December Jokes 2011

You've been waiting all month!
Here are some jokes to tell at your New Years parties:


What do the 2011 Green bay Packers, Chicago Bears, and Minnesota Vikings all have in common?
They're all sitting out the first round of the playoffs!

Why don't most blind people skydive?
Because it scares the dogs!

What do dogs and trees have in common?
Bark

What is a vampire's favorite food?
NECKtarines

What do you get when you cross a detective with a skeleton?
Sherlock Bones

What do you need to know to be an auctioneer?
Lots

Thanks for reading and laughing!
Happy New Year!
Ev
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"

Did You Check to See How Your Ad Appears?

In this day and age of mobile, cloud computing, social media, and good old fashioned email, it is important for you to understand how your ad will appear on the different media you use.
A good example is this ad below that was posted on MilwaukeeJobs.com and was sent to me via a search agent on Indeed.com. What type pf person are they looking for? Would you apply to this ad? What does this say about your company?
Thanks!
Ev


Graphic Designer/Web Developer


(Name Withheld) - Wauwatosa, WI

See original job posting at MilwaukeeJobs.com »

nbsp;Graphic Designer/Web Developer nbsp; Type:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Full-time Hours:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; 40 Compensation:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Commensurate with experience Start Date: nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; approx. Dec 1st Location:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; Wauwatosa Travel:nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp; 5 nbsp; nbsp;



Organization:

We provides an innovative and comprehensive suite of lending services and technology solutions to thousands of banks, lenders and other mortgage industry firms nationwide.nbsp; Our rapidly growing organization offers a flexible yet fast-paced work environment. We are headq

YouTube 2011 Rewind

I love end of the year reviews. So what did we watch on YouTube this year?
Since very few of us are at work the day after Christmas and you might need something to waste some time while waiting to get home this week, take a look.
How many of these do you remember watching or hearing about?
Happy New Year!
Ev

2011 YouTube Rewind

Predictions for 2012

Predictions for 2012 by Dr. John Sullivan.
Happy 2012!
Ev

Trends in Talent Management and Recruiting by Dr. John Sullivan

It’s always better to be prepared than surprised.

By definition, being strategic requires that you look forward — identifying trends, opportunities, and threats. With the December lull looming, now is a great time to plan for the future. I’ve listed the “top 10 talent management trends” I foresee that require your attention. But you should certainly do your own thinking. I recommend that you start by examining this past year…

2011 Was The Year of Social Media

2011 was a tough year for many in talent management, but despite compressed budgets, organizations continued to hire and develop talent. One factor that seemed to invade nearly every high-level functional discussion was social media. It’s clear that Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter will play a dominate role in recruiting and development best practices in years to come.

Not surprisingly, 2011 saw no fewer than 40 new vendors emerge to help organizations use social media to attract referrals. We also started to see early stage tools to use social media in talent assessment (pre/post hire) as well as applicant/candidate/employee experience management. New tools brought much enhanced visibility into talent issues, but most talent-management metrics continue not to resonate with key leaders outside of the HR function.

2012 Will Be “The Year of the Mobile Platform”

By the end of next year, even the skeptics will have to admit that the mobile platform will have become the dominant communications and interaction platform by early-adopting best-practice organizations. The capabilities afforded users of smartphones and tablet devices grows immensely day by day. Long before unified inboxes existed for the desktop, smart device users could see all incoming e-mail, social messaging, text messaging, and voice and video messaging in a single place.

Tablets will become the virtual classroom, and an emerging class of tools will let employees manage almost every aspect of their professional life digitally. During the next year, talent management leaders need to invest heavily supporting execution of talent management initiatives across mobile.

The Additional Top Nine!

Intense hiring competition will return in selected areas — global economic issues will persist for years to come, but the global war for talent will continue spiking in key regions an industries. While growth has slowed somewhat in China, Australia and Southeast Asia — including India — continue to see dramatic demand for skilled talent. In the U.S. and Europe, demand is still largely limited to certain industries where skills shortages have been an issue for years.

In high tech inclusive of medical technologies, 2012 will see a significant escalation in the war for top talent. As innovators and game changers step out of established tech firms like Facebook, Apple, Google, Twitter, and Zynga, a whole new breed to tech startups will be born each vying for the best of the best. While recruiting will move forward at a breathtaking pace, so too will “rapid” leadership development.

Retention issues will increase dramatically — almost every survey shows that despite high engagement scores, more than a majority of employees are willing to quit their current job as soon as a better opportunity comes along. I am predicting that turnover rates in high-demand occupations will increase by 25% during the next year and because most corporate retention programs have been so severely degraded, retention could turn out to be the highest-economic-impact area in all of talent management.Rather than the traditional “one-size-fits-all” retention strategy, a targeted personalized approach will be required if you expect to have a reasonable chance to retain your top talent.

Social media increases its impact by becoming more data-driven — most firms jumped on the social media bandwagon, but unfortunately the trial-and-error approach used by most has produced only mediocre results. Adapting social media tools from the business coupled with strong analytics will allow a more focused approach that harnesses and directs the effort of all employees on social media. Talent leaders will increasingly see the value of a combination of internal and external social media approaches for managing and developing talent.

Remote work changes everything in talent management — the continued growth of technology, social media, and easy communications now makes it possible for most knowledge work and team activities to occur remotely. Allowing top talent to work “wherever they want to work” improves retention and makes recruiting dramatically easier.

Unfortunately, even though it is now possible for as much as 50% of a firm’s jobs to be done remotely, manager and HR resistance has limited the trend. Fortunately, managers and talent management leaders have begun to realize that teamwork, learning, development, recruiting, and best-practice sharing can now successfully be accomplished using remote methods. Firms like IBM and Cisco have led the way in reducing and eliminating barriers to remote work.

The need for speed shifts the balance between development and recruiting — historically, best practice within corporations has been to build and develop primarily from within. However, as the speed of change in business continues to increase and the number of firms that copy the “Apple model” (where firm is continually crossing industry boundaries) increases, talent managers will need to rethink the “develop internally first” approach.

In many cases, recruiting becomes a more viable option because there simply isn’t time for current employees to develop completely new skills. As a result, the trend will be to continually shift the balance toward recruiting for immediate needs and the use of contingent labor for short-duration opportunities and problems.

Employee referrals are coupled with social media — the employee referral program in many organizations is operated in isolation as are the organizations’ social media efforts, but talent managers are beginning to realize that the real strength of social media is relationship-building by your employees.

With proper coordination, employee relationships can easily be turned into employee referrals. This realization will lead to a shift away from recruiters and toward relying on employees to build social media contacts and relationships. The net result will be that as many as 60% of all hires will come from the combined efforts. The strength of these relationships will lead to better assessment and the highest-quality hires from employee referrals.

Employer branding returns — Employer branding and building talent communities are the only long-term strategies in recruiting. True branding is rarely practiced (hint: it’s not recruitment marketing) especially in the cash-strapped function of today, but years of layoffs, cuts in compensation, and generally bad press for business in general may force firms to invest in true branding. The increased use of social media and frequent visits to employee criticism sites (like Glassdoor.com), make not managing employer brand perception a risky proposition. While corporations will never control their employer brand, they can monitor and influence in a direction that isn’t catastrophic to recruiting and retention.

The candidate experience is finally getting the attention it deserves — Organizations have never treated candidates as well as they did their customers, but the high jobless rate has allowed corporations to essentially abuse some applicants. As competition for talent increases and as more applicants visit employer criticism sites like Glassdoor.com, talent leaders will be forced to modify their approach.

At the very least, firms will more closely monitor candidate experience metrics as they realize that treating applicants poorly can not only drive away other high-quality applicants but it can also lose them sales and customers.

Forward-looking metrics begin to dominate — Almost all current talent management and recruiting metrics are backward looking, in that they tell you what happened in the past. Other business functions like supply chain, production, and finance have long championed the use of “forward-looking” or predictive metrics and the time is finally coming when talent management leaders will shift their metrics emphasis. Forward-looking metrics can not only improve decision-making but they can also help to prevent or mitigate future talent problems.

Other Things to Keep Your Eye On…

In addition to the major trends highlighted above, there are 12 additional “hot” topics to keep your eye on:

•Risk identification — almost every other business function has already adopted a risk management strategy. So the time is coming when talent management will be forced to adopt a similar strategy and set of metrics. This program will not only cover HR legal issues but also the economic “risk” associated with weak hiring, the absence of developed leaders, and the cost of turnover of key talent.

•Prioritization — continued budget and resource pressure will force talent management leaders to prioritize their services, business units, key jobs, and high-value managers/employees.

•Integration — there will be increasing pressure for talent management functions to more closely integrate and work seamlessly.

•Expedited leadership development — as more baby-boom leaders and managers actually begin to retire, there will be increased pressure for expedited leadership development — specifically solutions that develop talent remotely using social media tools and within months rather than years.

•Competitive analysis — the increasingly competitive business world has forced almost every function to be more externally focused. Although HR has a long history of being internally focused and not being “highly competitive,” there is increasing pressure to become more business-like and to adopt an “us-versus-them” perspective. That means conducting competitive analysis and making sure that every key talent management function produces superior results to those at competitors.

•Contingent workers — as continuous business volatility becomes the “new normal,” the increased use and the improved management of contingent workers will become essential for agility and flexibility.

•Unionization — there is a reasonable chance that actions by the NLRB will increase union power and make it easier for unions to gain acceptance at private employers.

•Recruiting at industry events — as industry events return to popularity, recruiting at them will again become an effective tool for recruiting top and diverse talent.

•Location software — talent managers will begin to realize that software that allows you to check-in and see who is within close geographic proximity has great value and many still unidentified uses.

•Hire before they do — most firms will restrict their hiring until the turnaround actually begins. However, your firm must have a talent pool or pipeline developed, so that you can hire immediately and capture the top talent right before your competitors realize the downturn is over.

•Assessment continues to improve — vendors, software, and tools continue to improve in this area that will become increasingly important.

•Increase your revenue impact — increased economic pressures will continue the trend of forcing all functions (including talent management) to convert their functional results into business impacts in dollars. Talent management will face increasing pressure to directly demonstrate how their hiring, retention, development, etc. is focused, so that it directly increases and maximizes corporate revenues.

Final Thoughts

A recent survey of CEOs rates talent management as the No. 1 area where CEOs expect dramatic change during the next year. Given this increased attention, it’s even more critical that talent management and recruiting leaders set aside time to conduct a SWOT assessment (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) to identify where they are and where they need to be.

The “new” talent management leader must be more strategic, more proactive, and more business-like, and that means getting your entire staff to begin thinking about and planning for the game-changing events, trends, and opportunities that will occur during the next year. It’s time to realize the “but-we-are-overwhelmed-and-too-busy” excuse for not forecasting and planning is wearing thin.

For Real Goofy Job Ad

I've always preached that in a job ad:
1. you should be honest in your job descriptions in terms of what you want from an employee
2. what duties they will be doing
3. how much they will be paid
4. what is in it for them
5. be creative

The ad below was on MilwaukeeJobs.com on December 13th, 2011.
I have not edited this ad in any way.

How many of the above does this ad cover?
Thanks!
Ev


Company: Attorney
Job Location(s): Waukesha, WI
Employment Term: Regular
Employment Type Part Time
Start Date: Soon
Starting Salary Range: $10 - $13
Required Education: Open
Required Experience: 1 to 20+ years
Related Categories: Admin - Secretarial and Office Mgmt, Legal - Paralegal and Support Staff, Admin - Receptionist/Clerical

Position Description


Sole Practitioner seeking a career oriented secretary that I can grow old and die with; ok, maybe not die with but one who is willing to stick around; b/c omg - it's a career. I provide no benefits and can't pay you as much as you are worth. You need to be organized, not me, I'm the boss. Have to type fast, be able to think and be proficient in computer skills. If you think I'd be fun to work for, I'm not, I actually have rules, like, you must show up on time, you can't drink on the job or come to work drunk among others. You need to be personable and able to talk on the phone (not yours, the offices). No texting and the computers are monitored for Website usage. Position includes file management, client interaction, scheduling, answering phones, dictation. Pervious legal experience required. If interested please click apply!

December 2011 Newsletter

Greetings!

Welcome to the December version of my newsletter!
Please look at the links below. If you are interested in an article click on the link and it will open for you.


The most popular post ever on my blog was a three minute summary of social media in 2010. Here is the 2011 version:
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/social-media-usage-in-2011.html

Everyone is looking to build their network of candidates and clients. Here are three things to help with that:
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/3-critical-actions-you-must-take-to.html

Puny and always clean enough jokes to tell your mother:
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/11/november-jokes.html

There are other articles as well so please feel free to search my blog. Thank you for everything! Have a great December!


Everet Kamikawa
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"

5 Ways To Spot A Bad Boss In An Interview

I've written something similar but I found this to be true. If you're in sales a bad boss can ruin your reputation. This can be done by what they say, or don't say, about your performance. It can also be done by having you sell a product or service that they don't back up, provide, or do very well. Sort of the "tell the client we can do anything to get their business and we'll figure out how to do it later" approach. Avoid these kind of bosses at all costs and you can pick up clues to their management styles in the interviews as this article explains.
Thanks!
Ev

5 Ways To Spot A Bad Boss In An Interview

5 Ways to Spot A Bad Boss

A boss can literally, make or break your career. Here are five ways to spot the bad ones before they become yours.

A great boss can make you feel engaged and empowered at work, will keep you out of unnecessary office politics, and can identify and grow your strengths. But a bad boss can make the most impressive job on paper (and salary) quickly unbearable. Not only will a bad boss make you dislike at least 80% of your week, your relationships might suffer, too. A recent study conducted at Baylor University found that stress and tension caused by an abusive boss “affects the marital relationship and subsequently, the employee’s entire family.” Supervisor abuse isn’t always as blatant as a screaming temper tantrum; it can include taking personal anger out on you for no reason, dismissing your ideas in a meeting, or simply, being rude and critical of your work, while offering no constructive ways to improve it. Whatever the exhibition of bad boss behavior, your work and personal life will suffer. Merideth Ferguson, PH.D., co-author of the study and assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at Baylor explains that “it may be that as supervisor abuse heightens tension in the relationship, the employee is less motivated or able to engage in positive interactions with the partner and other family members.”

There are many ways to try and combat the effects of a bad boss, including confronting him or her directly to work towards a productive solution, suggesting that you report to another supervisor, or soliciting the help of human resources. But none of those tactics gurantee improvement, and quite often, they’ll lead to more stress. The best solution is to spot a bad boss—before they become yours! Here are five ways to tell whether your interviewer is a future bad boss.

1. Pronoun usage. Performance consultant John Brubaker says that the top verbal tell a boss gives is in pronoun choice and the context it is used. If your interviewer uses the term “you” in communicating negative information ( such as, “you will deal with a lot of ambiguity”), don’t expect the boss to be a mentor. If the boss chooses the word “I” to describe the department’s success—that’s a red flag. If the interviewer says “we” in regards to a particular challenge the team or company faced, it may indicate that he or she deflects responsibility and places blame.

2. Concern with your hobbies. There is a fine line between genuine relationship building, and fishing for information, so use your discretion on this one. If you have an overall good impression of the potential boss it may be that he or she is truly interested in the fact that you are heavily involved in charity work, and is simply getting to know you. On the other hand, the interviewer may be trying to determine whether you have too many commitments outside of work. The interviewer can’t legally ask if you are married, or have kids, so digging into your personal life can be a clever way to understand just how available you are.

3. They’re distracted. The era of email, BlackBerrys and smartphones have made it “okay” for people to develop disrespectful communication habits in the name of work. Particularly in a frenzied workplace, reading email while a person is speaking, multi-tasking on conference calls and checking the message behind that blinking BlackBerry mid-conversation has become the norm of business communications. But, regardless of his or her role in the company, the interviewer should be striving to make a good impression—which includes shutting down tech tools to give you undivided attention. If your interviewer is glancing at emails while you’re speaking, taking phone calls, or late to the interview, don’t expect a boss who will make time for you.

4. They can’t give you a straight answer. Caren Goldberg, Ph.D. is an HR professor at the Kogod School of Business at American University. She says a key “tell” is vague answers to your questions. Listen for pauses, awkwardness, or overly-generic responses when you inquire what happened to the person who held the position you are interviewing for, and/or what has created the need to hire. (For example, if you are told the person was a “bad fit,” it may indicate that the workplace doesn’t spend much time on employee-development, and blames them when things don’t work out).

You should also question turnover rates, how long people stay in given roles, and what their career path has been. All of these answers can indicate not only if the boss is one people want to work for, but whether pay is competitive, and employees are given a career growth plan.

5. They’ve got a record. Ask the potential boss how long he or she has been at the company, in the role, and where he or she worked before coming to it to get a feel for his or management style, and whether it’s what you respond to. For example, bosses making a switch from a large corporation to a small company may lead with formality. On the other hand, entrepreneurs tend to be passionately involved in business, which can be a help or a hindrance, depending on your workstyle.

Goldberg also recommends searching the site eBossWatch, where you read reviews that former employees have given to a boss. If you’re serious about the position, she also suggests reaching to the former employee whose spot you are interviewing for, and asking for their take on the workplace. (LinkedIn makes this task easy to do). The former employee’s recount may not necessarily reflect your potential experience, but it can help you to determine whether his or her description of the job and company “jibes” with what the potential boss said.

How NOT to Interview Someone Who Already Has A Job

As candidate I agree with this article. Maybe you've been a candidate in a situation like this to, or perhaps were the recruiter involved and had to constantly call a candidate and ask for multiple interviews like in this case. That can be a bit embarrassing..."Ah hello candidate. You recently interviewed and, well, can you come back in because So-and-So needs to talk to you..." then having to do it again and again.
Thanks!
Ev


How NOT to Interview Someone Who Already Has A Job

by Renee Mangrum
on November 15, 2011

Answer: Don’t Waste Their Time!

You can stop reading now since I already gave the answer. If you read on, I will talk about best practices for interviewing candidates whose time is limited, since someone in their infinite wisdom has already given this person a job.

Recruiters and hiring managers all want to hire the person who is currently working, yes? Why then do we waste so much of their time, and treat them like our company is God’s gift to their career? Hiring Managers, and their superiors, AND their recruiters, tend to take the attitude “Well if they want the job, they’ll make the time”. This is completely contrary to the attitude we should be taking toward these candidates. Maybe they don’t want the job, or they’re not sure; maybe they were referred by an employee, sourced by a recruiter, or have six other offers. I just don’t understand why we treat the prize candidates, the ones we claim we want above all others, like cattle.

I recently saw a job posting. You may have seen it. The company proudly boasted: “You will go through 6-8 interviews!” I thought: “YOU will hire a bunch of unemployed people”.

OK yes, this is personal, because it recently happened to me. I’m a Recruiter who was working on a finite-term contract, and I began interviewing for other positions. I was repeatedly stunned at the attitude these companies (and their Recruiters) took toward my scheduling parameters. A person can only have so many doctors or dentist appointments before it becomes apparent to their employer they are probably interviewing. Even when I simply say “I’m not going to be in for half the day on Thursday” it will raise suspicion after a bit.

Here is the worst example: I interviewed for a position in a city that was a 1-hour drive from home. This startup on the San Francisco peninsula conducted SEVEN interviews with me, including THREE separate visits to their office. They seemed to have no plan and no interview process. They just kept adding interviewers, like “Oh, the manager in London wants to have a say in who we hire now, so you need to talk to him”. On this particular day they dragged me back to their office so I could talk to him on the phone - something I could have done from home - while he was standing outside a conference he had just attended. This company also had interviewers bail on my in-person interview, and made me return to their office another day to meet with this person. They also called me on two separate occasions in the morning saying “Can you come to our office today?” Today? Are you smoking crack? What intelligent candidate would agree to go and interview, unprepared, at the drop of a hat? My conclusion was that this company wanted to hire someone stupid, desperate and unprepared, who would then turn around and disrespect future candidates by participating (as a Recruiter) in this inane process.

It amazes me how companies don’t put their best foot forward when hiring recruiters, and embarrass themselves with their own hiring process. The example above was the worst, but I have recently experienced several disorganized interviews, and processes, that were disrespectful of my time and made me wonder, 1) Am I going to be able to fix this when I get in there? or 2) should I decline this company because they are too large to accept suggestions or change anything?

My Mom taught me you don’t bring up a problem without proposing a solution. So here’s my solution:

ONE phone interview
Be on time, and be prepared. Remember the candidate is either taking time off from work to take the call from home, or they are taking the call in the hallway, outside, or in their car. Get the “info” you need as efficiently as possible. Decide from that phone call if it’s a go/no-go to proceed.

ONE on-site interview
Four interviewers are ideal. Length: 30-45 minutes per person. Do I have to say these are one-on-one interviews? Yes, they are. Don’t gang up on your candidate, unless it’s just a meet-and-greet where the decision does not lie with this panel (e.g., cross-functional folks, or direct reports to the position). The Recruiter doesn’t need to be on the panel: I greet the candidate and escort them to the interview room, stopping by to get them a drink or whatever they need. I get a feel for them during that time frame, and I can still provide feedback (was I more, or less impressed now that I’ve met them in person? Did they make a red-flag comment?) Each segment doesn’t have to be the same amount of time. Depending on the role of the interviewer, mix it up! Get the information you need and get the candidate on their way. Remember they are making excuses to leave work, and if they’re contractors, they are losing money every hour they spend away from their job. We should be mindful and respectful of that.

The End. Make a Decision. Communicate it to the candidate.
No second interview? No! Why? Just to make the candidate feel special? How much more special will they feel if you can make a decision from a single on-site interview? If your interview is organized, each member of the panel will know what qualities and skills they are probing for, the feedback will be meaningful and returned to the recruiter promptly, and there is no reason a decision cannot be made when you have 4-5 people meeting with the candidate. This is where the professional Recruiter comes in, guiding their business group regarding interview questions, feedback, timely responses, and a definitive yes/no vote whether to hire the candidate. This is also a place where the Company should defer to a veteran Recruiter’s guidance regarding this process.

Also, what’s wrong with going out and meeting the candidate for coffee? If there’s someone who is not on the panel, but who feels strongly about meeting the candidate, shouldn’t that person make the effort to meet the candidate (see above re: coffee, or breakfast, lunch, video conference, whatever)?

Companies who hire top talent are already doing the activities outlined above, with minor differences. I’m talking about the good activities! Not the 7-interview/3-visit one. This is really just a Golden Rule recommendation, after all, but the companies who are getting the best talent do it in an intelligent and efficient manner.

Cheers, and happy hiring of the top talent in your industry!

Brian Weiss Interview pt. II

I've met with thousands of companies over the years for sales calls. Besides asking about myself, the other person who gets asked about the most is my former employer...Brian Weis. Here is part two of the interview: 

Everet Kamikawa:
You are an avid golfer. You started GolfJobs.com three years ago. Was there any difference in starting a job board now than in 1997 or was it just as easy?

Brian Weis:
Wow! When I started WisconsinJobs.com people questioned if job seekers were using the Internet for their job search. Today, there are tens of thousands of places to post your jobs from national job boards, niche/industry sites to associations, portals, meag sites, etc. The formula is still the same. Get companies to post jobs and drive job seekers to apply. I guess the biggest difference now is I have grey hair, now.

EK:
GolfTrips.com and GolfWisconsin.com are your main businesses now. When did you start them and how have the businesses grown in the last few years? 

BW:
I started them as hobby sites in 2002-2003. I did them initially to do some barter with area courses. Now it is a full fledged business with 2 contract sales people.

EK:
Being an avid golfer, GolfJobs.com seems a natural site to start.
How has that site been growing since you started it and now with the economy ?

BW:
My main focus now is GolfTrips.com and GolfWisconsin.com. GolfJobs.com is a small focus and fills the void of still wanting to be involved in the recruiting industry. Golf courses have much smaller recruiting budgets and many small courses are first getting websites. (I know 15 years behind the times). The site is slowly growing.

EK:
Being a golfer, a web/SEO expert, and an entrepreneur, are you living your dream of running the type of company you always wanted?

BW:
I am not sure always wanted it. I have been lucky to always enjoy what I am doing at the present time. At the moment I am lucky to have all 3 passions involved in my job - internet, web marketing and golf.

EK:
You were on top of understanding what Search Engine Optimization was before it was a hip term. Will SEO always be important or is there something out there that will be the next way employers need to use to get noticed on the web?

BW:
The hard part with companies websites is the main focus is general to sell their widgets or services. If I was looking for a sales job and typed that in google 20 job boards and associations will pop up before a companies employment website. Off course if I searched for Coca Cola Sales job....Coke's site should pop up. They do not have to be SEO geniuses to make that happen.

EK:
You also are the organizer of the Turkey Cup. What is that and who does it benefit?


BW:
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite times of the year. For the last 20 years I have organized some charity event to raise money for some worthy causes. We used to play football but I am getting to old for that. The Turkey Cup is a foam golf ball tournament on Thanksgiving morning. It is a fun event that raises close to a $1000 to Operation Christmas Child. (a global organization that packs shoes boxes of toys and necessities to disadvantage kids throughout the world.) I think it is important to give back. Operation Christmas Child

Definitely one of the most creative business people I've had the pleasure of knowing and a fountain of inspiration. Thank you Brian and thank all of you for reading!
Ev
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"

Brian Weis Interview pt. I

Sometimes it is easy to understand why fate makes you cross paths with certain people. Someone who was a positive influence on my life, career, and future goals has agreed to be interviewed for this blog. This person brought me into their company and gave me the freedom and encouragement (and commission) to become the best salesperson I could be and it was a pleasure working for them.

Back in in 1997 I had just joined a company called Job Connection. Two weeks later I received a call from the owner of our biggest rival at the time, WisconsinJobs. Apparently I had made a sales call on a mutual client who impressed upon this owner that he should hire me. Our paths crossed for the next four years as I saw him at job fairs. Eventually I would become one of his top sales reps for the next seven years, becoming what our main competitor called “the faces of the company.”


I present to you...Brian Weis!

Everet Kamikawa:
When you started WisconsinJobs.com in 1997, online job boards had just started to tear down the wall of classified job ads built by the newspapers. By 2005 newspaper classifieds were hurting and now they are almost nonexistent. Do job boards still hold the value for employers looking to find jobs?

Brian Weis:
Great question. There will always be a need for employers to advertise their job openings and a place for job seekers to seek open jobs. I think the Internet is an effective media and job boards the right meeting place. Right now is a unique time, the unemployment rate is very high in comparison to the last few decades and it is an employer market place. There are so many candidates out there seeking that companies do not need to do as much advertising. In years to come when the unemployment rate shrinks the candidate pool will tighten and companies will need to do more advertising.

EK:
How has social media impacted job boards? Do they have a future?


BW:
I think of Twitter (GolfTrips Twitter page)and Facebook (GolfTrips-Facebook page)as a social platform for people to sound off, share their thoughts, post birthday photos, etc. Sure like minded people congregate. For employers/recruiters it is a candidate pool. I think it is an arrow in the quiver for companies to hunt for employees. (and for job seekers to job hunt) Will it replace job boards, probably not. Large companies with a diverse set of hiring needs will always need to a variety of tools - job fairs, campus recruiting, job boards, radio, social media, etc.


EK:
In addition to WIJobs.com, you also started a national recruiting board called LocalCareers.com that had at least one website in all 50 states. Before you sold the domains, how many job boards did you have under the LocalCareers.com banner and what inspired you to build a national network when most local job board owners were happy to just stay in their market?

BW:
I stopped counting after 100 sites. We had a national umbrella with LocalCareers.com and then a regional focus with state sites like ArizonaJobs.com, WisconsinJobs.com, we then branched out in industries like RecruitingJobs.com and later added diversity sites.

EK:
At the same time you launched WiJobs.com you also started RecruitersNetwork.com. What was the purpose of that site? Are you still involved in that site?

BW:
Recruiters Network branded itself as the Association for Internet Recruiting. Like I said we started when Internet Recruiting was barely a strategy for company. Ina few years we built a huge directory of resources and published a weekly newsletter. I am no longer involved in that organization.

EK:
SalesResources.com (SalesResources.com)is another of your sites, which you recently sold to SalesProgress. When recruiting was your focus, why branch out into sales?

BW:
As mentioned be got into several job board verticals focusing on industries with high turn over and higher hiring frequencies like Jobs4Sales.com. Advertising and reaching the passive job seeker was expensive so we built portal sites to funnel job seekers into the job board. I didn't have kids back then so I was able to worked 18 hours a day.

EK:
Looking back at your recruiting career is there anything you would have done differently?

BW:
I am a glass half full kind of guy. I cannot think of anything. Last time I checked you cannot change the past so I spend very little time worrying about what I should have done. I certainly try to learn from it, but as far as regrets....hmmm...I am drawing a blank.

That is a look behind. For what Brian Weis is doing now, look for part two soon.
Thanks Brian!
EvEven though we haven't worked together for almost two years, I still get asked by cleints whatever happened to this owner. I thought it would be fun for you to read all about what he has been up to in his own words.

November Jokes

Who sleeps with his shoes on?
A horse!


How do you wrap a cloud?
With a Rainbow!


What kind of music sticks with you?
Taped music!


What flower gives the best kisses?
A tulip!

When a dog goes camping what does it sleep in?
A pup tent!

Social Media Usage in 2011

I still have people that don't believe in the power of the internet and social media.
Do you know any people in your network that believe the same thing?
Maybe send them the link to this page.

Always fascinating:
Social Media in 2011
Thanks!
Ev

Happy Thanksgiving!

We have a lot of to be thankful for living in this country.
I'm thankful for my family, clients, and you for taking the time to read this blog!
Give thanks for all you have and for all the struggles that make you better.
Give Thanks for all the good people you've hired and all the good clients you've gained.
Hug someone you love.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

3 Critical Actions You MUST Take to Build Your Network

As recruiters we sometimes tend to get wrapped up trying to find sources of candidates. Don't forget to build your network of clients too! You've put on your sales hat, but how do you get started? Try more networking! Instead of a cold call, you can now make a "warm" call to someone that you've met. Even if it was only for a very short period of time it is still a great way to get the conversation going on the phone.
If you don't think of networking as a vital part of your sales strategy, here is a good article to refresh what you need to do.
Thanks!
Ev
A Heck of A Nice Guy

3-critical-actions-you-must-take-to-build-your-business-network
By Scot Herrick

Business networking has a bad connotation — we have visions of meetings handing out business cards dancing in our heads. They remind us of being back in high school wondering if we’ll go to the prom or get picked for the team.

But having and supporting a business network is one of the keys to a successful job search. Even if you are not in a job search now, cultivating that business network is critical to your long-term employment security.
Business networks don’t magically build themselves. You have to take action to build yours and make it central to your career planning and development.

1. Actively Acquire People
This is not adding whoever to LinkedIn Google+. Nor is it having 5,000 friends on Facebook. Instead, this is deciding who is able to support your career goals and who you can help reach theirs. These people can be peers in your company or hiring managers or members of a professional organization.

Or, they can simply be people who leave your company and you, unlike everyone else, go and get their personal contact information so you can keep in touch. Fifty people leave your company you know and trust and that gives you contacts at another fifty companies where you can find out information.

Actively adding people to your network is work. Especially since this is an important, but not urgent, goal. The time to build your business network is precisely the time you don’t need one.

2. You Must Actively Manage Your Business Network
Managing your network comes in two parts. First, you need to consistently communicate. It makes no sense to capture all that great personal contact information and then not talk to people for a year. You need consistent communication with your network so that you support and build relationships.

Second, most of us quickly outgrow our ability to keep track of everyone and what they are doing, so we need a “personal” equivalent to a Customer Relationship Manager program. My favorite is Jibber Jobber because of its capabilities and consistent improvements over time.

Now, we don’t like to think that our “friends” or “co-workers” or “acquaintances” need management. But they do. It’s easy to think we’re regularly talking with these people — and then realize months have passed since we did. That’s why management is needed.

3. You Must Actively Support Your Business Network
Building and communicating with your network isn’t enough. The real strength of your network is your ability to help your contacts. Whether it is a recommendation, helping solve a problem, pointing the person to where they can find information they need, or providing your perspective on a question, supporting your business network is critical. Some day, the time will come when you need some support to solve some problem at work, get some perspective on a job, or find out information about a company. You want to have helped others so they are willing to help you.

Business Networks Are About Finding And Supporting Resources To Help Your Work.
Too many people think networks are only about finding jobs. While that’s one part of it, the better way to regard it is that networks give you resources to help to grow your job and career. If you build, manage and support your business network, well, you’ll find that people will come to you with opportunities. Not that you will have to go searching for them.

Scot Herrick is the author of “I’ve Landed My Dream Job–Now What???” and owner of Cube Rules, LLC. CubeRules.com provides online career advice and products for workers who typically work in a corporate cubicle.

November Newsletter

Many years ago, before blogs were born, I started sending a monthly email newsletter to all my clients and prospects. Nearly 12 years later that tradition continues, except now it has links to this blog. The email is sent around the first of the month. I then republish it here around the 15th of the month. If you haven't had a chance to read all my entries this is a good way to hit the highlights of the previous month.
Below is the newsletter for November:

Greetings!
Welcome to the November version of my newsletter!
Please look at the links below. If you are interested in an article click on the link and it will open for you.
Is Facebook going to allow free job postings?
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/is-facebook-about-to-offer-free-job.html

I wrote a bunch about the Brewers and how their playoff run related to sales and recruiting. One of them is the piece that Your staff can’t be all serious all the time:
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/every-team-needs-sick-individual.html

Busting 8 damaging Myths about what LinkedIn can do for Your Career:
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/linkedin-busting-8-damaging-myths-about.html

Puny and always clean enough jokes to tell your mother:
http://everetsblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/october-jokes-2011.html

There are other articles as well so please feel free to search my blog.
Thank you for everything!
Have a great November!

Everet Kamikawa
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"
http://www.linkedin.com/in/everetkamikawa

Response from a Reader

I'm always flattered and humbled when I hear that someone reads my blog much less likes something I wrote. I'm even more humbled when someone takes the time to write to me!
In this case "Gary" is responding to what I've written about resumes and agreeing with me.
Thanks Gary for taking the time to write!
Ev


Hi Everet,

I was always a firm believer that you must have a basic resume that could be adjusted to the position in which you are applying for. Now that I have been doing exclusively recruiting for almost 2 years, I am convinced more than ever.

When recruiting, positions are sent to us by the hiring manager. Ultimately he wants us to send him resumes that only match his job description 100%. If he has 5 different acronyms listed as skill sets needed, then the resume has to have those listed. Even if it is obvious that the candidate has that skill, if it is not listed, then the hiring manager may not even consider the person. We have in the past tried to explain the missing acronyms in a brief summary that we would produce after speaking with the candidate. We are now telling all of our candidate prior to submittal that they will have to revise their resume, or we will do it for them.

I think that this approach is necessary for all applicants, even programmers. If a position calls for a Oracle Systems Programmer, just saying you have 5 years Oracle Systems Programming experience is not enough. It needs to say exactly what that included.

I am also a firm believer (for IT jobs) that although years of experience always count, past work history may not be relative. I prefer a candidate to closely look at the job description and highlight all work history with those skills.

It takes a little extra work on the candidate as well as the recruiter, but number of hires speaks for itself. When a resume mirrors a job description, success is almost certain (at least for an interview).

Thanks,

Gary

Thank You Veterans!

Go For Broke!
442nd Infantry Regiment History


Thanks Dad, Uncle Joe, Uncle Jerry!

Love!

Your famlies and all of the rest of us!

Ev

No Jerks Allowed

What do you do with a person who is a jerk in the workplace? Maybe it is a co-worker or a boss.
In either case I thought this was an interesting read.
Thanks!
Ev
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"
No Jerks Allowed: How and Why GCs Can Stop Angry, Rude and Demeaning Workplace Behavior
Michael P. Maslanka

General counsel are tagged as custodians of their companies' most crucial, yet most sensitive and volatile asset: its employees. Henry Ford saw them as one big headache, immune from any analgesic's curative powers: "Why is it that I always end up with a person, when all I really want is a pair of hands?" But it's a person you get, and if you believe people are of value, then the question becomes how to go about managing, motivating and inspiring them -- and, just as important, learning how to unlock their embedded value. Here's a guide on the do's and don'ts to reach that goal.

First, the don'ts. Having practiced employment law for nearly 27 years, I can say with absolute clarity and total conviction that abrupt e-mails, rude comments and angry directives fail -- always have, always will. Confirmation of my subjective feelings comes from two business professors, Christine Porath and Amir Erez, whose revealing study of rudeness and its toxic effects is illuminating. They subjected two groups of study participants to varying degrees of rudeness, and they asked a third group to only imagine they were the object of the rudeness. All groups were then asked to perform tasks requiring cognitive functions. The result? In all three groups the ability of the participants to think was severely impaired. Why? They were unable to use their cognitive processing power to perform the tasks, wasting their brain wattage on mulling over and ruminating upon the rudeness, or parsing the comments and figuring out how they should have responded. This included the bystander group, asked only to empathize. Talk about collateral damage. Want to learn more? Check out "Rudeness and Its Noxious Effects" in the March issue of the Harvard Business Review.

Want more empirical evidence? Robert Sutton's book, "The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't," is brimming with studies and experiments. Work with a rude jerk and what happens? You become one as well. It's called emotional contagion, as Dr. Michelle Duffy demonstrated in her study -- which Sutton cites -- of hospital employees working for insensitive bosses who acted like jerks and condoned it in others. The employees morphed into their bosses. It's true: We ape others, especially those higher in the food chain.

One study Sutton discusses, by British researchers Charlotte Rayner and Loraleigh Keashly, translated the effects of such uncivil and rude behavior into cold, hard cash. Historical data show that 25 percent of those bullied at work and 20 percent of those who merely witness it leave their employment (once again, bystander damage). The researchers postulate that in a company of 1,000 employees, if 25 percent leave and if the average historical replacement cost is $20,000, then the annual cost is $750,000. Tack on two witnesses per bullied employee, 20 percent of those witnesses leave, and that adds $1.2 million for, as Sutton puts it, a TCA (total cost of assholes) of close to $2 million per year.

Here's one more study Sutton highlights: 41 employees carried a palm-sized computer for two to three weeks. Researchers prompted the employees at random intervals to answer questions about their interactions with co-workers and then to rate their resulting feelings as positive, negative or neutral. Here's the expected: 30 percent were positive interactions, 10 percent negative, the rest neutral. Here's the unexpected: The negative interactions had a fivefold stronger effect on mood than the positive ones and thus took much longer to get over. Talk about radioactive.

STOP THE MADNESS

So, what's to be done? Many companies promulgate a no-asshole rule, which is, standing alone, useless. Remember this: The fundamental attribution bias makes us all believe that we are better people than we really are, including yours truly. Most people don't know they are violating the rule, thinking of themselves as sterling folks; the most clueless are in management. A rule honored in its breach is harmful. Employees see the brass violating the rule, feel the hypocrisy and are emboldened to violate it themselves. It's better to have no rule at all. Instead, create a culture that operates on automatic pilot and perpetuates an infrastructure that makes it easier to avoid a gaggling of A-holes. Here are the do's.

Limit hierarchy. When someone thinks he is superior to others, you get -- in the memorable phrase of psychology professor Philip Zimbardo -- the Lucifer effect. The phrase comes from his famous Stanford University prison experiment in which students were divided into guards and prisoners, with the first group ending up abusing the second. Which are you? Sutton and management guru Peter Drucker say to listen to whether management says words like "we" and "us" as opposed to "I" and "them."

Curtail e-mail and calls. Instead, encourage face-to-face conversation. It is much easier to disrespect someone over e-mail or via conference call. Communicating via technology creates low trust. It breeds harshness and anger. It lets bullies be bullies. Fly above it.

Train corporate managers on interpersonal skills. This is not a soft suggestion. This skill lubricates the organization, reducing friction and accordingly raising efficiency and bolstering revenues. If people manage by e-mail, make them manage face-to-face. If that's not always possible, teach e-mail etiquette. If they have anger issues, require them to stop acting out, and give them help. If they can't stop the bad behavior, give them the boot. Make them understand that being an asshole is counterproductive. My mom told me that you can't change people, you can only help people. A manager with an inner jerk will always be a jerk, but you can ensure that it doesn't escape.

Mandate free expression. Those on the receiving end of abuse learn to avoid it by saying nothing (not what you pay them for) or to say only what the abuser wants to hear (also not what you pay them for). It's the latter that results in the business maxim that employees start to make up the numbers when there is unrelenting abuse to make the numbers.

Whenever I work with young lawyers for the first time, I tell them they only need to know the answer to one question: Why do airplanes crash? Usually, I get answers based on physics. But, no, airplanes crash because the junior co-pilot sees a blinking red light on the console, thinks if anything was wrong then surely the senior pilot would say something or act, and just as surely thinks to himself that he will not say anything that harms his career or gets him yelled at. So, the co-pilot says nothing and that's why airplanes crash.

Understand that it's about more than saying "please" and "thank you." In his book, "How Starbucks Saved My Life," Michael Gates Gill tells how he went from a high-powered ad agency exec to a probationary employee at a Starbucks store. Post-power, he realized that being polite to those behind the counter was not the same as understanding their value, appreciating their skills and recognizing their humanity. "Please" and "thank you" are good things to say -- if sincerely meant and not sprinkled about like air fresheners at the landfill -- but they do not and cannot substitute for authentic respect.

Grasp that money is often the most expensive way to motivate employees. Or so argues Dan Ariely in "Predictably Irrational." Ariely tells us that the work world is moving from "market norms" (paying X amount of dollars for Y amount of work) to "social norms" (employees are willing to make sacrifices for their employer, but they expect something similar in return, such as understanding when extra days off are needed). His extensive studies also show that employees will work harder, say, when they receive a personal gift worth $1,000 than a raise worth $1,000. His bottom line: "It's remarkable how much work companies ... can get out of people when social norms (such as the excitement of building something together) are stronger than market norms (such as salaries stepping up with each promotion)." Want an example? Take a look at the February Harvard Business Review's "Task, Not Time: Profile of a Gen Y Job," featuring Best Buy's program of paying employees for tasks and results -- not for time -- eschewing the Monday-Saturday, 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. baby boomer ethic.

Sutton suggests a Zen take on lifting oneself out of the swamp of assholes and jerks: Live in the present, and do the right thing in the right way to the person in front of you, right now. I like that. Here's my take, albeit worn thin from use, and repeated so often its freshness bled out: "Whatsoever you would have others do for you, do that for them, for that is the law." Try to read this passage from the Gospel of Matthew as if you've never read it before. Its karmic power may be the simplest way to reach the highest return on your largest investment with minimal effort. Who would have thunk it?

Michael P. Maslanka is the managing partner of Ford & Harrison in Dallas. He is board certified in labor and employment law by the Texas Board of Legal Specialization. He writes the Texas Employment Law Letter.

Top 10 Sales Management Functions

When advertising for salespeople, sales managers, or recruiters he gave a list of what things he thinks are important to judge candidates on. Since he's helped companies evaluate 700,000 sales people that is a good sign to me he knows what he is talking about. His list is below:
Thanks!
Ev

These are my Top 10 Sales Management Functions. The list, in no particular order is probably different, in many ways, as much for what's not on it as for what is:

1.COACHING
2.ACCOUNTABILITY
3.MOTIVATION
4.RECRUITING
5.DEVELOPMENT
6.LEADERSHIP
7.RELATIONSHIPS
8.TACTICS
9.STRATEGY
10.SYSTEMS AND PROCESSESThe following competencies, which are NOT sales management functions, do not appear on my list:
■Personal Sales
■Account Management
■Closing Deals for OthersAlso not in my top 10 are
■Territory Management
■Paperwork
■Meetings
■Travel
■Trips

Dave Kurlan is a top-rated speaker, best-selling author, sales thought leader and highly regarded sales development expert.

October Jokes-2011

Here are the jokes for October.
Please enjoy!
Ev
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"


What is Bethovan doing now?
Decomposing!

Why can't you got to the bathroom at a Beatles reunion concert?
There is no John!
(Part two of this joke was sent in my MT. Thank you MT!)
Without a John at a Beetles reunion, I wonder, where would Ringo?

By the way, there is no George, either. He and John were carried away by a Paul bearer.


What Kind of flower gives the best kisses?
A Tulip!

What kind of shoe does a thief wear?
Sneakers!

Why You Should Coach Webinar by Tim Hagen

Tim Hagen has been a longtime associate of mine. He has been a "Coach to the Coaches" for many years. I recently attended his webinar on coaching and got some good ideas on how we can coach our candidates we work with as the salespeople we are.
If you have about 45 minutes I think you'll garner a few gold nuggets to try and improve the performance of the team. Click on the  link below:
Why-you-should-coach by Tim Hagen

If you talk to Tim tell him you got his information from my blog!

Thanks!
Ev

Title: “Why You Need to Coach” by Tim Hagen
“Training Reinforcement & Coaching Leader”
262-240-1077 or 262-227-8563 (cell)
www.SalesProgress.com

Company Overview: http://play.goldmail.com/4fp6p4chpfgi

Free Coaching Information:

Sales Coaching Works (blog): http://salescoachingworks.tumblr.com/

Sales Leader Blog: http://www.salesprogress.com/coaching-leadership/

Coaching Blog: http://blog.salesprogress.com/

Is Facebook About to Offer Free Job Listings?

I previously published an interesting article by this author about Facebook destroying LinkedIn:
Why-facebook-will-destroy-linkedin-for-recruiting
I found this follow up and thought it interesting enough to reprint here. Please note this is just the author's opinion.
Thanks!
Ev

Is Facebook About to Offer Free Job Listings?
by Jody Ordioni

I recently predicted that Facebook will eventually destroy LinkedIn. Today, that prediction came closer to reality as the world’s largest social network announced a partnership with national employment services and the U.S. Department of Labor. According to Facebook’s official statement, the Social Jobs Partnership goal will be “to facilitate employment for America’s jobless through the use of social networks.”

Facebook has launched a page, facebook.com/socialjobs, which features resources and information for job seekers from the coalition’s other partners: The National Association of Colleges and Employers, the DirectEmployers Association, and the National Association of State Workforce Agencies, along with the Labor Department. Facebook plans to create public service announcements to promote its services in the 10 states with the highest unemployment rates, which, according to CNN Money, are Michigan, Rhode Island, California, South Carolina, Oregon, Nevada, North Carolina, Georgia, Alaska, and Florida. Included in Facebook’s list of initiatives is this intriguing item:

“The partnership will explore and develop systems for delivering job postings virally through Facebook at no charge.” Does that mean Facebook will officially enter the job-search market? If so, well, Mashable’s Sarah Kessler put it bluntly: “A job board that lives on Facebook could put the social network in direct competition with sites like LinkedIn and Monster.com.”LinkedIn already faces challenges from Monster-owned BeKnown and the startup BranchOut, which have launched recruiting applications for Facebook. If Facebook itself gets into the game, it may make LinkedIn irrelevant even before my 2013 prediction.

That’s just the start of the dominos falling. Monster would find itself in a particularly strange position as its host starts directly competing against it. Monster may drop its Facebook application and return to its own site; but, if that strategy was working, why did it approach Facebook at all? Craigslist would also stand to suffer if Facebook allows free job listings, because the social network could offer more focused targeting than Craigslist’s city sections do. BranchOut, with no corporate “parent,” may simply disappear.

When Mashable’s Kessler pressed Facebook on this important matter, a spokesman told her, “We’re going to invest in research in new technologies that will deliver jobs virally at no charge and expand opportunities for people to create social job searching experiences online.”
That one sentence may alter the future of four different corporations and the entire online recruiting world. You know where I stand; what’s your prediction?

Why Facebook Will Destroy LinkedIn (for recruiting)?

Hmmmm...
An interesting opinion by this author.
Thanks!
Ev

Why Facebook Will Destroy LinkedIn by Jody Ordioni
Aug 16, 2011,
http://linkd.in/nV0qKe

The Wall Street Journal recently published a story by Joe Light that highlighted certain employers, such as Waste Management, finding more recruitment success on Facebook than on LinkedIn.

“Facebook hires account for less than 1% of the total hires companies are making,” Light noted, quoting Jobs2Web’s recent analysis. “But if current growth trends continue, Facebook could rival traditional job boards in 2012.”

But it isn’t just the job boards that should be worried. Facebook will destroy LinkedIn, too. Here’s why:
•LinkedIn has 120 million members; Facebook has 750 million. Employers understand the concept of fishing where the fish are.
•The perception that Facebook is made up of flaky teenagers while LinkedIn includes only business professionals is wrong. The two sites’ average ages are just two years apart (38 for Facebook, 40 for LinkedIn). So there are plenty of 30-somethings on Facebook with years of work experience who are considering a career change.


•LinkedIn is under attack by a major job board. In June, Monster launched BeKnown, an application that turns Facebook into a recruiting platform. It has 760,000 active monthly users after just two months. Instead of joining forces with LinkedIn, Monster chose to bypass the professional site and ally itself with Facebook.


•LinkedIn is also drawing fire from a startup. BranchOut, founded by former SuperFan CEO Rick Marini, is a similar application with 2.7 million monthly users. Like BeKnown, BranchOut overlays employer information on top of the Facebook interface while shielding personal data (like embarrassing photos) from recruiters’ eyes. The success of these apps shows that millions of job seekers don’t want to leave their favorite website when looking for work.


•LinkedIn can’t compete with Facebook’s social marketing. A major part of job searching involves personal references and word of mouth. Facebook is designed for just such interactions, as its “Recommended Pages” on a user’s home page shows. Instead of “Three friends like Pepsi,” users might soon see “Three friends applied to work at PepsiCo.” This sort of peer-to-peer marketing, effective in virtually every other field, will be impossible to duplicate on LinkedIn.

Facebook has more people, spending more time on the site, using innovative technology and getting personal referrals. LinkedIn has only its reputation and clean—bordering on empty—interface. I predict 2011 will be a tough year for the professional networking site. 2012 will be brutal. And, sometime in 2013, Facebook will finally destroy LinkedIn.

The Funniest Team Around-Until they Lost It

Earlier I wrote an article about how every team needs a "sick individual" on it.
every-team-needs-sick-individual
For the last several weeks I had the article below sitting on my desk.
As the Milwaukee Brewers were going through the playoffs I noticed something about the time they went to Arizona for games 3 and 4 of the National League Division series. The Brewers lost their personality. The team Rick Reilly mentions seemed too tight. Too tense. The "beast" signs weren't as obvious and many seemed half hearted. There were no "cowboy dress up days" or even "football jersey days" on the plane rides as there were in the season. No one made fun of the errors that were committed by having a "kangaroo court" or having fielding practice and hitting oversize balls in jest to fielders that made errors. They went from being a team of goofy, funny guys to being strictly serious baseball players. When they lost that side of the personality of their team they lost part of the way they dealt with adversity. When they got behind it made them more tense when trying to play catch up.
That took them out of their element and was part of the reason they lost. It wasn't the only reason, but it was a part.

The first piece of sales advice my Dad gave me was to always be myself.
Make sure your recruiting or sales team always is true to themselves. Their performance will reflect when they are or are not.

Yes. I'm a Brewers fan.
Thanks for making it a fun year!
Ev
"A Heck of A Nice Guy"

The funnest team around
By Rick Reilly

ESPN.com


Corey Hart, Ryan Braun and Nyjer Morgan are key members of the 2011 Milwaukee Brewers, the most lovable and easy-to-root-for team in this year's MLB postseason. One reason baseball ranks behind lawn darts in American sports popularity is that there are so few lovable teams.
The Yankees? It's like rooting for a hedge fund.
The Phillies? Just another checkbook champion.
But this year is different. This year, we have the Milwaukee Brewers. If you can't root for the Brewers, your rooter is busted.

The Brewers are a foamy phenomenon. How could a team with a smaller television market than Raleigh-Durham win the NL Central for the first time in 29 years?
This is a team whose three most famous members are stuffed sausages. How could a team with a comedian for a play-by-play guy get so seriously good?
Because it's Milwaukee, where baseball is actually fun.

The Brewers are a rolling carnival in metal spikes. One day this year, their stud left fielder, Ryan Braun, fell flat on his face between third and home and was tagged out. The next day, there was a body outline on the grass, a present from his teammates.One night, their center fielder, Nyjer Morgan, smashed a walk-off double, only he didn't know to walk off. He thought it was the eighth inning.
This is a team where the star Japanese reliever, Takashi Saito, owns a Stetson cowboy hat and the star American starter, Zack Greinke, owns a samurai sword.

Take Morgan. He has at least three alter egos -- maniacal Tony Plush, countrified Tony Tombstone and Tony Gumble, the calculating "Professional." None of the four would back off from a starving grizzly.
One night in early September, Morgan got into it with St. Louis Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter, who didn't appreciate the way Morgan had mouthed off after a home run earlier in the season. So when Morgan whiffed swinging, Carpenter added, "Eff you!" as salt to the wound.
To which, Morgan replied, "Eff you!" The two started walking toward each other. Running in from first base came the Cards' 6-foot-3, 230-pound all-galaxy first baseman Albert Pujols, also repeating the phrase of the moment. Five-foot-10, 175-pound Morgan had to be held back by teammates from attacking him. Afterward, I asked Morgan what was cross-wired in his brain that he would invite violence from Pujols. After calling Pujols a very bad word, Morgan said that Pujols needed to "get back to first base."
Me: "You're sayin' you could take Albert Pujols?"
Morgan: "Oh, please. I'da f---ed him up. I'da one-punched him."
Morgan is such a hotdog he should be entered in the sausage race.
"I only come around once in a lifetime," he says. For a lot of NL pitchers, that's too often. He just had his finest year in the bigs.

Once you've dealt with Morgan, you have to face the very un-Morgan-esque Braun, who looks as if he escaped from an Abercrombie & Fitch poster. He's got Hollywood looks and four-and-a-half-tool talent. Braun almost won the batting title with an average of .332, hit 33 home runs and drove in 111 runs. The half-Jewish 27-year-old winters in Malibu but just signed to summer in Milwaukee until he's 37. Why would a Malibu mensch live among the meatballs of Milwaukee half the year?
"Because," he says, "we all look forward to coming to work every day here. How many jobs can you say that about?"

After the Hebrew Hammer, you have to get past a man built like a Hummer, Prince Fielder, a raking machine who sets the bat in his right hand against a callus the size of tangerine. I've seen it. It's alarming.
"I don't even feel it," he says.
Fielder callously thumped pitchers for 38 home runs and 120 RBIs this year, second in the league in both categories. Alas, the Brewers can't afford him after this year, so he'll probably be moving to one of the corporate monoliths in the AL. But how can a guy named Fielder be a DH?

Brewers outfielder Nyjer Morgan is a tough competitor on the field and a free spirit off it. Their closer, gangly 6-5 John Axford, has a Fu Manchu he won't cut and a slider you can't hit. He didn't allow a run in September. The team wears T-shirts with his face on them that read: Carpe Diem. Seize the Day. Axford almost always does. He blew only two saves all season.

Presiding over all this madness is a librarian in a manager's uniform, bookish Ron Roenicke, who refuses to go by the book. The rookie manager hates the intentional walk (he used it only 16 times all year), brings in Braun as a fifth infielder occasionally and refuses to keep a left-handed reliever on his staff because "then you're stuck with him."He looks the other way for most of the insanity, and there's a boatload of it. For the team fantasy league draft, the vets made rookie Taylor Green wear a tight dress and heels and serve them beer."But at least they invited me," Green says. "They invite everybody to everything."
As right fielder Corey Hart says, "This is the funnest team I've ever been on. I'm lovin' it."

OK, so they're loose with grammar, too. They're loose and fun and wildly talented. Like Morgan, this might be a team that comes along only once in a lifetime. Don your "Fear the Beer" T-shirt and get on board.
Carpe annum.
Seize the year.
Rick-Reilly-Milwaukee-Brewers