Finding Your Parachute: A Career Changers’ Workshop

November 18th, 2009

CLICK ON LINK FOR PDF: Finding Your Parachute: A Career Changers’ Workshop

CAREER INFORMATION AND PLANNING WORKSHOP
“Finding Your Parachute” career workshop highlights opportunities for local job seekers
The Naperville Council for Business and the Arts is holding a career workshop on December 4th from 11:30 to 1:30pm and will focus on helping people refine their skill sets, get motivated and discover their personal path so that they can gain an edge in today’s career market. This workshop will cover sales, marketing, presentation, delivery, creation of value and communication.
The event will be held in the Main Street Promenade on the 3rd floor in the Naperville Chamber of Commerce Conference room. The workshop will include a panel discussion, breakout sessions for resume reviews and lunch provide by Hipp Temporary Solutions, Pockets and the American Martial Arts Academy.

Panel speakers include:
Bass Phillips- Vice President, Creative Director of Leo Burnett, Chicago
John Zediker- CEO of Moser Enterprises, Naperville
David McArthur- Manager, Financial Services of Prudential Naperville

All in attendance are invited to bring a copy of their current resume and cover letter for the review breakout. Simple tips that clean up the resume can lead to a follow up interview. The Naperville Council for Business and the Arts is a program of the Naperville Cultural Center. The Purpose of the NCBA is to provide education and workshops for professional artists and cultural not for profits so that they may continue to improve their business skills and networking.

Career Social Networking Sites

Career Social Networking Sites

What has Google Alerts done for you lately?

I rely heavily on blogging and Twitter to build my own brand visibility and market my business. I count Google Alerts as one of the most important strategies in my personal brand toolkit.

If you’re not aware of or taking advantage of Google Alerts, set up an account with Alerts for whatever online mentions you want to track. They may include:

• Your name
• Your blog and website names
• Your company name, if you have one
• Names of companies you’re targeting or want to be informed about
• Keywords and phrases relevant to your niche
• Names of relevant products or services
• Names of subject matter experts and major players in your industry
• Names of people whose radar you want to get under.

When these words or names are mentioned in a blog post or online articles or anywhere online, Google Alerts promptly sends you an email with a link to the web page where they appear.


What’s the big deal?
Practically as it happens, Google delivers to you the latest news relevant to your chosen Alerts. Not all the Alerts you receive will yield anything of value, but many will, and some will lead you to information and sites you never would have found otherwise. Google Alerts will keep you apprised of what’s going on in your world and lead you to places where you can position your brand value, and hopefully generate interest in you and evangelism for your brand.

What do you do with all these incoming Alerts?
In general, Alerts help you:
♦  Keep track of what, if anything, people are saying about you and your blog, website or company.
♦  Find out what people of interest or others in your industry are thinking and talking about.
♦  Stay informed of the latest trends within your niche and areas of interest.
♦  Connect with new information to expand your knowledge base.
♦  Penetrate new communities of forward-thinking subject matter experts and extend your network.

For career marketing and job search:
♦  Uncover decision makers at companies of interest to you, with whom you can connect.
♦  Compile company and industry market intelligence when preparing for job interviews.
♦  Assess and conduct due diligence on companies you’re considering working for.


For blogging and Twitter:
♦  If you quickly act on an Alert, you may be the first responder to a new post on a blog. People reading blog comments are much more likely to notice, read the comment, and click on the link provided when a comment lands at the top of the list. And your blog comments build on-brand search results when people Google “yourname”, especially if the blog has good link weight.
♦  When you get an Alert on a blog post you’ve written within an hour or two of publishing it, you’ll know Google considers it highly relevant and will be sending other searchers to the post when they Google matching keywords.
♦  Generate ideas for blog posts and tweets from Alerts you receive.
♦  Find relevant sites where you may be able to publish an article or guest blog, adding more strong search results for your name and blog or website.


What has Google Alerts done for you lately?