Some good news first. As of today, 1.23.2012, we are entering the Year of the Dragon in the Chinese Zodiac, and according to many, including this article, “Year of the dragon brings promise of change. In general, in the dragon years, the world economy does a little better.” So this is the year to kick butt, and better your financial and job situation!
So, I wanted to share some findings with you that might be helpful, especially if you are looking for a job, or wanting to transition to another job in this new year. The tips I am about to give you do require some time and investment, but since you are already investing time in your job search, why not better yourself and learn new, marketable skills?
You see, there are jobs out there actually, believe it or not. Do you know what the hottest jobs and skills are for 2012? Do you know what industries are hiring the most workers? If you don’t , you may want to revisit your current skill sets and see how you can improve and become more relevant in today’s ultra-competitive job market. And you can learn new skill sets in the privacy of your home, online- for free.
Let’s take a look at some of the free online educational resources:
- List of 400 free online courses from top universities from OpenCulture.com.You can download these audio & video courses straight to your computer or mp3 player.
- Education-Portal.com provides a great list of free online courses and education, including those from well-known universities.
- Khan Academy is one of my favorites, and it is an all ages site as well: I’ll bet your children will learn a heck of a whole lot more from these tutorial videos than anything they learn at public schools-at least in the U.S. Great for refreshing those long lost math and physics skills.
- Academic Earth lists online courses from the world’s top scholars and top universities such as MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, Princeton and Yale.
- Want to learn or hone up on techie skills? Stanford University is offering free computer science online courses. The three initial courses – Machine Learning, Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Introduction to Databases – cover material that forms the basis of some of the most prevalent technologies today, from online shopping to web search and robotics.
- M.I.T. Game-Changer: Free Online Education For All: An online learning initiative called M.I.T.x,which will offer the online teaching of M.I.T. courses free of charge to anyone in the world. “The program will not allow students to earn an M.I.T. degree. Instead, those who are able to exhibit a mastery of the subjects taught on the platform will receive an official certificate of completion. The certificate will obviously not carry the weight of a traditional M.I.T. diploma, but it will provide an incentive to finish the online material.”
- On the techie note: I.T. is one of the hot skills in demand today, BTW. I.T. hiring ticks up for the third straight year, and I.T. pros with programming skills will be first in line for jobs. ~Always wanted to learn to code but found it daunting (like me)? Codecademy has made this super easy now. It’s interactive, fun, and you can do it with your friends. I am trying it out myself!
- Don’t forget skills like Excel, Word, PowerPoint, HTML etc- here is a list of Top 10 websites for free job skills training online. And you can’t beat YouTube for providing myriad free tutorials- just type in the keyword of your skill and “tutorial”- you should be able to find quite a few!!
While these courses won’t provide you with an official degree, what you CAN obtain is a ton of valuable knowledge, and even state in your resume that you have taken these courses-guarantee that will impress a hiring manager- MIT? Stanford? Carnegie Mellon? REALLY!? It shows you are willing to better yourself and go the extra step. 
There are also quite a few jobs out there that don’t require degrees and pay decently, however, you can’t just jump into them with no knowledge of the trade.
“In addition, fewer workers have college degrees, so they are harder to find in relation to workers without degrees. Indeed, according to the most recent U.S. Census Bureau data, 19 percent of Americans hold a bachelor’s degree, while approximately 31 percent have a high school diploma. Census data also shows that the mean income for a college graduate is $58,613, a significant difference from the $31,283 mean income for a high school graduate. You might reason, then, that to bring home a sizable paycheck, you need to go to college.
Although that’s often true, there are exceptions. Many jobs pay workers well because their daily tasks are dangerous, difficult or extremely specialized. Experience also factors into the equation because many employers value years of experience more than their years of education. These jobs not requiring a degree aren’t necessarily easy to perform nor easy to land.” Here are fifteen jobs that pay well, no degree required.
This great infographic shows you “On-The-Job Training: Jobs That Require No College Degree”.
So, in order to really be prepared, you need to be able to market yourself as well. There are some super-low cost options to get business cards that you can hand out while networking, whether it be at the grocery story, dentist’s, coffee shop or concert. Moo cards has really cool cards that you can personalize with QR codes that can link back to your personal online branding site (could be your blog, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or Google+ account- but you better have a presence on at least one of them!). You get 50 free classy cards (this is a promotion so not sure when it will end) and all you pay is about $5 shipping and handling. Here’s what my Moo card looks like, front and back (image on right). VistaPrint also has some free business card deals- you can check them out here.
If you follow my Tweets, Facebook and LinkedIn updates, you know that much of what I read online is what inspires me to comment or blog. This past month, an article written by Dorie Clark for the Harvard Business Review, “How to Reinvent Your Personal Brand” made me think of how I have become a poster-child for reinventing my “personal brand”.
Let’s see – in my professional career I have been a:
- Researcher for the New York Times, Newsweek, the Washington Post and the Philadelphia Inquirer
- Assistant press attaché for United International Pictures
- Label Manager for A&M Records
- Production Coordinator for a fashion production company in Florida and the Caribbean
- Director of U.S. marketing strategies for the first ever-shark repelling device, SharkPod
- Research and Marketing Manager for Sunlight Solar, a sustainable energy company
- Senior Internet Researcher for an MRI franchise and the Senior Internet Researcher for my own companies, MTR and Infosourcer (old site)
- Manager of Internet Research for the Talent Acquisition Team at Deloitte U.S.
- Manager of Global Online Communications at Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited
- Manager of Digital Marketing for Deloitte Analytics (my newest role!)
Yikes, right? That is one e-c-l-e-c-t-i-c background (and I’m sure you’d find other words for that). On top of all that, I have a degree in Environmental Science from Florida International University. Some pundits (def.: a person who makes comments or judgments, esp. in an authoritative manner) have commented that I sure have “strayed” from my degree focus. Well, I think I am probably not alone in going down that path.
Back to re-inventing your brand, and just a bit more background on me: I am a late-stage baby-boomer. I have grown up in multi-cultural environments. I was in a devastating earthquake in Venezuela and survived. I was living in Chile when a military coup by Pinochet killed Allende and changed Chile’s fate for 20 + years. I was in China in 1981 when there were no cars or hotels. I have witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall.I have worked with some amazing famous (and not-so-famous people). I have been through the dot.com bubble and bust, witnessed the rapid rise of social networks, Web 2.0, the mobile phenomenon, and am embracing the change as fast as it comes.
So what does this all have to do with reinventing your brand? Plenty. The times have always been-a-changing, but they are a-changing at lightening speed right now. So, in order to be successful in today’s world, you need to adapt to change. You need to leverage your best assets and adapt them to this paradigm shift.
At first glance, my eclectic professional CV looks like it’s all over the place. But if you look a little bit closer, there is a common thread: I have always been involved in delivering a message, whether it be a news story, a new music album, a photo shoot, a new device which will help save lives, a technology that will help the environment, a message about company culture, company communications, and now, promoting a new division within my company. Oh, and did I mention I am information-monger?
I think that everyone out there, across all generations, needs to be able to tell a prospective employer “your story” and how “your story” and your skills can benefit the company. Tac Anderson, who wrote this blog post “How to Reinvent Yourself in 3 (Not-So) Easy Steps“, wisely states:
Blaming a big company for laying people off is like blaming a restaurant for going out of business. To me “job security” means being able to find employement or employ yourself. The illusion that your employer is responsible for your career no longer exists.
Yes, it’s true: your employer is NOT responsible for your career. You are. Hone those skills you are passionate about. If you can’t afford formal training, then go online and read up on anything you feel you are lacking and show that you have done your homework. Describe why your skills and passions could benefit the company, even if it is not 100% part of the job description. Then, if you happen upon the right company and hiring manager, they will welcome your diverse skill sets, which will in turn contribute to innovation. To be competitive in today’s market, companies need to embrace innovation-explain to them how your diverse sill set will benefit the company’s bottom line.
Lastly, HBR’s post suggest the following 5 steps to reinvent your brand:
- What’s Your Destination? First, you need to develop a detailed understanding of where you want to go, and the knowledge and skills necessary to get there (see my point above about honing your skills)
- Leverage Your Points of Difference/What makes you different? That’s what people will remember, and you can use it to your advantage
- Develop a Narrative. You need to develop a coherent narrative arc that explains to people — in a nice, simple way so they can’t miss it — exactly how your past fits into the present (see my point on how all my experiences actually have a common thread).
- Reintroduce Yourself. That means a concerted effort to phone or email everyone on your list — individually — to let them know about your new direction and, where appropriate, ask for their help, advice, or business (or in other words, leverage the power of your network whether online or in person!)
- Prove Your Worth. That’s where blogs, podcasts, videocasts, and other forms of social media come in. It’s critical to let potential customers see what you’re about and test drive your approach before they make a large commitment (and again, use the power of social media and Web 2.0 to establish your brand, because that is the FIRST place people will go nowadays to “see who you are”)
Oh, and if you want to know pretty much everything about me, here is my QR code which will lead you to my Google profile, which has my professional story in one neat spot. Wonder how prospective employers will utilize this technology next…?Gotta love technology! 
What are your strengths that you can apply to your next “career” move?
Now, go and network and put your passions and strengths to work!
This post references a lot of online content, but the content is too good to not quote.
We were seeing increasing importance of social networks in the workplace and wondered if we could carve out a unit of analysis that was not hierarchical or identified by an organization chart.We looked at global problem solving teams assigned to the twenty top strategic issues in our company, and we wanted to see what a sociogram or social network map would show us about how work really gets accomplished.
The sociograms quickly surface the knowledge brokers—individuals who are the glue that holds a social network together. Knowledge brokers can usually get to anyone in an average size network in two to three steps.This study was insufficient to give us key “peer reviewed” results but it did show us promise. We asked the head of the talent pool system to compare who was ranked at the top of the 9-Box with our list of key knowledge brokers. We found very little overlap. We found that many of the key knowledge brokers (good ones) or nodes in each social network rarely showed up on official talent pool lists of top talents.
Employees identified as high potentials are frequently effective at managing up, while knowledge brokers are frequently more effective at managing across the organization.
The head of Human Resources and the heads of training are working to develop the structure and processes that will use social networking as a way to identify experiences, feedback, mentoring, training and development. At present, we are also researching to see how sociograms are used in leadership development. Many definitions of leadership center on the ability to influence a group. Networks are based on social influence and therefore, may be at the heart of leadership.
I’m also of the opinion that interview, screening and assessment scripts for candidates need to be added to, revised or adjusted to better understand whether new social media competencies around differentiate candidates quality for some of the traditional job families we are currently screening…and selecting.
Leadership ability doesn’t always correlate with the formal hierarchy. Moreover, top-down leadership appointments can produce unwanted side effects–like too much energy being expended in managing up. The challenge: find and empower the “natural” leaders within your organization.The solution: Develop a dynamic system for measuring an individual’s “natural leadership”—that is, the extent to which their contributions are seen as valuable, both inside and outside of an organization, and publish these results for all to see.
This was a topic that interested me ever since I attended the Ragan Social Media conference at Cisco Systems in June, 2010. Jeremiah Owyang, who is currently a founder at the Altimeter group, spoke about this topic and I found it quite intriguing.
An excerpt from Jeremiah’s blog states:
“Insurance companies could monitor customers, and those that participate in a negative way online could be penalized. Example: Checking into bars four times a week consistently when it’s not your job could yield a 10% increase. Anyone who earned the “Crunked” badge (going to four places in one night, referring to binge drinking) could receive a 10% increase in fees (unless of course, you’re the Budweiser delivery person). Or, anyone posting pictures of them skydiving or any picture while driving on the freeway from the drivers seat, would yield an increase in car insurance.
Think about this for moment: while we know that social networks pretty much expose as much activity as we like to share publicly, the fact that insurance companies might give you a bad deal on rates based on your shared behavior could very well become reality very soon, actually. And, alternately, while you may not have lurid pictures up on any social networks, it might send the wrong message to potential employers as well, or potentially get you fired from your present job.
Foursquare is just one example of how “checking in” can lead to good rewards, and bad ones too (e.g. above-referenced Crunked badge for checking into multiple bars in one day). Checking into Facebook places exposes your behavior to potentially millions of people, and other geolocation apps, such as Gowalla, Loopt, Whrrl, Brightkite and Yelp certainly can tell your story-if you let them.
Insurance companies aren’t the only ones jumping on this bandwagon: creditors are turning to Twitter, Facebook for social demographic info as well. Big Brother is most definitely here, as this article from the UK Daily Mail Reporter examines, and the gist of the post is that insurers are planning to introduce ‘predictive modelling’ schemes – which monitor online data about people’s social life and spending.
While it may all sound negative, and civil liberties groups will most certainly cry foul, there are potential “rewards” that can be reaped from posting your daily activities online. For example, people that frequently check into healthier food alternatives like Trader Joes or Whole Foods, rather than a fast food place, may have a decrease in insurance rates for the family. How often you check into a bank, supermarket or gym can tell insurers and creditors a lot about your lifestyle and habits.
I personally like to check into restaurants and certain stores so that I can hopefully promote their business (getting a badge or a coupon is an obvious bonus), into airports and concerts- in case there are people that I know in the surroundings, and in cool places like a ski resort. But I will tell you that I will not check into my home or anyone else’s home for that matter, and I always, always check each app’s settings to make sure the information displayed is the one I WANT displayed.
Bottom line: you’re online now, baby- it’s your responsibility to share what you would want your mother to see and hear…because your mother may not be online, but everyone else and their brother is. Oh, and you better be good…’cuz Santa Claus is coming to town!
This post comes from the good folks at Socialcast, Tim and Carrie Young. They have an informative blog and the latest posting centers on this :
The infographic that accompanies is cool as well.
I posted a comment and here it is:
“My “secret” is being able to work virtually, so I don’t waste time getting ready for the business environment, commuting (gas, and wear and tear on cars and roads come to mind), chitchatting with folks in the rec room, and then getting ready to do it all over again to go home.
Bottom line is: I get a WHOLE lot of work done working virtually, and guess what? My work day seems to be a LOT longer than 8 hours!”
What do YOU think about the 8 hour workday? Obsolete or still relevant..? Should companies change their policies to reflect our new digital ways?
This is a post I came across the other day on OpenForum and the basic gist of the post is: Talent will get you nowhere without the teamwork to back it up. There are some good NFL football analogies that can probably carry over to the business world quite seamlessly.
Too often, companies are way too focused in hiring the best, brightest person with the stellar GPA from the Ivy League school, therefore inhibiting the employee pool from diversifying and the company from innovating.
So, bottom line: hire people that aren’t your clones, don’t rely on fancy pedigrees and degrees to ensure your team’s success, and start creating a culture of innovation, transparency and collaboration. Try it- guaranteed most will like it (including your company).
For those of you that know me, I am really active on Twitter and somewhat on Facebook and LinkedIn, as well.
I love information of all sorts, whether it is a human interest story, a breaking news story, a cool techie story or something that could help others- that’s the type of content you typically find me sharing.
Traveling has always been a huge part of my life and I also like to take random pix of scenes that inspire me. Music is a huge inspiration as well.
Lastly, I LOVE the furry friends – a lot- and try to help them out as much as possible.
So, as a first post- not so exciting. But will hopefully make this interesting for everyone.
