A lot of what the article says is true, however, I know, through our organization and through all of the networking and connecting that I do, there are a lot of very talented people out there that are not currently working through no fault of their own. They ARE top performers. They ARE the “A Team” and were either down-sized,  or their divisions were eliminated or their employer went out of business.

I have worked with loads of people prepping them for their next interview and have had great success and my advice to them is always – If you want to land the job that you are looking for and are currently unemployed, you had better have a very compelling story as to why you are unemployed and looking for a job.

Here are 5 tips to getting hired in a recession

1. If you are looking for a job you have to be 100% buttoned up. From your resume, to speaking about your work experience, to highlighting your accomplishment, to showcasing your personality and your fit into their team, everything has to be well thought out and practiced.
2. Your resume has to be spot on perfect.  Tell a very compelling story about your work history, your experience and skills and it has to standout from all of the other candidate’s resumes
3. Your interview technique has to be practiced and practiced again and again…rehearsed so well that you can make all of your responses seem spontaneous.
4. You have to have your trigger words down so you have a number of responses at the ready for any question that the interviewer might throw at you. Trigger words like teamwork, leadership, stress should trigger anecdotes that you can share or experiences that you can point to.
5. Your anecdotes need to tell a story about you. Highlight something about your experience, be relevant to the opportunity and you have to be able to tie them into how you will impact the bottom line for your potential employer’s company.

Just remember, the person hiring or recruiting wants YOU to be the successful candidate…the recruiting and the hiring process is expensive in both time and money…they can stop looking for candidates if you are the right fit.

Good luck and start practicing…

If you read the WSJ article, also read some of the comments in the Comment Section to get the full picture of the sentiment out there.

Related posts:

1. Job Interview Preparation – What not to say
2. Tips for conducting a great interview
3. It’s 2009! Now What?

Whether it be the functionality, or tracking, or analyzing trends these tools do it. They might be a great fit for your company or for some of the clients that you work with.

Sitecore is a Web Content Management System (CMS) software that helps you create and maintain dynamic, full-featured websites of all types and Patrick Coyne of Sitecore gave me a demo and showed me how easy Sitecore is to use. It is good for the non-techie.

It is great for a developer or consultant who wants to take on a project, finish it, train the marketing department on how to use and maintain it, hand it off and move on to their next project.  Sitecore is really flexible, scalable and integrates well with your marketing organization, systems, and developer s.

When you go to the Socialtext website, don’t let all of the buzzwords fool you…Alan Lepofsky of Socialtext gave me the inside scoop, “Socialtext is a collaboration tool, with an enterprise wiki at it’s core. It will help any company work together on any project better, more intelligently, more creatively and more efficiently”.   It is a tool that combines collaboration with social networking and can help companies work more productively with their employees.

Socialtext is built on 3 core concepts – attention, collaboration, and discovery.
- Attention – they help your people know where to focus their time and attention, and on what is important.
- Collaboration – they can work together easily to create information and intelligence, proposals, and documents.
- Discovery – they can discover the connections, knowledge and easily leverage experts in your company.

This help their customers make faster decisions, accelerate innovation, work together better, use resources more efficiently, and take full advantage of their distributed workforce.

Have you ever spent time in a video-editing studio? If the answer is yes, then you know how expensive it is. Most of the time (and money) spent is getting a rough-cut or first draft, cutting the footage down and shaping your story. After you have the rough-cut the refinements come far more quickly.

Len Sitomer, president of PortalVideo, an Internet-based  and collaborative video editing application, is all about saving time when it comes to video. He showed me the power and simplicity of the new tool that he is offering. With simple “cut and paste”, PortalVideo reduces the time and costs for creating “the story” in interview-based footage, creating the rough cut and making it easier to create the right sequence, find the perfect sound bites and add it to a sequence of a transcript.

PortalVideo allows for easy collaboration, instant comments and feedback, notes and approvals. This collaboration functionality makes for a significantly more efficient project management environment. PortalVideo might be a great tool for you and your clients to save both time and money when creating interview or testimonial videos.

These are three tools to help you help your company or your clients work better and connunicate better and help you to achieve yours and their goals. In the coming week, I will highlight some more tools that I discovered that will help you be more productive,  reach your audience better or analyze what your customers are doing.

Related posts:

1. New Marketing Summit: What’s next in Social media
2. 70% of the Webgrrls say they leverage or are totally immersed in social media
3. New Marketing Summit: Making Connections

WINNER

BuzzLogic, a technology that analyzes influence across the blogosphere offered a raffle that I had entered…you guess it…my business card was drawn…I won a brand new GPS device so I will never get lost again…Thanks BuzzLogic.

BuzzLogic is a social media analytics company that can find influencers in the blogosphere on very specific topics – they offer clients data on a subscription basis, as well as an ad network for advertisers looking to target influential blogs with online campaigns. If you’re an advertiser looking to harness blogs, you can check out more here: http://www.buzzlogic.com/advertisers/conversation-targeting.html

Talking with Exhibitors

I enjoyed all of the presentations and the differing ideas about how to leverage all of the data that is available and the paradigm shift in marketing and PR philosophies and hearing about the best practices etc. I found even more value in talking with exhibitors (some of which were the presenters).

It is in talking with the exhibitor where you get the real information about the tools and the real application of the tools…and see exactly how it will work for your particular situation…unlike the presentations (one-way broadcast model), when you go to the vendors booths, you have a conversation which is what social media is all about and it is through the dialogue and the questions asked that you can find out exactly if the tool is for you and how it would work within your company or your clients company.

I encourage you to follow the Exhibitors link to find out more about each of the companies that were at the event to learn about the companies.

Highlights for Me

The exhibitors that I had a chance to speak with, all seemed very interesting and their companies offer some great tools that you should investigate either for you or for some of the clients that you are or will be working with. Over the next few days I will feature and highlight some of the companies and the tools they offer in our blog.

We all need to understand and leverage the various new social media tools out there so we can develop a strong strategy to deliver marketing and PR value for our companies and for our clients.

Related posts:

1. New Marketing Summit: What’s next in Social media
2. Handwriting Marketing – Tips on how to save time
3. Microsoft Social Media Outreach Case Study

The exhibition hall was thriving it was great to see so many new and exciting offerings. I mostly attended Marketing and Media track and a few of the Landscape sessions. Most session where a little light on substance but two really stood out.

“If your company fails now it is not because of a lack of data…it is because YOU suck,” was the best line from Avinash Kaushik, the Google Analytics guru. His session, Web Analytics 2.0: Rethinking Decision Making in a “2.0″ World was a very engaging and entertaining presentation and between some very funny jokes, he offered some great insights and tips how to look at the data available to make business decisions…

Here are the highlights that were presented:

• How to use the data to increase your competitive intelligence
• He talked about the bounce rate of your pages (when someone comes to your site and leaves) his words “I came, I puked, I left” .
• He spoke about finding actionable data, it is not what your users are doing, but, why are they doing it is what is important.
• Most importantly, as always, listen to your reader and ask – Why are they here? Were they able to complete their task? And if not, why not?

The data can now be easily collected with Google Analytics, now it is up to us to filter it and figure out what  is useful and actionable.

Avinash also offered his book Web Analytics: An Hour a Day to all who attended his session. For more information about web analytics read Aninash’s blog.

Another great session that I attended was from Brian Solis of FutureWorks – Web 2.0 and the Reinvention of Marketing and PR.

It was a top level 101 marketing and PR session but start with, “when was the last time a press released worked for you? His points were:

• Broadcast is still part of the mix but a small part
• It is about the conversation and every conversation is an opportunity
• You can no longer control the message completely
• New PR – you have to be part of the community
• And transparency is key – lose the spin

For great insights about PR and Marketing follow Brian’s blog

The Web 2.0 Expo was a great event to see the tools, technologies, and forums that are available to use in a 2.0 world, to meet those who are creating them and to see where things are headed.

Related posts:

1. Web 2.0 Expo: Motivate People To Sign Up For Your Web App
2. How to integrate Google Analytics into your newsletters to better track their effectiveness
3. The Future of Web 2.0

You don’t get what you deserve…you get what you negotiate

Negotiating Quick Facts:

• Women will pay on average more than $1,353 to avoid negotiating the price of a car
• Women typically ask for less and get less when they do negotiate—on average, 30 percent less than men.
• By not negotiating a first salary, an individual stands to lose more than $500,000 by age 60—and men are more than four times as likely as women to negotiate a first salary.

Practicing your negotiating  skills  are very important and you should practice every chance you get. If you are staying in a hotel, see if you can get a better rate. If you are at a car dealership, perhaps having your car maintained and you are looking at some new/used cars, practice navigating the conversation with the salesperson to see what offer they come up with… if you are not in the car market, let them know that up front, they will try to sell you anyway. Listen to their pitch discover the tactics they use, identify their strategy and even find areas where you might gain some leverage for a better price when you are in the market. Even if you are in a retail store…ask… because you never know.

Negotiating STEPS

1. Build Affinity – Firstly and fore mostly – build affinity (find something in common) or strike a good relationship. It only takes a minute to get to know a little bit about someone, find common ground and create a positive relationship/situation.It is always easier to do business with someone you like and it is that way for your counter part too, so be likable.
2. ASK – You will never get a deal if you don’t ask for one. Buying a pair of shoes on sale and even when I didn’t think there was more room to move, I asked for a little more off and got it. That is an extra $20 that I didn’t have to pay…and that can buy lunch in some places.The best deal I have been able to get to date at a hotel was in Jackson Wyoming. I was able to negotiate a $249 room down to $99…it was the good guy taking his mother on a road trip rate…the good guy rate only got the price down to $149.Understanding selling price verses sitting price

   you: “What is the selling price for this item?”
   salesperson: $$$
   you: “No, that is the sitting price…what is the selling price”.  This lets the salesperson know that you are ready to buy but are also ready to negotiate.
   sales person: “There is a sale next week”.
   you: “Why am I being penalizes for buying early?”.

3. Prepare for serious negotiations – when the negotiating becomes serious and there is a lot of money at stake prepare because Information is Power – know your negotiating counterpart and what his or her goals are and what are his/her needs and wants and also know yourself, your goals and needs and wants.
4. Practice - Try using different techniques and different approaches. Try asking different questions… find what works for you and what you are comfortable with. Also, find what didn’t work and determine why it didn’t work for you this time. When your practice gets serious, use role reversal – play the role of the client and have someone else play you…it helps you get into the mindset of your client and helps you anticipate questions and helps you articulate your responses

Two of the most powerful questions in business are – What is the least that you can live with and…What is the best you can do for me today? You never know what their current situation is. Use them and be prepared for them…If it is not you asking those questions then who is…possibly the other side and be PREPARED to either ask or be asked and practice, practice, practice.

Related posts:

1. Solving the Tech pay gap between men and women
2. Tips to Improve Your Public Speaking
3. Teams and Advisors are Important – Business in a Vacuum Very Rarely Creates Success

Marketing, making connections and getting and giving referrals is what it is all about. Grassroots, warm leads, and leveraging the tools and your network to build your business or propel your career, is a great recipe for success.

Related posts:

1. How to Develop a Social Media Plan for Your Business in 5 Steps
2. Microsoft Social Media Outreach Case Study
3. Social Media Benchmark Study

Perhaps it is that Webgrrls are not affected because they are able to leverage technology to find efficiencies or they do not have to commute and can work from home or as the latest post in the Webgrrls blog, Webgrrls Wisdom, Technology: It’s Where the Jobs Are.

31% of the Webgrrls respondents have had to make major adjustments to their budgets and 15 percent have either lost their job or closed their business. Below are some quick tips to surviving the recession and I also, wanted to offer the following links to articles that have more tips to small business owners and entrepreneurs.

Webgrrls Quick Tips to Surviving a Recession:

1. Watch your cash flow – cash is king during tough times
2. Cut the fat/reduce your overhead – meaning all non-critical expenses
3. Trim your staff – keep the high performers and replace those who are not performing well.
4. Call in your accounts receivables on a more timely basis – remember the “squeaky wheel and the grease”
5. Do not turn away business unless the opportunity will be unprofitable.
6. Work on the business not in the business – Use this time to learn new skills or to do some retooling or get the planning done that you have put off for some time.

Other links to articles with more survival tips:
1. How To Survive Oncoming Economic Turbulence
2. Surviving a Slowing Economy
3. Survival Tips

Related posts:

1. Making Money in the Free Economy
2. Webgrrls’ Finds: Tips, tricks and tools to improve your work performance
3. Webgrrls News Breaker: Unemployment Rate Higher Than Stated By Government

I work with a lot of people on improving their interview skills and techniques, organizing their thoughts, helping them to articulate their career history, guiding them as to the best way to answer the interview questions to highlight their experience, determining the best way to provide relevant anecdotes and even determining what the trigger words are for their responses.

I work with some very high-end executives and some mid-level management, sales and marketing professional and we prepare and practice and modify and practice and practice and practice…and it is through practice that you become prepared. I emphasize that everything has to be honest and based on supportable experience but, there are better ways of saying things and there are worse ways of saying things… you need to come across as pulled together, buttoned up and genuine and everything needs to be polished.

I came across the Careerbuilder.com article about the 8 worst things that you can say in a job interview and wanted to share them with you. The only exception that I have is number 7.

7…” Scripted answers, although accurate, don’t impress interviewers. Not only do they make you sound rehearsed and stiff, they also prevent you from engaging in a dialogue“.

My response is that you do need to script your answers.  You need to be so prepared and know your information so well that you don’t sound scripted or rehearsed and you can be conversational and actually more engaged in the dialogue. You need to be so prepared that you are confident, conversational and seemingly spontaneous with your responses.

Related posts:

1. Tips for conducting a great interview
2. Leverage your Gender in Job Negotiations
3. Tips to Improve Your Public Speaking

From Wikipedia:

“A neutral broadband network is one that is free of restrictions…which does not restrict content, sites or platforms, and where communication is not unreasonably degraded by other communication streams”.

Net Neutrality is not a new issue, the term “Net Neutrality” was coined in 2000 and the debate is becoming increasingly fierce…with the telephone and cable companies on one side and almost everyone else on the other.

Traffic Cops
The phone and cable companies believe that they should be able to be the gatekeepers to the Internet. They want to create a tiered system where you could pay more to have your content delivered as a priority or faster or at all.

The cable and telephone companies control 98% of the broadband access market. And when the network owners start asserting their control of the pipes, they can restrict what you read, what you watch, and what you listen to, and they can restrict what you can upload and who can access your information. With their dominance of the markets, there will be nowhere else for consumers to turn.

Proponents of Net Neutrality want to keep the Internet equal for everyone. Equal, where all of the information available on the Internet is free flowing and the information is equally accessible to all. With Net Neutrality, the network’s only job is to move data. It is not to determine which data gets a higher quality service or higher priority. Access is access…it is simply a pipe to send and retrieve information.

Who is at Risk?
Sixty percent of the content on the Internet is created by people and not by the big corporations. It is markedly different than the one-way communications of traditional media, including television, radio, newspapers and magazines, where 99% of the content is created by corporations.

Media corporations built their empires and managed their agendas by controlling the ebb and flow of information in America. The Internet has turned the traditional media “content delivery” paradigm on its head.

At risk is the “little guy”, the “voice of the people”, the “people’s” access to information, and the ability to express one’s views. The small innovators pushing the edge, telecommuters, bloggers, political groups, and activists will be hurt without free and open access to receive and disseminate information. The battle is Open Media vs Closed Media.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee (inventor of the World Wide Web) is concerned:

“Freedom of connection with any application to any party is the fundamental social basis of the Internet and now is the basis on which we built a society on the Internet”.

Without Net Neutrality, startups and entrepreneurs will be muscled out of the marketplace by big corporations that pay for a top spot on the Web.

A Level Playing Field
Now entrepreneurs and small business owners can compete directly with the larger corporations and when that is the case, the competition becomes about innovation, ideas, ingenuity, and integrity, and not about deep pockets and limited choice. Bloggers now can compete with major news outlets and independent contractors can offer their services without the barrier of proximity.

The telephone and cable companies say they won’t give preferential treatment to different content, so, if that is the case, why then would there be an objection to legislation that prohibits what they aren’t going to engage in anyway?

Some say the move is all about money (which ultimately it is). But, I believe the real threat is the content. The content on the Internet is for, by and about the people and there is no control over the message. It is the information and easy access to that information that has power and we all know that – knowledge equals power – and the powerful know that. There has never been so much open and easy access to information and it is an informed populace that is frightening to the powers that be.

Whether it is the exposure of the farce of politics and government corruption, or the music industry giants waning power and the new power of independent music producers, or the news organizations and other information/entertainment companies, the normal conglomerates no longer control the whole message.

Independent voices and political groups can now be heard, they can create a movement and a following, but, are especially vulnerable. The tiered system could increase the costs for posts and sharing video and audio clips, it will silence or censor bloggers and resemble the one directional messaging of the big media companies.

It is the consumers who are ultimately in control on the Internet – the consumer decides between content, applications and services available anywhere, no matter who owns the network. There is no middleman.

Reps. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and Chip Pickering (R-Miss.) Introduced the “Internet Freedom Preservation Act” (HR 5353) on Feb. 12, 2008 this bill would protect Net Neutrality and spark a much-needed public conversation about the future of the Internet.

Some resources to learn more about this issue:

• Network Neutrality: Fact vs. Fiction.
• Save the Internet FAQ
• Good Video (you can skip the last few mins)

Look through the resources and see how this issue will affect you and the way you do business. Get involved with this issue, share your voice and pass the information along and even call your Congresspersons.

This one is very important as all Webgrrls and Internet users as a whole will be affected and we shouldn’t let others control our opportunities.

Related posts:

1. Free! Why $0.00 is the Future of Business
2. Social Media Benchmark Study
3. Tips on building and fostering online communities

New York City, NY (May, 28 2008) – According to the US Department of Labor statistics, the unemployment rate in the U.S. is at about 5.0%. Not true, says a women’s global technology organization Webgrrls International.

Webgrrls International recently surveyed its U.S.-based users and of over 500 respondents, 36% are unemployed and of those unemployed, 11% have given up looking for a job. 52% have jobs while only 10% are self-employed with steady clients and income.

“Our Quick Poll shows a different economy than that of our Government.” said Kevin Kennedy, CEO of Webgrrls International. “Although this is not a scientific survey, we believe it is a snapshot of the reality not only for the professional women of Webgrrls but it’s indicative of what is happening across the country with skilled professionals.”

Webgrrls International conducts regular quick surveys or polls to gauge what its members, professional women across the country and around the world, are experiencing in the workplace. Their last quick poll showed that 96% of the respondents were interested in low cost/group health insurance, a need that is echoed with workers across the country in increasing numbers.

Do you agree? Do you disagree? Leave us your comments.

Related posts:

1. When will professional women start supporting each other?