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Personal Connections – Astounding Results

My friend Melissa gave birth to a baby girl last week.  During her pregnancy she developed gestational diabetes. To control her blood sugar she started taking lengthy walks, which I sometimes joined along. The time spent walking gave us a chance to deepen our friendship.  Being we lived a five minute drive from each other I volunteered to care for her other children when the time came. I confess my motives were somewhat selfish as she and her husband had three of the most adorable children I know.

Shortly after she gave birth I learned the baby’s middle name was the same as my first name. Given I am not a parent I was flabbergasted. When we got a chance to discuss the baby’s name I learned her husband’s late sister and I shared the same name. However, given my involvement they had decided when the time came they would also tell her how I cared for her brother and sisters while she was being born.

There are valuable lessons to be learned about networking from this blessed, memorable event. If you are currently or have been in a job search, you likely have been told that networking is the best way to get hired.  Approximately 80% of all people are hired due to a personal recommendation. Despite the high success rate networking can be frustrating, frightening and confusing.

Much like effective networkers, Melissa and I share a personal connection. This connection is what makes us willing to help one another. A week before she gave birth she made time to help me set up a budget to accommodate my new life as a single woman. Your professional network can help you achieve your goals when you treat your contacts like valued friends. To build and grow your network, select and for the next 90 days, implement three tips from the list that follows:

  1. Determine what traits, values, and interests you share with people in your network. It’s best when these are both personal and professional.  Music, sports, philanthropy are great denominators.
  2. Have heroes, role models, mentors – these are people who are where you want to be. Let them know how they have inspired you when you ask for advice and guidance.
  3. As simple as it may sound, let people like you. People like to do business or help those they like. Smile, tell a joke or funny story, and make good eye contact.
  4. Develop a genuine interest in other people’s lives. Listen for and seize opportunities to help other’s achieve their goals
  5. Stay on the radar screen, both socialmedia and technology offer various ways to keep your name popping up. If someone doesn’t reply to your email or text try contacting them using Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.
  6. Ask your contacts the best way and times to contact them. Some will prefer email, while others will prefer LinkedIn.
  7. Keep it friendly, keep it social, but keep it professional. If you haven’t spoken in awhile, schedule a lunch meeting or phone call to catch up with each other. This will go further then sending an email about their company’s need for a Senior Vice President.

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Breaking News – LinkedIn Announces Universal Resume Apply Button


LinkedIn, the premier social networking site announced it would unveil a universal resume apply button today. This is good news for anyone in a job search. However it increases the demand to stand out and validates the importance of a powerfully written, well-branded LinkedIn profile.

To stand out, your LI profile should:
- immediately engage your reader
- be conversational
- distinguish you from everyone else in your target network
- contain a personal story or testimonial
- be 250 words or less
- promote your unique value proposition – UVP
- be unified with your resume, cover letter, and other career communications
- be written using key words and phrases

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New Solutions for Job Seekers Competing in Today’s “Social Search”

There’s a new breed of Career Coach and Professional Resume Writer helping job seekers navigate the toughest and most confusing job market in decades. For job seekers, the stakes have never been higher, and the job search landscape has never been more volatile as Google, social media, employers, and recruiters drive the switch to “Social Search.” These are 2011′s job search realities:

  • Employers are abandoning costly and ineffective job board giants and databases. Traditional job search is dying. It won’t be revived; nor will job seekers clinging to traditional resumes.
  • Google is career GPS. Google results are replacing the resume as a screening device.
  • Hiring managers are sourcing candidates via cost- and quality-effective “social solutions” including Google, LinkedIn profiles, social media venues, video presentations, and more.
  • Social job search requires more than a resume. Candidates need a multi-channel online presence within a branded, value-infused career communications (CareerComm) network.
  • “Bottom-line-it-for-me!” managers and recruiters increasingly prefer bold, brief, brand- and value-rich career documents—as easily readable on a smart phone as on a computer.

Two nationally recognized authors, coaches, and innovators in branded career management—Deb Dib and Susan Whitcomb—created the G3 Coach Program (offered through theacademies.com) to train career professionals in the new techniques their job seeking clients need for success in an employment market driven by speed and social-media recruiting.

The pioneering Certified G3 Coach program (which stands for Get Clear, Get Found, Get Hired!), equips career coaches, job search strategists, resume writers, and personal branding strategists to help job seekers flourish in today’s Social Search employment market. Anne-Marie Ditta, a resident of  Westchester County, graduated from the inaugural class, becoming one of the first in the world to earn the elite Certified G3 Coach designation.

Dib sums up the need for this training: “Today’s hiring managers are inundated multi-taskers with little time and patience. As a Certified G3 Coach, Ditta has the skills to help job seekers meet today’s employers’ mantra, ‘So what? Make me care! Do it fast!’”

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Move Over Resume – CareerComm is Taking Your Place

About 4 years ago I developed a specialized resume format to use for networking purposes.  The unique design enabled resumes to be quickly downloaded onto and easily read on smart phone screens. The product was so effective that clients received several interviews.

Fast forward to 2011 – LinkedIn remains the social network of choice for job search. Twitter and Facebook, the new kids on the block, have impacted job search strategy so much that traditional resumes and cover letters are consolidated into CareerComm.

CareerComm is the 21st Century version of the career portfolio. In addition to your resume, cover letter, and thank you letter, your CareerComm package must include:

  • Branded Resume with High-Impact Pitch Profile: shorter, sweeter and demonstrates value from the first word on. Accomplishments are the size of a tweet (140 characters) and support high-impact power profiles. The reader can easily scan critical data.
  • Cover Letter: enforces your brand and guides hiring managers, HR staff, and recruiters, etc. through the key points of your resume.
  • Power Note(s): immediately grab the attention of hiring managers and are used when both sending your resume by email and with email follow-ups.
  • Personal Marketing Brief: provides people in your network with the names of companies and people on your target list and talking points to get you in the door.
  • Personally Dynamic Value Driven LinkedIn Bio: differentiates you from people inside and outside your network.
  • Branded Bio Suite: puts the perfect document for every event at your fingertips. From articles and introductions to corporate announcements, these documents project your brand in as little as 25 words.
  • Thank You Letter: impress hiring managers, recruiters, and HR specialists by sending them a powerful letter within hours of your interview.

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How finding Mr. Right can be like finding the right career

Last night, my best friend Susan and I met for dinner. Given that she still lives in Brooklyn and I am in Westchester, we don’t see each other as much as we’d like to. The last time we got together was around the holidays. Yikes!  Had it been that long? None the less, she looked radiant.

Susan was divorced several years ago. Up until about a year agao she had been looking for Mr. Right. However, the men she dated were more like Mr. “More of the Same”; needy, immature and self-centered. Did I mention that Susan was a social worker?

The problem was Susan had been attracted to the wrong men.  Over the years, I encouraged her to be open to men who did not immediately appear to be her type. It took awhile but eventually she started to do things differently.

About 14 months ago, Susan met Mike, who was also divorced. Initially Susan thought Mike was a nice man even if she didn’t feel that spark of excitement. It wasn’t until the fifth date that she realized how special Mike really was. Over the past year, they have laughed together, overcame a crisis’ together, and more recently set up home together.

Career paths can sometimes be like dating. Over the years, I have known really smart talented people who keep going back to “More of the Same” industries and companies that keep giving them headaches and disappointments.  Let’s face it, if nothing changes then nothing changes.

If you frequently find yourself in this position it might be time for a change.

For learn more about making a  career transition or to to receive information about our new Change Your Career, Change Your Life Coaching group, email us at amditta@mycareercoach.net.

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The do’s and dont’s of online social networking…

It recently occurred to me that Twitter is the technical version of passing along newspaper and magazine clippings. Early in my career, I was an Assistant Office Services Manager with Litton Educational Publishing. Sandwiched in with the large manila envelopes, bills, and journals were clippings from the New York Times and other publications that had a handwritten distribution list. Those articles fascinated me.

As my career progressed to sales and marketing, I learned first hand the importance of both gathering and sharingi information. A 100 word article passed along to the right person combined with A-1 client relationship management could have a favorable impact on my performance. You see, people remember you not for the simple, every day gestures that say “I care about what is important to you.”

Technologies like Twitter, FaceBook, and LinkedIn have made make it easier to transform handwritten distribution lists into an instant touch across gloabl boundaries that, if done correctly, will catch the attention of hiring managers, recruiters, and professionals.

Here are some do’s and don’ts that will help you engage your audience:

Do

  • Treat people as individuals. Share information they want and NEED to read about.
  • Use Twitter Search to determine keywords and what people want to know about.
  • Be responsive to your followers. Answer and talk to followers as individuals
  • Have 2 FaceBook pages – one for yourself and one for your business or services. Post relevant information to both.
  • Use a professionally written LinkedIn bio that shows your value as opposed to regurgitating your resume in paragraph.
  • Be generous – retweet articles, acknowledge others for their contributions, help your audience connect with other professionals.
  • Be consistent and trustworthy. Steady postings that help others will also help you achieve your goals.
  • Use Google Chrome to translate Tweets into languages other then English, German, Italian, Spanish, French, Japanese

Don’t

  • Post where you are, you might compromise your safety.
  • Sell or market yourself or your promote your services.
  • Be lackadaisical. The occasional tweet or post is like a drop of water in the ocean. No one notices the impact.
  • Make your personal business public. If you have a problem with someone deal with it in private.
  • Lose focus of why you are using the technology.

Do you play games like Farmville or other applications. If yes, what has been your experience.

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