Ryan Stephens

Building Intimate Business Relationships

25 Ways to Get a Job

25 Ways to Get a Job: Get A Personal Branding Toolkit

By 9 Comments

This post is part of the series entitled, “25 ways to get a new, better or different job.” The series is an effort to provide something actionable that anyone (not just Gen Y) can do that may directly or indirectly help you get a job. If you have any suggestions please e-mail me or leave them in the comments. After all, this series is for you!

The third post in our series of 25 Way to Get a New, Better or Different Job involves developing your own personal branding toolkit. This idea comes from Dan Schawbel, who is not only a trusted career advisor, but also one of the premiere go-to people with respect to personal branding.

Dan is the leading personal branding expert for generation Y, and the author of a brand new book, “Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 2009). But this post isn’t about Dan; it’s about you, so make sure you read each of his posts about the tools you need in your personal branding toolkit.
Personal Branding Toolkit

Your personal branding toolkit should include:
1.) Business Cards
2.) Portfolios
3.) Resumes
4.) Cover Letters

Are you equipped with these personal branding tools? Do you have any additional tools that you have found to be extremely helpful in your job search? Please share in the comments section.

Previous installments of this series are included here for your convenience:
Watch Gary V’s NYC Keynote
Read Never Eat Alone

If you find this series to be helpful in your job search, please consider subscribing to ensure that you get all 25 actionable posts.

25 Ways to Get a Job: Watch Gary V’s NYC Keynote

By 2 Comments

This post is part of the series entitled, “25 ways to get a new, better or different job.” The series is an effort to provide something actionable that anyone (not just Gen Y) can do that may directly or indirectly help you get a job. If you have any suggestions please e-mail me or leave them in the comments. After all, this series is for you!

The second post in our installment of 25 Ways to Get a New, Better, or Different Job features some key messages from Gary Vaynerchuk’s NYC Keynote speech. There’s a lot of buzz surrounding his speech, and for good reason. If he can’t convince you that you need to be searching (or creating) opportunities doing something you love then chances are nobody can.

First, watch the video, and then utilize the comments section to see if you can add to some of the key messages that I took away from his speech.

Some Key Messages:

  • Patience and Passion are extremely important.
  • Too many people are doing stuff they hate. There’s no reason in 2008 to do stuff you hate.
  • Community – Listening to your users, absolutely, but giving a rip about your users is way better.
  • Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself what you want to do for the rest of your life, and do that. You CAN monetize it.
  • Stop crying and keep hustling. Hustling is the most important word ever!
  • You have to have a business model. Work hard and build up equity so you can finance what you want to do.
  • Legacy is greater than currency. Your great grandchildren will be able to find you online.
  • Answer every single one of your e-mails.
  • If you’re pumping out good stuff people will follow, but if you for a ½ second don’t believe in what you’re doing whether it’s your personal brand or a product, get out.
  • We are sitting where the gatekeepers are no longer in control.
  • You need to build brand equity in yourself.
  • The only way to succeed now is to be completely transparent.
  • Use all the tools available to connect to your user base, anyway you can, everywhere you can, as often as you can.
  • It doesn’t matter how small your niche is.
  • If you want it bad enough, work 9-5, spend a couple of hours with your family, 7 to 2 in the morning is plenty of time to do damage.
  • Do what your about!

If you liked Gary’s speech you can check out this post (and corresponding video) providing Gary’s 13 tips on building a profitable blog (and/or business) on Darren Rowse’s blog.

What did you think of Gary’s keynote? I’ve watched it at least 3 times, and I just can’t get enough. What’s was your favorite point that he made? Are you doing what you love right now? If not, what is it that you wish you could be doing for a living?

If you find this series to be helpful in your job search, please consider subscribing to ensure that you get all 25 actionable posts.

25 Ways to Get a Job: Read ‘Never Eat Alone’

By 1 Comment

So I expressed in my last blog post that I had some cool things planned. I guess that’s debatable, but I do have some new, different things planned. I am a firm believer that bloggers should mix things up so that their content doesn’t get stale, and also experiment with different kinds of content. What’s your favorite topic covered on RSM ?

If you tell me it sucks or that it’s irrelevant or inapplicable then chances are it won’t be back, but in the meantime I’ll be starting another series of posts in edition to, “What’s in My Feed Reader?”

In an effort to serve some of my Gen Y readers that have been e-mailing various questions about obtaining jobs, switching jobs, and upgrading jobs (yes, even in our current economy) my new series will be entitled (until I think of a better name), “25 Ways to Get a New, Better, or Different Job.” I’ll try to add a new one periodically.

The goal of this series is to provide something actionable that anyone (not just Gen Y) can do that may directly or indirectly help you get a job. This series also enables me to integrate some shorter posts onto the blog, and possibly update a little more frequently.

So without further ado …

25 Ways to Get a New, Better, or Different Job – Read ‘Never Eat Alone’

If you’ve read this blog for more than post or two you realize how invested I am into building intimate business relationships. Well, that’s essentially what, master networker, Keith Ferrazzi’s book is about. And guess what? Having (and leveraging) these relationships is one of the best ways to obtain a job in today’s society. Submitting your resume through a job board gets it placed in a pile with countless others.

A few key things from the book:

  • Keith teaches you, through brilliant examples, how to establish the right mind set for networking
  • He teaches you the right way to network (i.e. not to keep score, and how to not be a networking jerk that you often associate with networking).
  • He explains why you should never eat alone, why sharing your passions are so important, and how to connect with other connectors.
  • One of my favorite chapters, social arbitrage, might be the shortest but most important chapter in the entire book.
  • He literally takes you through the mindset, to developing the skills to be successful at networking, and finally how to leverage those skills.

When friends ask me how to become a better at networking, I hand them the book. I have two copies, I keep the other within arm’s reach at all times (at least while I’m at my work station). You think I’m kidding, but I’m not.

Hopefully in the very near future I’ll also be able to point them to a particular blog post on this blog, but that’s enough foreshadowing for today.

—————-
How important do you think networking is to finding a job? Have you read ‘Never Eat Alone?’ Use the comment section to share a successful networking experience you’ve had.