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TweetMyJobs, and Follow Up Advice for Job Seekers

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TweetMyJobs was created and formed in 2009 during the worst economic downfall since the depression. Gary and Lauriana Zukowski leveraged Twitter to help job seekers get the competitive advantage quicker than the job board that were on the market. Steve Levy is an industry leader and mentor in the career recruiting space, who stated the obvious in our conversation, “job seekers, follow-up so you won’t fall behind in your job search.”

TweetMyJobs, a division of CareerArc Group, is the leading social and mobile recruitment and job distribution network matching job seekers with employers. Gary Zukowski (@GaryZukowski) is the co-founder (along with his wife, Lauriana) of TweetMyJobs launched in 2009. The Zukowskis found a way to leverage Twitter to deliver job leads to users, and create a competitive advantage to most of the current job boards. Gary has been seen on CNN, MSNBC, and Tweet My Jobs is often featured on “best of ” career site lists.

Here are some of the highlights of our conversation:

The company was started in 2009, and Gary shares the story of how he and Lauriana started the company in the middle of the Great Recession
Since Twitter is considered a public domain, and more searchable than most of the other social media platforms, was easiest to build job channels to serve job seekers
We discussed how the acquisition of TweetMyJobs by the CareerArc Group brought access to other resources such as internships.com and brilliant technology personnel and eventually opened the door to power jobs to cities as a platform like Atlanta, Newark, and Houston.

Steve Levy (@levyrecruits) is self-described as an “Old School”/”New Cool” Player-Coach-Strategist who recruits to retain, and mentors recruiters to think and perform better as well as employees at all levels to become Talent Scouts. I wanted to discuss follow-up with Steve inspired by his article on YouTern’s, The Savvy Intern Blog, “The Best Rule EVER for Following Up: Promised Plus 1.” During our conversation, I quoted from his article as a good model for following up with a recruiter:

““Steve, while I’m certain you’re the busiest person at XYZ Company, I’m very much interested in becoming the second busiest person there – if not the first. So I’m calling now to follow-up. For me to become the second (if not the first) busiest person at XYZ, I need to hear from you. I can be reached at…”

Other highlights from our conversation:

Steve says that it is not good business if you do not follow-up shortly after an interview with the recruiter
We also discuss that the lack of follow-up says something about the job seeker’s confidence
Picking the phone and not waiting is as much a part of networking and the other components of the job search

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Cover Letter Strategies, and Don’t Trash Talk Your Employer

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Cover letters are an essential part of your job search arsenal. Without them, your story would be incomplete. Despite whether many recruiters and hiring managers don’t read them, if they are asked for or not, many expect cover letters to accompany the resume.

Debra Ann Matthews (@LetMeWriteIt4U), is the founder of Let Me Write it 4 U at jobwinningresumes.net. She is affliliated member of the National Resume Writers Association and Career Thought Leaders Consortium. Her features in CareerBuilder, Monster, and the Chicago Tribune, displays her depth of knowledge of the career space, resumes, and cover letters.

In portions of our conversation, I play devil’s advocate to help contrast what people normally think about cover letters and the way that Debra Ann offers as an effective document.Here some of the highlights that Debra and I covered:

Cover letters are a small part of our story to pique the interest of an employer to read the resume
She has clients write 3-5 things of the career to help springboard the cover letter process
Debra Ann also states that the cover letter must be focused and strategic, and help the hiring manager and the application tracking system to fill in the blanks that you understand the problems, and bring solutions to your industry
She explains using a cover letter writing strategy using the 3 C’s: The Carrot, The Corroboration, and The Close
Debra Ann emphasized that before writing the cover letter you must understand the needs of the workforce
She also that the cover letter speaks the language of the role, and demonstrate the evidence of practical success

In segment 2 of the show

I offer reasons why no job seeker should negatively and publicly talk about their boss. I provide two scenarios that the person or a close friend could be an influential factor if you should be the one venting. Here are the scenarios:

My theatre professor was quite eccentric. He was very much into taking risks, and liked students to call him “Marvin.” I liked him, and gave me opportunity to do my thing in class, although I was the least talented actor. His introduction to us was acting like us, while sitting among us while the rest of speculated.

“He’s fifteen minutes late!”

“Who is this guy?”

“What does he look like?”

One person was more concern about the waste of money he was paying for the class (after all, the semester was only 16 weeks long).

Fortunately, none of us slandered him or said anything inappropriate but to think that the opportunity was there. Marvin bearded, long thin build, and looked like Kenny Loggins (add round spectacles and 20 pounds less).

In the next scenario, this is an excerpt from a note that a friend/client sent about how my point rings true:

“…talking about your old boss especially with people you don’t know will kill your job chances. Went out with friends, woman joined us and talked trash about her current boss. That trash talker had filled out an application for an opening we currently have at our company. Her application was great. Had planned to meet with her to actually offer her the job today! Emailed her last night and canceled the interview. She still doesn’t know I was in that group of ladies at the lunch.”

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Job Search Salary Tools, and Do You Need a Degree?

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Editor’s note: There is silence between 23:25 and 24:49. You can fast forward easily using your mouse. I hope to fix that in the next day. Thanks.

Negotiation is more than just money and perks, it is important to know what tools to use.

What value does a college degree have? Well, no one person can tell you that because it is a personal decision, but we can say is that each individual must bring value.

Today’s first segment features Jacob Share of JobMob, an internationally recognized career site. Recently he published an article with more than 100 salary tools, guides, and calculators to help job seekers worldwide with researching their salary potential and needs. Jacob and I discuss how to use the information gathered from those sites. I must thank Melissa Cooley, a guest from episode 15 for suggesting Jacob.

For segment two, I bring back Keith Townsend, who recently published an article on LinkedIn that received a lot of reaction, and as we discussed in a previous episode about Certification versus degrees. But first, Jacob Share.

Jacob Share is the founder and Senior Vice President of Share Select Media. His site Job Mob is an internationally renowned, and one of the best international resources for job seekers worldwide. JobMob is about bringing together job seekers and jobfinders to find jobs in Israel and all over the world. Their motto is “all together now (sounds like a Beatles tagline-totally genius).” The blog is filled with straight-talking advice based on real world experience and lots of humor thrown in. I wanted to have Jacob on the show to discuss his article, “Over 100 Salary Surveys, Guides and Calculators For 2014″. It is no other resource like it for worldwide job seekers to help them with salary considerations.

Highlights from our discussion:

1) There are more than 100 links to sites all over the world in this article, and Jacob defines what should be expected in reading the surveys and guides provided

2) We discuss how these guides are just part of the research that needs to be done and is the beginning in understanding a job seeker’s over all value

3) Jacob offers his experience in the approach of the older and younger job seekers in determining salary

4) Jacob and I also discuss how someone shouldn’t depend on salary information from a single site, in fact, should look at several sites, and pay attention to what the study uses as a standard for the number

Keith Townsend joins me in our part 2 of a previous discussion Degree vs. Certification. Keith Townsend is the founder of VirtualizedGeek.com. You can find the first part of our discussion in episode #9. In that episode we discussed the value that a degree, whether bachelors or masters, brings to an employer versus IT certificates without a degree. In this episode, we discuss Keith’s article he wrote for LinkedIn and some of the comments (51 comments in total, and read nearly 5,000 times). We delve further in the discussion in how people felt which varied.

Highlights from our discussion:

Deciding how much education an individual needs is a very personal decision and no cookie cutter path exists
Most importantly, with or without a degree, the employer must see the value you bring to the company

We know that you have a strong opinion about this subject. Leave us a message via the comments section below or leave us a voice mail.