From Lone Nut to Leader in Three Minutes

Thanks to Jennifer McClure for directing me to this video. Jennifer is the president of Unbridled Talent, and one of my recruiting heros. She is thoughtful, involved and supportive. She is a true leader in the recruiting and HR industry and in her community. Follow her on Twitter. Enjoy this short talk on leadership and followership, and have a great week!

It's Not Your Mother's LinkedIn

Have you tended to your LinkedIn profile lately? If you're actively seeking employment, it's likely that you visit LinkedIn at least weekly. Even if you're happily employed, this recession has taught you to nurture your networks and leverage social media to maintain valuable contacts.

Yesterday, LinkedIn announced new features aimed to improve results for active and passive jobseekers. LinkedIn Job For You leverages the information provided in your profile to serve up job ads that match your experience. Early tests show that the recommendations prove to be pretty accurate. To do: Make sure your profile is up-to-date, accurate and uses descriptive words. Avoid abbreviations and jargon, and make sure you that you highlight your relevant experience in the summary section.

Another long awaited feature, LinkedIn Referral Engine, is scheduled to be fully released in the first half of 2011, but some LinkedIn customers (employers) are using a beta version. The Referral Engine will make it easier for employees to refer their LinkedIn contacts for open positions. Employees are often incentivized to submit referrals -- many companies offer cash bonuses when a referred contact gets hired. What does this mean to you? In this case, size matters. The larger your network, the better chance that one of your contacts will refer you for an open position.

Lastly, have you checked out LinkedIn Company pages? They are terrific resources when researching potential employers. I'll write a more in-depth post about how to leverage the rich information found in LinkedIn Company pages next week. In the meantime, have a great weekend!

Bitter Much?

A quick word about about attitude. If you're in the job market (and you're always in the job market, passively or actively), you must become aware of your aura, your energy, your attitude.

And you have to learn how to manage your physical impression.

It's hard to write about this. There is no concrete study I can point to. But I know that if you're negative, depressed, bitter, angry, distrustful, skeptical, sad or otherwise unpleasant, you hurt your chances with potential employers.

I'm not saying your feelings are invalid -- far from it. Layoffs are unfair. The job market is rife with ageism, sexism, racism and any other type of "ism" you can think of . The slow economic recovery is downright depressing. You haven't gotten a raise in ages.

But you can't let these emotions overtake the happy, confident you. Bitterness announces itself like bad cologne. Once it's in the room, it's hard not to notice. And potential employers, or customers or contacts can't wait to get away from negative energy, and will be reluctant to invite bitterness into an already stressed workplace environment.

So shake it off. Exercise. Laugh. Listen to music. Read good books. Go to church (or not). Turn off the evening news. Do what you do to stay positive.