This was sent to me and I thought it was interesting and mostly true!

Michael Richards makes his point…and whether we like it or not, he is telling the truth.Michael Richards better known as Kramer from TVs Seinfeld does make a good point. This was his defense speech in court after making racial comments in his comedy act. He makes some very interesting points…

Someone finally said it.  How many are actually paying attention to this? There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, Asian Americans, Arab Americans, etc. And then there are just Americans..  You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You call me ‘White boy,’ ‘Cracker,’ ‘Honkey,’ ‘Whitey,’ ‘Caveman’… And that’s OK… But when I call you, Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink .. You call me a racist. You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you.… So why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live? You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King Day. You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day. You have Yom Hashoah. You have Ma’uled Al-Nabi. You have the NAACP. You have BET.… If we had WET (White Entertainment Television), we’d be racists. If we had a White Pride Day, you would call us racists. If we had White History Month, we’d be racists. If we had any organization for only whites to ‘advance’ OUR lives, we’d be racists. We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that?? A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American pageant, but any color can be in the Miss America pageant. If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships… You know we’d be racists. There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges in the US .. Yet if there were ‘White colleges’, that would be a racist college. In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us racists. You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you’re not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride, you call us racists. You rob us, car jack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats up a black drug dealer running from the law and posing a threat to society, you call him a racist.

I am proud.….. But you call me a racist. Why is it that only whites can be racists?? There is nothing improper about this e-mail.. Let’s see which of you are proud enough to send it on. I sadly don’t think many will. That’s why we have LOST most of OUR RIGHTS in this country. We won’t stand up for ourselves! BE PROUD TO BE WHITE! It’s not a crime YET.… But getting very close! It is estimated that ONLY 5% of those reaching this point in this e-mail, will pass it on. I DID!!

I could have just replied to my mom about what brainless bone heads these propagators were to forward such ridiculousness but I decided to take some time and speak to them.…

Dear Mom,

I have seen this racist shenanigans before and it never ceases to amaze me how anyone could buy into it and so easily be persuaded to continue propagating this type of hate trash and deceit. It is so very offensive to me and the work I do with the County on the Diversity Commission, with the local Diversity Education Consortium, the Diversity Institute, local Jewish Federation, NAACP, PRIDE and the Latino community here.

Here’s my answer and I’m copying everyone who it was sent to since the forwarders were so generous exposing everyone’s emails. At least the original sender had the sense not to disclose his recipients — though his judgment in wasting internet bandwidth was extremely poor..

First of all, according to the Internet leader in myth debunking, snopes.com -

This bit of racial demagogy was not something offered as a defense in court by comedian Michael

Richards (best known for his portrayal of Cosmo Kramer in the long-running Seinfeld television
series)after he was caught on tape engaging in a prolonged racial tirade in an appearance at
the Laugh Factory comedy club in West Hollywood.  This item is simply a version of an anonymous

"Proud to Be White" screed, to which Richards' name was added after he gained infamy for his

comedy club outburst. However, the item in question had appeared on the Internet long before
that incident, and Richards' name was appended to it after the fact.

It’s a lie, a white hate speech attributed to Michael Richards… People should learn to be fact checkers.… After all, we don’t have to go to the library anymore.

Nonetheless, maybe on the surface it sounds like it makes sense to some people. But I think it’s because they are so quick to just pass things on (chain email is spam) and they’re not really very analytical at all. There is also a big element of ignorance involved.

Maybe some people don’t know, but there are German, Italian, Irish, Jewish, Asian, etc. Chambers of Commerce in the US. So, to ask why there is a Hispanic Chamber is ridiculous.

There is Susan B. Anthony Day (we know she was white), a great leader in the movement for women’s right to vote. So, why shouldn’t there be a Martin Luther King day? Someone needed to get people off the back of the bus just like she helped make sure you and I can vote. Just because slavery was abolished it didn’t make people equal. It makes me sad when I hear people say “if you don’t like it here go back to Africa” about people whose families were kidnapped, torn apart and shipped here. They deserve reparations in my opinion. My educated guess is that the families of most if not all of the people reading and passing came here voluntarily.

White people did horrible things to Native Americans in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean and governments have provided them protection and assistance — though not good enough. Jews suffered horrible things and the world body recognized they needed protection so they were given a country so they could be safe and not have to deal with the persecution. Any Jew that wants to live there can and they will pay your way to bring you there. But, we as a nation cannot afford to pay reparations to the 12% black US population — it would completely bankrupt us. So the government made laws to protect and promote equality and ensure it. But it doesn’t stop people from being ignorant.

The reason there is no white pride day is because white is the norm and WASP’s haven’t suffered persecution ever. They don’t have to have their own isolated parties because they are the mainstream and all the parties, and in fact the country, belong to them. It’s the reason there is a gay pride day, a day when they can have a party just being who they are and not having to worry they’ll get strange looks or be treated like second class citizens.

If white people would treat everyone else the same as they treat each other without government imposed regulations, there wouldn’t be a need for any of this.

Within the euro-American population there are cultural and heritage celebrations all the time. Oktoberfest, St. Patrick’s Day, Columbus Day, Polish-American Heritage Month, Italian-American Heritage Month, it goes on and on. But, when it’s Black History Month or Hispanic Heritage Month — it’s wrong… That’s wrong.

It’s only a very ignorant person that asks the question why we don’t have a WET. Minorities weren’t until fairly recently even on TV, so they started their own.. It’s not rocket science. The same for record labels and print media. Do people seriously not know this and still live in a cave?

Why don’t whites have an association for their advancement like the NAACP? Oh, there is… it is the NAAWP. Does the name David Duke ring any bells?

There are no black colleges or white colleges any longer, although the label still exists for traditionally black colleges. Black colleges were established at the end of the 1800s early 1900’s to provide collegiate education to African Americans in America, because African Americans were not allowed to attend traditional white colleges at that time. There are people of all races at most colleges, even those considered traditionally black colleges. In fact, Morehouse college just graduated the first white valedictorian last year… not the first white student, there have been many. Most things that carry the designation of being for black people, arose out of segregation imposed by white people in the country, not because the black people sought to exclude the white people. If people want to be upset at the existence of black colleges, they should be upset at the social atmosphere that made such an institution necessary.

To the comment “If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships… You know we’d be racists. Here is a partial list. <– More cave dwellers.

Euro descendant white people tend to define themselves by their ethnicity. Blacks can’t really do that because their ancestors were ripped from the African continent and there is no record in most cases which of the countries they came from so they are defined by their color or the term African-American.

By the way — how many hundreds of years does it take to stop saying you’re Italian, Irish, German, Polish, English, etc.? The last known person to be born a slave died fairly recently in history in 1948, after a good portion of people reading this were born. You tell me how long it takes for a community or people to just “get over it already”.

It isn’t only whites that can be racist. Are people that lame to think people of other races aren’t people with the same nasty ignorant habits?

I could go on and on and address the issues of inner city violence, ghettos, beauty pageants (completely demeaning to ALL women regardless of color) and all the other ignorant racist rhetoric.. but I’ll stop here because:

I estimate that only 1%  of those reaching this point in this e-mail, will pass it on (I couldn’t resist).

By the way: It would be in everyone’s best interest to learn to use the Bcc email function. It reduces the risk of being sent spam — and I regard racist trash spam. I used it on this email to protect the identity of everyone who received it and even those who were responsible for sending it… I see who they were and don’t think much of them but I won’t subject them to having their email exposed.

People would be better off playing Farmville on Facebook than passing on garbage like this.

Love,
Sissy XXXOOO

Karla Porter
http://karlaporter.com
570.592.8378

P.S Thanks to the Ontario Women’s Directorate for the fancy clip art

I bit my lip because it seemed everywhere I looked people were happy it was Friday, happy the week had passed. They didn’t even want to experience the day — they wanted to jump right to the end of it. My fingers began to work their trickery in the status field…

Does anyone “savor the moment” these days? I see a bazillion posts about tomorrow, tonight, next week, looking forward to Fridays.… what about the moment we are in? This moment too is marvelous and to be savored. You’ll never get it back so unless it is unwrenchingly intolerable, wishing it away and trying to pull the future forward is wishing your life away… living it is much more rewarding.

It seems life passes so many people by. How often I hear, where did the time go, it was just yesterday (last week, last year)? Is it a sign of the times that people are living rote lives?

Have you ever sat quietly watching a clock? Why is it so difficult for most people to relax watching it tick, enjoying the rhythm of the timing? Time passes much more slowly when you watch it. It seems to make many people feel uncomfortable to sit idly “not doing anything”. My grandmother used to say “a watched pot never boils” and I used to challenge it. I learned to notice every second with every tick of the second hand and realize I would never see those moments again.

Each moment should be felt and celebrated, when it passes it’s gone forever. So OK, maybe all moments aren’t the ones you jump for joy over, some hurt. But, they are the ones you learn from, the ones that make you feel to the core of your being that you are alive and that you are significant and insignificant all at the same time.

Do you ever just sit and look at your fingers, watch them move, be conscious of them and then mentally move to your wrists, arms, shoulders, up the back of your neck, to the top of your head, to your forehead.. down to the bottoms of your feet? Are you conscious of your heartbeat?

I admit that each night as I reflect on the day and look forward to the next as I drift off to sleep, I am a little bit saddened that I now have one less day left in my life.  They’re all so grand I wish none would ever end.

Day, n.  A period of twenty-four hours, mostly misspent.  ~Ambrose Bierce

How do I know if it’s gone well?

Many times after a seminar attendees stick around and ask questions and I always stay around until they have all been answered.  I look at the evaluations to see how well the content resonated and if there are suggestions for next time. But for me the real feedback comes from what happens in the days and weeks after the presentation.

I feel I have done well when people connect with me and want to stay in touch. I get a lot of technical questions on how to do this or that and I get plenty of requests for one-on-one sessions and people asking to tap into my network. I think that’s fantastic, and it shows the experience met or exceeded their expectations.

So, when Wendy sent me the message in the screenshot today on Facebook it struck me that she didn’t want anything other than to tell me that she realized the importance of what I presented and made a decision to implement the strategy. I offered further support and she wrote back that she wasn’t looking for me to do the work for her but she would let me look at it when she has it up and running. A huge smile came to my face, she got it.

Recreate Wendy and then show the world…

Another mission accomplished.

If you have questions about the presentation don’t hesitate to find me on a social network or just click the G and you’ll be connected to me.. I love it when I rhyme =)

Social Media 4 Older Job Seekers

Then, last year I transitioned to a new job with a significantly more visible presence in the community. One of the things I do on the job is manage social media for the organization and several of its projects on Facebook and Twitter. Since Facebook hasn’t bothered to allow for the separation of church and state (your personal account is tied to fan pages you create) one of the side effects of my becoming more virtually “local” is that I have accepted many local businesses as friends or become their fan. I could ignore them but let’s be honest, I’m an open networker and really unless you are inordinately weird I’m very open minded and accept your virtual friendship.

This blog feeds into Networked Blogs on Facebook, and the RSS Feed goes to LinkedIn and most every social media account I have and I will tweet the post too. I’m outwardly hoping it will be read and taken for what it is worth by some of my followers who have businesses and have taken marketing into their own hands. This is a sincere effort on my part to tell them and many others who are doing their own social media marketing that they’re screwing it up, they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re doing more bad than good…

They’re turning me off

I have read many public floggings of companies — outright smack downs. But, that’s not my style. So here are two sanitized examples of local companies turning me off completely and what they could do to try to turn me on. I could contact them privately and offer consulting services but I’m also a realist… it is highly unlikely they would go for it because they think they are doing it right.. Consider this pro bono.

Profile #1 — Therapy Practice (I don’t know what else to call it)

The Facebook Fan Page posts 3rd party articles on why xxx is the key to health. It does not appear to engage members because there are no comments on the wall — at all and there is no steady growth (even slow) of the fan base. The administrator sends messages to fans about specials, discounts and how our health could be optimized, and sends me @ tweets stating Hi, Im Dr. XXX local xxx I see u have disc problems. I can Help Call me 000‑0000. xxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx.com

Wait, what did you say????????

Uhhhh.. You have x-ray eyes doc? You don’t know anything about my body and you’re are spewing “facts” about me that I don’t appreciate at all. This is a huge no no… you publicly stated I have disc problems and you don’t know me from Adam. Yet, a prospective employer could see that and think it is true. Maybe an insurance company I am trying to buy a policy from is checking me out. Maybe I wouldn’t want the PUBLIC to know I have this supposed disc problem. Are you thinking about how you are potentially impacting me? You would think someone who must be familiar with HIPAA would never think of doing this.. The worst thing is you have not only done this to me you have done it to all of your 23 followers in your 227 spammy tweets. Maybe that’s why you have only 23 followers.

My advice for this business is:

• Make your Facebook activity interactive. Stop pumping out blatant ads and be social.
• How about commenting on something I post or visiting my blog and letting me know what you think? Let me know you actually pay attention to me and are not just looking to bill my health care insurance.
• Ask fans if they have questions and post the answers on the fan page.
• Try posting trivia or history of the discipline. Be a person, put up some pics of your vacation or something a little off topic that shows you are a person with a personality, have a little fun!
• Remember it’s got to be reciprocal. I was nice enough to become your fan so don’t say something stupid like “I see you have xxxx problems”. I don’t think you are psychic and it does not make me want to let you touch me.
• Do not use Twitter to tweet the same thing to all 27 followers thinking you’re being swift by personalizing using my name. I’m smarter than that. I just pulled up your tweets and see you are an assembly line tweeter. There are many successful health care providers who post helpful advice and tips, ask and answer questions and engage their followers with great dialog. They “get” social media and know that engagement through soft selling is the best sales tool. They make friends with their followers and become the name on the tips of their tongues when it comes to their profession.

Profile #2 — Service Provider

One of the owners of this business mans the social media and is pervasively visible on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.. probably other places too. Apart from generating sin fin varieties of never to miss deals you will surely die without, this person posts comments and tweets about arguments and problems with the spouse, disdain for another job and painfully complains about just about everything to the point I don’t want to look. Other times there are blissful messages of love and contentment..

My advice for this business is:

• Please note that I have heard from other locals that you appear unbalanced because of the bipolarish Sybilesque inconsistent personal messages you mix with business. Stop — It’s disturbing not only to me but others as well.
• Do a Google search on yourself and then on your business. Pretend you don’t know yourself and read the search results. Look at the personal and professional brands you have created. You have mixed the two so much they are virtually indistinguishable. It doesn’t look so good, does it?
• Think before you post.The worst is when your LinkedIn status messages are utterly unprofessional in your expressions of anger at the world and feelings of being unloved. Ask yourself if you would pay an agency to post the things you post yourself .… or if you would fire them.
• Do not trash your business partner and spouse as if a criminal and louse and then expect people to become a customer and trust their expensive personal possessions with you guys..
• Remember that the words personal and personable have much in common.
• The service you provide is a non-essential one as much as you like to promote it to be as important as the air we breathe. Face it, most people can only afford DIY. You have a niche service and it should be marketed as such.
• Identify the profile of your customer and then post things that are interesting to that demographic. Be engaging and tactful, witty and charming. Show you have knowledge.
• In lieu of the blog you don’t have, use Facebook notes to write authoritative posts on your area of expertise.
• Post tips, trivia and advice.  It seems to me you would have a lot of seasonal advice and reminders to offer that people would really appreciate.

You can do a good job of social media marketing if you use common sense. Think of successful companies and competitors you admire. Study how they use social medial. Don’t copy what they do but emulate the types of messages they deliver and the image they project. After all, they are successful because they are doing things right.

Just for the heck of it, I’m going to watch to see if these guys get the hint…

What are some of the things about social media marketing gone wrong that turn you off?

Someone called me today to ask how to do it. How to move on, not take it personally, make wiser decisions about engagement in conflict, how to avoid it, how to choose which battles are worth it. I don’t think she expected what I told her.

Transitioning back to the U.S. after 11 years of work in Mexico and Spain I took an entry level customer service rep position at the 15th largest on shore call center with full confidence I wouldn’t be in the seat for long. They wouldn’t hire anyone in a management role that didn’t have call center experience.  The fact that a company of that size and importance didn’t have an onboarding or new manager training program is fodder for another post in the future — promise.

After having managed a vacation club (OK sure, it’s really timeshare) sales room of 50 sales people and closers on the  Mayan Riviera and a mega buku bucks budget, I was taking customer service calls about $4.00  products for the world’s largest food manufacturer tethered to my cubicle by the umbilical cord of a headset. I spoke with people who purchased frozen entrees and claimed chicken uteruses in their food, not enough peas, misleading photos on the packaging and every foreign object imaginable and unimaginable on their fork or in their mouth.

To say that it was not the job for me at that point in my career would be an understatement. But I made the choice to get my foot in the door. I was keenly aware of what I was doing, it was a strategy.  The place was only 5 minutes from my house! I gave myself 6 months to learn everything I possibly could about the biz and move up or out. It worked out exactly that way I intended and in 8 years I climbed up the rungs of the ladder 4 times. But that’s not really the point of the story.

What IS the point?

Learning the business was fun and challenging. I went way above and beyond product information and procedures. I was interested in growth, remember? Yet the majority of stint in the seat was taking those calls and after a very short time they started to get on my nerves. Tons of nice people called too but soon I was answering calls in my dreams and on remote control during the day. I quickly had had enough of that front line stuff…

One day I took my doodling to new heights while on the job. I cut black construction paper into small tombstone shapes and stacked them like a memo pad next to my PC. While listening to nasty, stupid, entitled, A-driver types I would grab a colorful gel pen and write the caller’s initials and an equally colorful epitaph.

“Loser logic got him nowhere”

“She proved that the customer is not always right”

“He accomplished his goal to irritate others”

“Incapable of a real life“

“She made chicken uteruses in food desirable”

“He financed college with free coupons“

A little additional glitter pen action and each offender of common sense was quickly and firmly tacked to my cubie wall graveyard. And then I was done with them. I put them out of my misery to their final resting place. It was cathartic and I could move on with a smile on my lips for the next mystery caller.

I shared other innovative methods of moving on too like reward from the voices in my head. This technique works awesomely. The voices ask me questions like,

“Do you really need to argue about this or would you rather a latte?”

“Is this relationship worth the effort or would your time be better spent checking Facebook?”

“Will this be important tomorrow?”

If the battle is that important to engage me it is revealed by being more important than having a latte and checking my friends status updates. That’s rarely the case.

What techniques do you use to deal with unwanted situations, make wiser decisions about engagement in conflict, or choose your battles carefully, or do you just dive in with eyes wide open?

P.S. Those little voodoo dolls work too

Career paths can be amazing journeys and I wanted to know how a law school graduate ends up with the dream of having the the premier information source for college students, grads and recent graduates who are seeking employment, continuing education and business opportunities. He graciously agreed to an interview..

SR: I was a law clerk for a year with a trial court and had been hired for an appellate court clerkship the second year but I decided to accelerate my plans by going into business a lot sooner than five to seven years after graduation. I had figured that I’d practice law for the experience and then either start my own business or join someone else’s but I didn’t like what the practice of law was doing to some of my friends and I was a lot more excited about the world of business than the world of law so I let the appellate court judge know that I wasn’t going to show up, he hired a replacement, and I started my business part-time while I was completing my trial court clerkship.

I wondered what type of internship experience he had in college and what he thought of it looking back.

SR: I had a number of career-related positions but virtually no one had “internships.” It just wasn’t a term that was used that much back in the 1980’s. One of the best jobs that I had was after my sophomore year when I spent four months working as a highly paid temp in London. It was my job to help a national retailer that had virtually no computers figure out how to computerize its management compensation review system. They wanted to formalize the process to make it more fair and figured that it was the logical time to computerize that portion of their business so I created a Lotus 1–2-3 database with loads of easy-to-use macros so their secretaries could keep it up-to-date and I trained them on how to do that.

Working so closely with institutions of higher education that are concerned about placement for their students, I asked Steven his thoughts on how the average career services office on campus meets the needs of students seeking meaningful internships.

SR: Unfortunately, the average career services office does not come close to meeting the needs of the vast majority of its students because the vast majority of students never give the office a chance. Nationwide, only about 15 percent of students even step foot into their career service office and I’ve heard estimates that fewer than five percent actually find internships or jobs upon graduation through their career service office. The problem is much more with the students than the offices as the offices tend to be staffed with dedicated, well trained, and professional people but they’re fighting a losing battle in trying to lead that horse to water and make it drink.

Living and breathing the transition from college to career, I wanted Steven’s opinion of what they could do better.

SR: I would like to see career service offices return to becoming placement offices. If they don’t, I suspect that within a decade many colleges will outsource that function to outplacement agencies like Lee Hecht Harrison. It will be cheaper and I think that the students will be more likely to use a service like that in part because their parents will recognize the value better.

From law school to career development and transition, there had to be a path that led Steven to collegerecruiter.com. It turns out that his entrepreneurial spirit developed early on, as a student.

SR: I created a small business in college that published a map for my school. I generated the revenues through the sale of advertising around the borders. I then resurrected that business after graduating from law school. To diversify revenues, I added an employment magazine in four major markets across the country in 1995 and then the Internet came along so we added a web site in 1996. That gradually took over the business so by 2000 we had stopped publishing the maps and magazines.

After 14 years in the business, 9 of them exclusively internet based, I was curious to know the impact CollegeRecruiter.com has on college students and recent graduates from Steven’s perspective.

SR: CollegeRecruiter.com is one of the valuable tools available to college students searching for internships and recent graduates searching for entry-level jobs and other career opportunities. We help hundreds of thousands of students and grads each month better prepare themselves for the job hunting process and their careers as well as help match them up with leading employers.

Finally, I really wanted to know the vision for the future of the company and its product. Could the leading job board for college students hunting for internships and recent graduates looking for entry level jobs and other career opportunities continue to innovate and evolve?

SR: I would like to see CollegeRecruiter.com be widely recognized by those in college recruiting as the dominant college job board and I believe that we will get there within a few years because we focus on the needs and wants of our candidate and employer users AND we’re continually adding and improving the tools we make available to both groups. Most job boards are stuck in this rut of selling job postings and resume searching and very little else. We sell job postings but it is far from our biggest product by revenue and we stopped selling resume searching 1.5 years ago to protect the candidates using our site from identity theft and other such issues.

Just for fun I wanted to see how Steven would craft his career into a Twitter resume… just for the heck of it.

SR: Founder of CollegeRecruiter.com, the leading job board for college students and recent grads.

Many thanks to Steven for sharing his interesting career path and vision for the future.

Johnny, you’re our star Admin Assistant and as part of your “other duties as assigned” I’m giving you a new project. I need to hire an Account Manager and we don’t have a budget to hire an agency to do it for us. You’re always on Facebook and Twitter, do some social networking and find me one…

Here is the job description. I have highlighted the keywords that are important.

Just set up a Facebook Fan Page — stream good stuff about the company, it’s free. Then, create a company Twitter account — tweet about it and search and follow similar people, be friendly and say good things about us, it’s free. Join some LinkedIn groups — post the job in the jobs sections, it’s free. Google free job boards — post it everywhere, they’re free.

Have the resumes sent to you and scan them for the keywords and 3 years of experience. Put the ones that match on my desk. I’ll review them and give the ones I like back to you to set up appointments for an interview.

Do a good job and I’ll take you out for pizza to that place you like down the street.

Does this sound far fetched to you?

The TechCrunch Europe post How free social media beat the recruitment consultants to death gives quite a blow by blow account of how companies are doing it. Though it may sting to read it at first, it brings up an excellent point for discussion.

“I think what the recruitment industry should take away from this is that prospective clients really can beat them at their own game, if they want to make the effort. The recruitment industry needs to recognise this and innovate… find ways of adding value… and justify/rationalise their proposition.”

Get out your value proposition.

Anyway, last Wednesday, on the ride home from an ever so richly rewarding day at the Bat Cave, Ralphie was on the air commenting on recent stories in the news regarding companies banning the use of social media in the workplace. It was good… but it reminded me of biblical stories of the plague that killed first born sons.

Because that is how important being connected is for so many people. I can see the day when we’re all chewing Socialmediadone™ while at work to kill the craving for 8 hours because the addiction has become too strong to resist.…

@Shoefeen would be a great candidate for Clinical Trials

Where is the nearest Socialmediadone™ clinic?

I hope it passes and gets over the counter approval so I can contribute to humanity and leave a legacy in the same capacity as my long gone but not ever to be forgotten relative Marie Curie. Um, do you think Pfizer or Merck would pick it up and I could get rich and lay in bed with a laptop and Blackberry the rest of my life tweeting, facebooking, linking and blogging???

I did not facebook him while I was driving! Why do you think like that? I chewed my lip for the other 3 minutes until I got home and then I sent him a message  (yes before I went potty… you’re so nosy sometimes) letting him know I  understand how scary this threat of withdrawal is and asking if he wanted to have a conversation about it from an HR and employer perspective.

He did… he facebooked me back (you know as well as I do that facebook is a noun as well as a verb) and asked if I could come over to chat with him and Mike on Monday night about it.

It might be too late for @Shoefeen, and she’s not in the right DMA anyway, but I am excited at the prospect of making an impact on #NEPA SM addicts so they don’t make the same mistake.

Warning: Do not try to be slick and steal my creative terminology. I grant you permission to use it but I demand credit for the stuff I invent, google, and if it doesn’t exist throw on a ™.

Now here’s Bill!

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but Karla has an obsession for food. Could it be that it’s a diet phase, and hunger is bringing food in to all her writings. Barely a blog goes by without a mention of an éclair, bun or other pastry product. We were discussing this on twitter recently (it was a Saturday) when I commented on two things: 1) Being a Saturday I should really get a life & 2) that I talk about “cake making” in my training. Curious about this, and desirous to discuss food further, invited me to add a guest blog.

If you bake a cake as badly as I do, the reason is because I get bored of recipes and guess the ingredients. Forget the scales; chuck in a handful of this and a handful of that. Mix it in a pot, drink a beer then stick it in the oven. Surprise, one hour later I take out the smoking stodgy mess and then rush to the shops to buy a real cake made by an expert baker, so that we don’t have to spend another of my children’s a birthday singing happy birthday whiles they blow out candles stuck in a potato covered in tinfoil. (This is true!) And a wife expressing an opinion that makes Gordon Ramsey sound like a priest.

Where did it all go wrong? Despite my blaming the cooker and banging the thermostat, I know in my heart of hearts I should have really paid more attention to the traditional recipe handed down from grandmother to grandmother, before deciding that actually I knew better than those that had gone before, and winging it. More preparation to get the ingredients and timings right, following the words of the wise and I would have ended up with a cake to be proud of.

O.K., that’s a wise culinary lesson but what has this got to do with a blog aimed at job seekers? For me, it’s simple. While putting together Career Carnival, I collected over 30 expert blogs and twitter tips on every aspect of the job seeking process. This is the recipe you need to follow in your search for your next big step. From reading all of this material I can give you my 10 commandments for the job search. Be sure to follow the recipe!

1. Before you start anything define what you want. Be clear what will be right for you, why you want it and use this to define your search. Check with people who know if you are being realistic in your expectation.
2. Create an on-line presence that includes a linked in profile fully completed including references. Check Facebook etc., and see what it says about you. Change it if you think it wouldn’t look good to hiring managers.
3. Collect references from past managers and create a brag file that illustrates your achievements.
4. Conduct at least 4 mock interviews with friends who you trust to be critical.
5. Apply for one job at a time, make each resume and cover letter personal to that job and keep a track on a spreadsheet of every job you apply for and where you’re up to. It’s not impressive to say “Sorry, what was the role again?”
6. Make friends of recruiters. They are not the enemy and your relationship with them will determine where you are in their thinking. Be professional and courteous, and always ask for (and more importantly accept) feedback.
7. never be late for an interview and spend time preparation. The right ingredients for the interview are 80% preparation,20% presentation.
8. During the interview take notes and ask 3 types of questions:
   1. Questions about something you’ve been told by the interviewer. Shows you have listened and are interested.
   2. Questions that show you have done your own research about something you haven’t been told.
   3. Qualify what the next step is, and if you want it, ask for it.
9. Make sure you close for any job you want by stating that and asking for reservations. If there are none, ask for the job.
10. Always plan and follow the plan. An old cliché but “Fail to plan, plan to fail!”

This is my recipe for success. Follow the instructions to avoid ending up huddled round a burning potato rather than pulling out a masterpiece, testament to your ability.

Good luck!
Bill

You can follow me on twitter: @BillBoorman (I highly suggest you do ~Karla)