The Unemployment Chronicles Chapter 2: Linking Myself In

Last week, my unemployment became official when I submitted my lay off notice to the Illinois Department of Employment Services (IDES). It felt weird waking up on a Monday and having no work junk emails to delete. It also felt weird waking up around 10-11am or so. I decided to give myself a little time to unwind following the lay off, hence the extra sleep.

That's not to say I haven't been looking for jobs - I have. But my focus in the days leading up to my last day at Tango2 and my first days/first week of unemployment were more or less about getting my cards in order. The best way to do that, I've found, is through LinkedIn.

Many of you are probably already familiar with LinkedIn, but for those who aren't, the site is a more professional version of Facebook (let's just say, you might not want to have that picture of you taking jello shots with your friends as your profile for this site). LinkedIn is basically an online resume of what you want prospective employers and networks to see.

For those of you who wish to use LinkedIn optimally, here's a few things I've found out that can help the most:

1. One of my favorite features of LinkedIn is the recommendations section. The people you add as connections and vice versa can vouch for your work history by writing up a small blurb of their interactions with you at your current or past job.
   
   One of my recommendations for the recommendations section is to initiate the recommendations yourself. Write about your colleagues who you have interacted with the most and let the world know about their professional strengths. In many cases, you'll find that these colleagues will return the favor and publicly vouch (on LinkedIn) for how great of a job you did for the company.
   
2. There's also an option on the site for you to endorse people's skills. This can work in several ways - you can add skills yourself or you can have someone endorse you for a skill. In this particular section, the skills that you have been endorsed for the most will show up towards the top of this section. Again, like the previous point, I recommend taking the first step and endorsing people's skills in hopes that they can return the favor.
   
3. While I haven't utilized these yet, I recommend joining groups in your area of employment or desired area of employment. There are groups for just about every different type of profession, and to help you further, there are a lot of groups specific to professionals in a certain city or region. This can help you connect quickly to people in your area and profession that you may have never known before. I am in a few groups myself, but have not utilized these as well as I should.
   
4. And last but not least, you can check out jobs a lot easier than you can on most of those job building sites. Most of the jobs that pop up on my page are relating to my last role as a Sales Support Specialist. My guess is that it caters to what you have mentioned in your job history in your profile, so make sure you provide up-to-date and accurate job titles for the companys you have worked.

In addition to my networking through LinkedIn, I have reached out to most of my old co-workers and friends who have jobs in similar industries to see what might be out there and hope to get a name-drop here or there. A few of my former co-workers were kind enough to write recommendation letters for me, which I will have at my disposal should potential employers ask for them.

Now's the time for me to set myself up with some hard leads and get myself some interviews. Hopefully that will be chronicled in one of the next Unemployment Chronicles.

I may need some help with my resume, so anyone who knows anyone who specializes in resumes, I'd be glad to send you mine to see what I may need to edit.

Thanks for reading. Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn if you haven't already. I would be glad to write you a recommendation if I've worked with you in the past or endorse some skills of yours.

Putting the "Networking" into Social Networking

I don't remember the majority of statuses I posted on Facebook this past year, but I distinctly remember one that was posted on Day 1 of the year. It had to do with not cursing on Facebook as much this year as a New Year's Resolution.

Funny thing was, it was my mom who posted that when I left my Facebook up after getting a slice of pizza at Nonna's. I laughed it off and commented on my status that it got hacked and proceeded to curse to contradict "my" New Year's Resolution.

Time passed, and I didn't give this status much thought. Then, my company trip came around in March. I befriended some folks from work on Facebook afterwards. While it may not have hit me right away, I realized that I needed to present myself better on these social networks - as it is a reflection of myself and who I am.

Earlier this week, I read an article I found from someone I follow on Twitter (@beyondthebets for those on Twitter), and he went into describing a speech he gave to a college class full of seniors. He was telling the kids that the concept of sending resumes to employers are becoming more obsolete. (Here's the link to the article). With all of the searching abilities on the Internet & virtual footprint that many people leave, a lot of candidates can be eliminated with a simple Google investigation.

Likewise, someone who leaves a positive impression can boost their chances of getting hired. Looking at a website that someone has created (highly recommended to these college seniors by the guy) can give employers the chance to see what kind of work this candidate is capable of producing.

With this in mind, I think one of my goals moving forward is establishing my own website. I'll need to learn how to design a site, and I'd like to have a theme to it, rather than the randomness of my blog. I could promote it on social networks and hopefully get a following of people.

Step one in this process is getting my own personal laptop - an Apple most likely. I'll get back into video editing and possibly start creating my own content for a webshow. This is something I will do at the beginning of 2012.

I may look to reach out to people on how to best do this. I know a few friends who I might ask for help - it's always good to have people you know who can help you out.

While it wasn't my intention to clean up my social networking posts, it was (and is) in my best interests to maintain them with some level of professionalism. That doesn't mean I won't post something that ruffles feathers from time to time, but it does mean I am more conscious of it.

So let this be a lesson to those of you who post pictures of yourself doing a beer bong or update your status with incoherent drabble about "This girl is a whore/slut". People are watching you, some who could decide your fate when it comes to getting a job recommendation down the line. When looking at these social networks, people often forget the word "network" in this equation.

I guess I can say "Mama Knows Best" when it came to my initial Facebook post of the year. Thanks Mom.

Social Network Alert

Last night, I posted my 1,000th tweet in my 7th month of being on Twitter, which I started on my first Vegas trip in 2011.

I'm predicting that I will have about 3-4K tweets in 2012 as I wean myself off of Facebook more and more. I think Twitter will surpass Facebook some day. News is broken on Twitter faster than any other medium. I get a lot of news that I wouldn't have ever found on Facebook, much of which is specialized in the areas of life that I like to have as much information as possible (i.e. sports gambling info).

If you decide to go over to Twitter this year, my name couldn't be any easier to remember (@BrianBolek). Most of my posts are sports-related, but I do have some outside observations from time to time that may get you to laugh.

Anywho, hope everyone has a Happy New Year. And once again, thanks for reading.