other employees or clients.

Keywords to have in a marketing resume

It doesn’t matter if your resume is scanned by a human being or by machine; it should have the right words for the position you’re seeking. When I look at a resume (or, more likely, a LinkedIn profile), my eyes automatically skip to the words that are relevant to me. Then I read the sentences around these words. I don’t read random sentence that lacks words that can spark my interest.

For example, when I hired a marketing assistant for INcubes, I looked for someone who felt comfortable with WordPress. If a resume, cover letter, or LinkedIn profile contained the word “WordPress,” they were far more likely to get my attention.

So use the right words. Here is a list of some common marketing-related words to include in your resume. If you don’t know what some of them mean, either leave those out or google them to find out.

Note: Don’t overdo it! Choose the keywords that best fit the position you’re applying for so it won’t look like you spat all of the industry jargon into your resume.

Account management
Advertising
Analytics
B2B, B2C
Blogging
Branding
Business development
Client base
Competitive analysis
Content mapping/development/creation
Copywriting
Creative
Customer experience
Customer retention
Data collection
Digital/online marketing
Email campaigns /direct marketing
Event planning
Fundraising
Inbound/outbound
Interactive
Loyalty program
Market share
Marketing collaterals
Mobile marketing
Niche (market)
Penetration strategy
Persona analysis
Positioning
Press releases
Public relations
Social media strategy/implementation
Taglines
Trade shows

Marketing resume tips I’ve never read anywhere else

I will assume that you’ve already read or are going to read all the generic “How to write a resume” tips provided by other sources. I will give you only the tips I’ve never read anywhere else.

Never claim to be “a fast learner.” During your interview, what if you’re asked something like, “We need you to do the analytics for our company, but I see that you don’t have experience with that. Is that going to be a problem for you?” Instead of saying that you’re a fast learner, cite an example of when you had to learn something complicated in a hurry and aced it.

You might be inclined to say you’re a fast learner when you see a job that you feel is a great match for you, but which requires an acquired skill or experience that you lack. For example, suppose the job requires experience with Facebook advertising. You believe that Facebook advertising is simple enough to learn in a matter of hours or days, once you get the job. Well, if it’s that simple, why not learn it before the interview?

When you face a requirement like this, do some brief online research to assess how long it will take you to learn how to meet it. Then decide if you will have enough time to learn it before the interview so that you can avoid the “fast learner” concept.

Lying is always a bad idea. It’s bad karma, and the lie can be revealed, sabotaging your efforts. For example, do not mention your experience with Facebook ads if that is not true. Still, if you believe you can do it, then state in your cover letter, “I can easily help you with the Facebook advertising campaign you listed in the requirements section.” Then before your interview, learn how to use Facebook ads. Once you’ve studied it and think you know it, invest a small amount of money – as little as $10 or $20 – and advertise something on Facebook. Then look at the results and gather insights from the ad campaign. Having such practical experience will make you feel confident when speaking about Facebook advertising to your potential employer.

P.S. I totally believe you when you say that you’re a fast learner. I am too.

Should you mention languages? Being fluent in additional languages can be an asset, but if you are not a native language speaker, it can also single you out as an immigrant or newcomer. Whether it will help you land a job depends on the language and region. If you are in Canada and can speak both English and French, the number of jobs available to you may increase significantly.

On the other hand, if you speak Croatian, there must be a position somewhere that requires it, but most don’t. In such a case, consider whether you want to impress your potential employers with your bilingual skills – it might cause them to wonder whether your English is good enough.

This problem intensifies if you came from Croatia recently and all your education and employment experience is from there. Then just one typo in your resume might lead the hiring manager to suspect that you can’t communicate in English. Consider that issue when listing languages on your resume, and assess the advantages and disadvantages based on your particular situation and the job you are applying for.

Freelancing on your way to a job

Online freelancing is a great option to consider, whether you’re looking to make an income freelancing, start your own business, or build a portfolio while on a job search.

There are a number of online freelancing marketplaces, including Elance.com, Odesk.com, Freelancer.com, and Fiverr.com. Such websites provide online staffing marketplaces for clients in need of services and freelancers who want to work.

A client posts a job listing describing the project that he or she wants to have done. Then freelancers can propose themselves for the job. In their proposals, the freelancers provide supporting information, such as their approach to the job, their skills, their experience, samples of their past work, and possibly samples tailored to the proposal.

Many of these online marketplaces employ a bidding system: When a freelancer submits a proposal, he submits a bid – the amount of money he would charge for the job. A client chooses the best fit proposal. To help decide whom to award the job to, he or she can also consider public reviews by previous clients. After the freelancer has completed the work, the client provides a public review of the freelancer’s job.

Some freelancing sites also operate freelancing contests: A client needing a solution to a problem starts a contest. He or she promises to award a cash prize to the freelancer with the best solution. Freelancers submit their best ideas to try to win the prize. Here are two screenshots of one freelancing contest on Freelancer.com:

Most of these contests will not make you rich, but you can use them to build your portfolio and perhaps make some money. You can always reuse your proposed solution, even if it doesn’t win this time. If you think it’s good, keep your sample along with the job description and display them in your portfolio.

Leverage your job search by becoming a freelancer

Perhaps you are thinking, I don’t want to be a freelancer. I want a “real job,” in which I go to the office, mingle with my coworkers, and tell everyone that I work for a company. That can be understood. Still, don’t dismiss freelancing; today’s job market does not offer the security it used to, and it’s good to have more than one source of income. In addition, freelancing can help you leverage your search for that “real job.” How?

It’s a way to “get your feet wet.” If you’re new to the job market, freelancing offers a way for you to jump right in to doing real work for real clients for the first time.

It offers easy entry. Most online freelancing is done through electronic communications; proposals are submitted according to the marketplace’s formats and standards. A formal written resume and cover letter are rarely ever requested. File servers (run by the freelance marketplace), email, teleconferencing, videoconferencing, and cloud storage typically take the place of travel and face-to-face meetings. That way, you can work for clients thousands of miles away without travel.

It will help you build a portfolio and gain valuable experience. When you write proposals for freelancing jobs and get to work on some of them, you are gaining valuable market experience instead of just applying for jobs. The market experience you accumulate can be valuable for your portfolio and job interviews. Often, while working on a freelance gig, you will learn something new that you can later list as a skill on future freelancer proposals, your resume, and LinkedIn profile.

It can lead to longer-term work. If you do good work, the company you‘re freelancing for might hire you as a paid employee eventually. Make sure you create a real connection and go the extra mile for them so you’ll appear to be someone they would like to employ.

How to become a freelancer

The first step is to browse some of the freelance marketplaces and see which ones you would like to join. You can also open an account on a few freelancing websites. Then sign up at a marketplace and set up a profile: the profile lists your skills, job experience, and portfolio. Make sure to add something personal to your profile; speak about yourself, so clients can connect with the person behind the screen.

After your profile is ready, start browsing job listings in your field and submit proposals. If you are new to your field, start by looking for job listings that value quick creative solutions more than prior experience. Try entering a freelancing contest as mentioned earlier.

Bear in mind that online freelance marketplaces are quite fast-paced; a job may be awarded within hours after being listed. You need to keep your eye on the marketplaces you signed up for and apply for a suitable job as soon as you spot it. (If you wait till the next day to start applying for it, it may get awarded to someone else in the meantime.)

With the right apps, a smartphone or tablet can help you keep track of the freelance marketplaces wherever you happen to be. As examples, the apps Freelance Projects (on Android) and iFreelancer (on iOS) track job listings on various freelance marketplaces in real time. Some freelance marketplaces also offer their own apps.

After you’ve done some jobs and gotten more experience and (hopefully) positive reviews from your clients, potential clients will rely on your positive feedback when deciding whom to award jobs to. That will allow you to spend less time working on each proposal, and will boost your portfolio – whether it’s for freelancing or traditional job search purposes.

Photo by Kaboompics.com

4 job search myths busted (kind of)

How to write a kickass marketing resume

It is hard to bust myths that are “soft”, e.g. can’t be tested using scientific methods, but I’ll try anyway and you’ll have to trust me.

Myth # 1 – You just have to send enough resumes

The traditional job search goes something like this:

You look at job listings. Most likely online.
You send resumes and cover letters to many potential employers, hoping that one or more of the recipients will call you.
The resume and cover letter you send to employers are slight variations of your basic version; you tailor each one to fit the position you are interested in.
You get an unexpected call and go through a five- to ten-minute interview on the phone.
If the interviewer likes you, you get invited for another interview that may be followed by yet another interview.
If all goes well, they hire you.

Sounds good? Too bad it doesn’t seem to work anymore. In most job markets, these six steps will not get you a job unless you have a lot of consistent, impressive experience. (If you do, you will probably be headhunted and won’t have to go through this process anyway.)

Myth # 2 – Go on informational interviews

An informational interview is a meeting in which you solicit career advice from an influencer in an organization you want to work for. To obtain an informational interview, you approach the influencer and try to schedule a meeting.

I went on such an “informational interview,” and it didn’t make me a fan of the concept. I know that many people swear by this method as a way to become visible to an organization and eventually get a job, yet the real purpose – to get a job, not just career advice – is so obvious, that the whole thing can be a waste of time for both parties.

The people you’re meeting probably have their defenses on. They will likely tell you that if they had any openings, they would love to hire you. They will promise to forward your resume to some of their friends in the industry and try to help you move ahead. It rarely ever happens. I have heard from many people who came out of informational interviews feeling satisfied, only to find out that the person who was supposed to be their gateway to employment stopped responding or proved to be vague and flaky.

Myth #3 – Go to networking events and meetups

Almost all ambitious jobseekers attend networking meetups– at least until they become frustrated and give up. I don’t know anyone who got a job by going to meetups. (If you do, please contact me. It will be good to hear that all those hours of meetups have actually gotten someone a job.) Don’t get me wrong; a meetup is a great social activity that can be highly beneficial to you when you’re out of a job (especially if they offer free pizza). Just don’t expect to get a job that way.

Myth #4- Spread the word to everyone you meet

This tactic relates to my previous point and explains why meetups don’t work for job search. From what I’ve experienced in North America, people have to know you well to recommend you for a job in their company. When people have just met you, they are reluctant to take the risk of recommending you for a job. If they get you a job and then you suck at it, they may feel it’s their responsibility for having brought you along, which could hurt their careers. That’s why you shouldn’t expect strangers and acquaintances, no matter how nice and friendly they appear, to help you get a job. On the other hand, giving your “unemployed pitch” can appear needy and boring to the people you meet.

Frustrated?

So I just told you about some a few common job search myths that don’t work according to my experience; what are some things that do work?

Do’s and don’ts of a cover letter

Create a blog to support your job search

Position yourself as a content creator

Freelancing your way to a job

Catchy one-liners for job applications

Apply for a job through the company’s website

Do’s and (mainly) dont’s in a cover letter