Laid off? Try volunteering.

The Wall Street Journal published an article this morning about how volunteer jobs are giving laid-off workers "valuable career experience" while "offering strapped nonprofits access to a bigger talent pool." As WSJ points out, it's one positive outcome of the current recession, and one that couldn't come at a better time. Research indicates that 17.5% of nonprofit donors "are planning to decrease the value of their donations in 2009."

I wrote back in December about why this is a great time to do something good. I wrote then that it takes true generosity -- and courage -- to give money when money is tight. The same is true of your time.

And it's not just hard labor that nonprofits need. Those of us marketing and management have valuable skills to offer to nonprofits, according to WSJ. Officials at Habitat for Humanity, for example, "say that they are looking for volunteers with managerial, public-relations and communications experience, in addition to volunteers who want to swing a hammer." It's a relationship that benefits both parties, as laid-off volunteers can "bolster skills" that may eventually help them find new, full-time work.

So if you're laid off, use this opportunity to put your experience to work. You may find that you are the one who receives the most benefit.

Postscript: WSJ posted a related article on its blog.

PPS: Another related article.

Surviving the Layoff Blues

There's no question that when looking for a job you should stay positive. Optimism and hope are attributes of a strong personal brand; and a positive, confident attitude during the job search and interview process will go a long way toward convincing a prospective employer to take a chance on you.

Nevertheless, even the most optimistic among us can face a difficult period from time to time. A layoff is especially hard, and it can especially challenge your sense of self-confidence. If you've been laid off, it's unlikely that you won't face at least moments of doubt -- and the longer your unemployment continues, the more likely you are to feel real anxiety.

With that in mind, TheLadders.com has published several articles that offer resources and help for people feeling the layoff blues: Around the Web: Coping with Job Loss, Job Search Anxiety: Warning Signs, Staying Healthy Through Troubled Times, and Stop Job Loss from Stealing Your Confidence.

One reason I like TheLadders is that it publishes articles like these. I really do believe that the company genuinely cares about its clients; in their case, I don't think that's just marketing.

Your network is your brand - and your next job

In the new book What Would Google Do?, blogger Jeff Jarvis makes an interesting point about branding that offers insight for people in the job market.

For more than a century, the public face of companies has been their advertising, slogans, brands, and logos. How much better it would be if a company's public face were that of its public, its satisfied customers who are willing to share their satisfaction, and its employers who have direct relationships with customers. Brands are people. (WWGD, p. 46)

Mr. Jarvis was clearly influenced by Marty Neumeier, who wrote a couple of important books on branding: Zag and The Brand Gap. Mr. Neumeier says that a company's brand is "not what you say it is -- it's what they say it is." In other words, your brand isn't whatever you want it to be; it's what your customers think it is. Mr. Jarvis concurs when he says that "Your customers have always owned your brand."  

This is a vitally important concept to understand if you're looking for a job. Why? Because your personal brand may mean the difference between getting a foot in the door at a prospective employer, and getting ignored.

Who ultimately owns your personal brand? If you believe Mr. Jarvis and Mr. Neumeier, it's not you. If you're a company, it's your customers. If you're a person, it's your network. 

The people you know are ultimately the ones who control your "brand." What they say about you to other people has a lot to do with how other people perceive you. So how do you strengthen your personal brand? By strengthening your network. And how do you strengthen your network? By making the people in your network feel important -- by making them important. You make them important by being a good friend, and they reward you by promoting your personal brand to other people and perspective employers.

Your brand and your network have everything to do with opportunities that come your way -- or pass you by. Research consistently shows that over half of all jobs (perhaps as much as 80%) are found through the network. So if you're looking for a job, now is NOT the time to have a weak network (that is, a weak brand). 

To find that next great job, begin by building brand equity. How? By investing in the people in your network.

A new beginning

Over the last couple of months, I haven't invested much time in this blog. Here's why, and what I learned in the process...

I created this blog as a response to being laid off from EMC, where I had worked for 9 years, the longest I had stayed at any one job. Being laid off was a traumatic event, but I wanted to respond to that event in a positive way. I wanted to help others by using my experience and the lessons I had learned while looking for a job.

However, I realized that the subject I was writing about wasn’t one I could sustain passion in, a realization that was made clear to me by a friend of mine who challenged me to write about something I had more than a fleeting interest in. Moreover, the pressure to find a job and to spend as much time as possible doing so resulted in my focusing on the job hunt itself and, unfortunately, ignoring the blog. Finally, I also realized that there are already a large number of well established resources online for people looking for a job, and that I didn’t really have anything new to contribute to that conversation. As a result, I was struggling to find compelling reasons to invest my time into a blog that I didn’t see much value in -- for me, or for anyone else.

The good news is that I learned a lot from the experience of starting those two blogs, and the lessons I learned ultimately have led to my creating a new blog, which I'll unveil soon.

In brief, here are some of the lessons I learned:

• Tap into your passion: If you’re writing a blog, focus on something you’re genuinely passionate about, a topic you can sustain over a long period of time. And be true to yourself.
  
• Contribute in a new way: Try to find a topic where you can contribute new and fresh ideas so that you’re creating knowledge -- not merely repeating the work of others.
  
• Get personal: Yes, your blog should provide valuable information to others or offer a service, but the value of that information is going to depend to a large degree on how much of yourself you invest in the blog.
  
• Move the conversation along: Ultimately good blogs are about conversations, not monologues. Bloggers start and participate in networks and conversations. Otherwise they’re not writing blogs, they’re writing diaries.
  

Having learned these important lessons, I'm ready to start a new blog, one that focuses on a topic that I can sustain an interest in, a subject I feel I can explore in a new and meaningful way.

Stay tuned.

Sowing seeds for the future

I love déjà vu moments, don’t you? 

(One of my very favorite quotes is from Yogi Berra: “It’s like déjà vu all over again,” which he said referred to watching Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris repeatedly hit back-to-back home runs in the Yankees' seasons of the early 1960s. See Wikipedia for more great Yogiisms.) 

I was hanging out at Peet’s Coffee today with Julie when my friend Terence dropped by. He told me his contract at Wells Fargo had just been cancelled. (Wells announced a $2.5B loss in Q4 and is clearly trying to trim costs). He and I talked about job-search strategies and why networking was so important. I said that networking is like sowing seeds; you plant today so you can harvest later. 

Immediately after our conversation was over, I got online and came across this article by Sue Connelly on her KIT List blog. Read it if you feel like your efforts aren’t yielding fruit.

Interview skills from Jobfox.com

The following article was plagiarized unabashedly from Jobfox.com and was forwarded to me by my friend Lauren Vogel. The suggestions are solid. In my experience it's pretty difficult to predict the questions you'll be asked in an interview, since interviewers themselves are all over the map, but the preparation that Jobfox recommends can't hurt. I especially like the questions that Jobfox suggests candidates ask of their prospective employer.  

Here are 3 tips for making sure you're completely prepared to make your case for the job:

1. Practice makes perfect

Let's face it; an interview is one of life's most stressful moments. You're under the hot light, and the interviewer is trained at making otherwise self-assured people crack. How can you practice? Follow this time-proven method: On the day before the interview, sit down and write a list of all the questions you think could be asked. I know you don't know the questions, just guess. Your guesses should range from the sublime "What's your greatest weakness?", to the general "Why do you want this job?", to the very specific "Do you know how to use the Whamo 430?" At the end of this process, you should have a list of 20 to 30 potential questions written on your paper. The next step is to write a detailed, one paragraph answer to each of those questions.

Why are you doing this? You're going to be amazed at how great you'll sound in an interview after you've had a chance to mentally prepare for the common questions. Rather than nervous stammering and voice quivering, you'll sound confident and smooth - important interviewing skills! One last point: you'll be amazed at how accurate your interview question guesses will be, but there's always room for continuous improvement. After each interview, go back and add any new questions that were posed by the interviewer.

2. Do your homework

There's nothing that frustrates me more as a hiring manager than a candidate who isn't prepared. I expect you to have visited our company's web site, learned about our product, read the recent news about the company, and have made an attempt to learn about our market. Now, to be clear, that doesn't mean I want you to come in as some kind of armchair expert, as nothing kills an interview faster than a candidate shooting from the hip. Rather, I want you to show me that you want the job by your willingness to do some homework.

3. Develop five questions that will showcase your intellect

There's nothing worse than a candidate that answers, "Do you have any questions?" with a feeble, "No, I think you've told me everything I want to know." This is a candidate who's missing the point. Candidate questions are there for a potential employer to see how your brain works. This is your chance to be smart, inquisitive, and a good listener. The secret? Develop five questions that you can use on almost every interview. A few of my favorites are:

• How do I get an "A" in this position?
  
• What are the long-term goals of the organization?
  
• If I earn an "A" in this position, what areas of growth would be available to me?
  
• What's the leadership style of the manager to whom I would be reporting?
  
• How would you describe the candidate that is a great cultural fit for the company?
  

Now for you: Do you have any great interview advice? Any funny interview stories? Send them my way and I'll post them on this blog. 

Blogs about jobs

Another interesting resource: Ten Great Career Blogs. This link came to me courtesy of Dan Schawbel.