Let me ask you a question.  Does the fact that Tiger was aiming for holes that weren’t on the course make him a less-proficient golfer?  If I’m hiring him to speak on marriage, maybe I pause.  If I’m hiring him to play golf (what he does), then that’s not a problem.

In today’s workplace, would you rather be an interchangeable cog, whose only real differentiation from someone else is how much you charge per year?  Or would you rather be the piece so unique and intricate that your misshapen ass barely fits into the machine?

Jessica will be the first to point out that you can be passionate and professional and unique while using social media.  Common sense dictates that unless you’re applying for a job as a dancer, stripper, or porn star, you don’t publish naked pictures online… and let’s assume for the most part that aside from the occasional stupid mistake, most people are “within reason”.

If you’re muting your personality to the point where 70% of your interactions are “strictly business related”, you’re not being the real you, now are you?

What happens if you only present 30% of yourself when you’re 100% douchebag? (bad for the company)  Or 100% pure awesome? (bad for your job search)

Either way you are a liar, you’re ruining the economy and you’re an idiot.  And you’re going to keep being a liar until you’re 100% you – the only you there is.

Tiger is a good example of personal branding gone wrong.  He does what he loves, no qualms about it.  Occasionally, he f*cks up.  Personal Branding made it worse – he couldn’t be professional “Tiger” and honest, truthful “Tiger” at the same time.  He’s still Gandhi on the golf course.  Some day, he’ll remember who he is and that you can’t be sane and two people at once.

Your professional self is your personal self, one in the same, one person, growing over time.

What kind of company would want to hire someone they knew only 30% about?  What kind of company would penalize you for having a complete, unabashed social media presence if you were a wizard at your profession?  Why do we reward people who want to work for a company that only wants 30% of us?

I’ve long said that collaboration will be the new competition once the Millennials take over.  There’s no better example of that than Brazen Careerist.  A blog aggregator and so much more – Brazen has grown to include more than 1,000 blogs from Gen-Y troublemakers all around the world – this blog included.  They’ve been featured on TechCrunch and many other blogs – anyone who is part of the Brazen community knows that their success is also our success.

Nowhere can you find a more diverse set of voices, each one trying to find their way in this crazy-ass world we’ve inherited.

I am very proud to be a part of that community – and encourage you to support them as they launch their new site by paying them a visit.

Thank you,

-Nick Armstrong

“Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies.” – Quark, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.

I’m about the most rabid advocate for the millennial generation you will ever meet.  Usually this takes the form of me berating the “corporate bastards” on Twitter and writing angry blogs in response to ageist blog posts and magazine articles.  They, in turn, largely ignore these as they sit on gold thrones and count their rapidly shrinking piles of money.

What I’ve noticed is that for as rabidly and vehemently anti-young person these business “professionals” are, they quickly change their tone when you confront them in person with stats and figures.  In fact – most of this age-based tension is based on surface-level stereotypes ALONE.  It just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

Here’s my solution: practice tolerance and declare peace.  When an older generation does something you think is cool – promote the hell out of it.  When they screw up, be patient and explain why they offended you.  It’s very easy (and really fun) to write a snarky comment or e-mail in anger, but it’s just going to deepen the chasm between the generations.  Your call.

A BarCamp is based around the idea that the coffee breaks are much more valuable than the actual sessions… and so the “sessions” consist of self-organized coffee breaks to talk about specific subjects.  There are no highly-paid presenters, there are no hoity-toity sales pitches, and there isn’t a lot of free, but useless, swag.

I’m convinced that the idea of attending people-created BarCamps, TweetUps, going to MeetUp.com and finding local business events, and attending unemployed-centric events is the most effective way to network.  Not only do you get to showcase your skills or share ideas with a highly-energetic and tuned-in audience, but you get to rub elbows with people you never even knew existed!

How do you succeed at a BarCamp?  Well – you take business cards… or set up a free Contxts account so you can share them via SMS text message.  Then, you think about things you are knowledgeable about as they relate to the theme of the conference.  At a WineCamp and know something about vintage port?  Write your idea up on the whiteboard and if people like it, they’ll attend.  Having a creative or funny name for your “discussion” is a big help!

Attend other people’s discussions – listen and pitch in! Ask questions, participate!  Don’t go into a BarCamp with the expectation that it’s all about you – it’s about you SHARING your knowledge with other people. It’s true that what you put in will dictate what you get out of it – the more you share, the more people are going to want to talk to you (as long as you’re not a raving idiot).

Most of all, network! Introduce yourself to anyone and everyone who looks or sounds interesting – write down memorable questions and ask if you can e-mail people later.

You never know, you might just be hobnobbing your way to your next job!

Today’s job market blows balls. Only 20% of 2009′s grads applying for jobs are getting them, and a quarter of new hires have an “in”.  It pays to know someone who can open doors for you.

Millennials cringe when approached with the idea of finding a mentor.  In general, we equate mentors with “life coaches” – snake-oil selling hacks who like to show off just how stupid they are by imparting “wisdom” to others.  Or maybe even to good old mom and dad who always seemed to have a never-ending supply of “things we should do” to be better.

No thanks.

Mentors – real mentors – aren’t like that.  They can be your saving grace – if you find a good one.  A good mentor:

• Is willing to share their time with you on a regular basis (or as often as possible)
• Does not try to sell you anything or try to use you as an unpaid intern
• Solicits your opinion and actually listens when you voice one
• Asks questions that make you think about things you care about
• Will introduce you to their contacts if the link will be beneficial
• Has just as much respect for your time as you do for theirs

Assuming you have some idea of what you’d like to do with your life, you probably know who the “head hanchos” are in that field.  If you don’t know, do a little research with a Google Search or Twitter.  In fact – you should identify *anyone* you find interesting in your field.  Having friends who do the same thing you want to do always helps!

If you find someone local, ask them to meet you for coffee or for lunch.  Otherwise, a quick note to ask if you can pick their brain for 15 minutes on the phone will do.  Come prepared to these meetings with 1) your resume and business card, 2) a list of questions – not stuff you can find online or by digging for 5 minutes, but real in-depth questions that demonstrate your knowledge of the field you want to go into, and 3) a good sense of humor and willingness to learn.  When your 15 minutes is up, thank your new mentor and ask for another meeting at a specific date in the future, or at least to stay in contact.

A quick word of warning – you have to work to avoid hucksters on Twitter, so look for people who have @ replies in their stream rather than just endless posts of links, people who aren’t trying to sell you something, and people who answer you when you ask questions (really difficult if your heroes are as popular as Leo Laporte).  Also, avoid wasting people’s time.  Show up on time to meetings, don’t ask stupid (easy to look-up questions) and be willing to learn!

To be honest, I forgot what I had intended the second skill to be. It doesn’t really matter. With only 20% of 2009 college grads who’ve looked for jobs actually getting a job, I say screw it.

Screw that system. It doesn’t work. Why play that game?

Become an entrepreneur – team up with a group of people who know how to build a business plan. Start up an LLC. It only costs $50. Maybe get certified. Make a kick-ass website. Learn a marketable skill (or improve the one you’re good at already) from someone who’s amazing.

One thing’s for certain – you can’t beat the hours. Besides, mom and dad can’t complain that you’re not doing anything with your life. You’re living the American Dream – with a more than decent shot at paying them back for that room in the basement they’re renting to you. If they get really fussy, go mow the lawn or do the dishes and get back to starting your own business.

Good luck!

The first is Networking.

Networking is the act of building up relationships with the people you know.  Not the bow-chica-bow-wow kind of relationships, the more meaningful “You can do something for my business, I want to pay you a huge sum of money now” kind of relationships.

According to a February 2009 survey of employers (PDF), over a quarter of new hires are accomplished via networking.  You do this by introducing yourself (and your marketable skills) to people you know, and in turn, they introduce you (and your marketable skills) to the people they know.

Except you can’t just go up to someone and say, “I’m a marketer, will you introduce me to Joe the Plumber who needs some marketing done?”  You have to build relationships.  You have to cultivate trust.  Not just that, but you also have to use the right tools.  Once you build relationships, cultivate trust, and use the right tools – your network will do 99% of the work for you, promoting you by word of mouth.  Sometimes you still have to ask for the proper introductions, but in my experience, this only happens 1% of the time.

Using Twitter and LinkedIn are good ways to start – making sure you have a full profile on each.  You also have to respect the cultures of those networking tools – on LinkedIn, you can’t really connect with someone you don’t know, unless you arrange an introduction through someone you do know.  On Twitter, it’s a common practice to connect with someone you have no ties to.  But god help you if you DM the same thing to everyone or auto-follow like a jerk.

Most of all, networking is a two-way street.  You have to be willing to set up connections for your network as well.  Being selfish is a great way to diminish and destroy your network.  Network the right way – network like a Digital Gunslinger.  Use honesty, transparency, authenticity, credibility, accountability, integrity, and humility to build your networks piecemeal – one person at a time.  Be a digital gunslinger in person as well as online and you’ll bring in all sorts of cool opportunities!

In fact, by building my own network using the same principles, I was eventually able to talk at Ignite Fort Collins #1!  How cool is that?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJLgaAsT4tU

Rather than give you a boring text article on how to overcome it, I’ll share with you a 5-minute education via Ignite Fort Collins and a very talented woman who knows -a-friggin’-lot- about public speaking.  Tanis Roeder, a member of the Sage Marketing Group, presents “Public Speaking or Death” from Ignite Fort Collins #1:

With jobs harder to come by than a nudity-free Sasha Cohen appearance, many people have started to ask themselves if they shouldn’t consider a different career.  Maybe even one they don’t have formal training in.

I don’t advocate looking for a job you’re over-experienced for, but there’s no problem aiming for a different career than the one you were formally educated in.  In fact, it’s only natural that over the span of your career, your job interests will shift.  Rob’s question is more focused on what happens when you are trained for construction management, but the only jobs you are able to find are related to your hobbies – things like motorcycle repair.

If you’re trying to go from Civil Engineer to Doctor, I can’t help you.  Otherwise, read on…

The first step is to make sure that the switch will be right for you.  Is the new career something you can commit to doing long-term?  Is it something you have done before or have at least some volunteer experience doing?  Is the learning curve easy enough for you to catch up before your money runs out?

If you answered no to any of those questions, don’t make the switch.  If you can answer yes to all of those questions, it demonstrates that you are passionate about your new career.  Having passion means you’ll be willing to put in the time and the effort to make up for the lack of formal education.  If you’re passionate, you’ll take on internships, do your homework, spend time learning something new every night, and devote yourself to your new career.  Heck, you might even pursue some technical training, if you have the money for it!

The hard truth is, unless you have prior experience or an “in” – someone who can vouch for you and give you a chance, you will likely have to work for free until you prove you have the chops.

The second step is to figure out how you can sell yourself to your employer.  Most employers will look at the education section closely.  Did you go to a reputable university? Do you list your GPA? What was your major? How quickly did you graduate?  Of course, this is under normal circumstances.  In today’s economy, every job opening is met with wheelbarrows full of resumes.  You have to be prepared to be actively and continuously screened out on the basis of your resume alone.  List your qualifications and expertise – making sure to list whatever skills you have which apply to your new career.

Write a specific resume – one that applies to this new career (where perhaps your old resume might not be so effective).

Write a killer cover letter.  People – and this is just one of those human things – love a loser.  Not like, terminal losers, but… the underdog.  The one who’s down and out but fighting to the last to come back.  So, your first choice of career didn’t work out – but it gave you a passion to pursue what really makes you happy.

Dedicate yourself to learning. Find and read as many books as you can. Make yourself an expert in theory, even if you don’t have the practice down yet.

The final step is to find an in.  Network like crazy, find out who the key players are in your new career – people who are local to you, people who you can meet up with for coffee and advice.  Make sure to respect their time and efforts if they agree to meet with you.  Try to make the meeting beneficial for them as well.  A network is a powerful, but sharp, tool.  With just enough direction and pressure, it can carve a path for you.  With too much or too little direction or too much or to little pressure, the blade becomes dull and you go nowhere.

Above all else – never give up.  If you are truly passionate about something, someone will eventually give you the opportunity to prove yourself.

I hate white lies.

Dishonesty – especially dishonesty in business – is usually bad form.

But there are times when lies of omission can be helpful.  A lie of omission is one in which you leave out an important fact or detail.

Lies of omission can be helpful in business – for example, when you are looking for another distributor or another business partner.  Lies of omission keep information from people who don’t need to have it at the moment.

A lie of omission can also save you from awkward conversations with your boss or co-worker.  If a co-worker asks how much money you make, for example.  Or if your boss asks an overly-personal question that you’d rather avoid.

It’s always best to be honest in your dealings – if your current business partner is not meeting your needs, they might be able to turn it around if you give them the chance.

But, when you sense that the negatives of sharing the information outweigh the positives of sharing it, you might be better off omitting the truth.

Times are tough and jobs are sparse.

There seems to be two distinct lines of thought about what the unemployed should do.

One line of thought says, “The Spice Must Flow” – in other words, go out and get any job you can that will keep the roof over your head and food on the table.

Another line of thought says, “Every Person Has A Calling” – that is, you should get a job you like since that’s the job you’ll be best at.

My personal thought on this is that if you take on a job you don’t like, even if it pays well, you’re going to bring yourself and the company a whole lot of hurt.

First, the company has to pay to establish your benefits – and they have to pay for a month after you leave.  More than that, if you qualify and participate in COBRA (a program to continue your benefits after you’ve been laid off/leave the company) the company will pay for a portion of those benefits or at least partially share in the cost increase for any healthcare you receive (in later years).

Second, the company has to pay the costs to train you.  This is time and productivity lost on their part – especially if you don’t like the job or take longer to train for a position that could have been better acclimated to than someone else.

Finally, lets say you are completely bored with your job and end up working only 90% as hard as you could have.  The company is losing that productivity from you – you’re, in essence, cheating the company because you chose poorly.  Even if you swear that you’re going to do the job, do your best, give 100% – you’re eventually going to slip.

Not to mention, if you’re dissatisfied with the main task you’re responsible for, you’re more likely to make mistakes and less likely to correct mistakes when you make them.  Middle school dance lessons, anyone?  We’re not a nation of ballroom or square dancers.

You might feel differently when you have to buy ramen noodles rather than the spaghetti noodles at the grocery store, but you will most definitely like your job and be happier with your life.

Last night the news told me that gold is selling for around $900 an ounce.  People are resorting to panning for gold to pay the bills.

That’s when it struck me.  We’ve come full circle to the time of the Wild West.

The big banks somewhere off in the East keep on doing their thing, but it’s the local, littler banks we all trust now.  Robberies are getting more common and the thieves are more desperate – and what’s more, we can identify with the people doin’ the theivin’!  Honest, hard-working people who hit a low spot and just want to keep food on the table and a house over their heads.  The best we can hope for is an undisturbed spot on the river and a fire to cook our beans with.

The situation in America is pretty damn bad.  A new study showed that less than 20% of 2009 grads are getting jobs they’ve applied for.  A whopping 65% are moving back in with Mom and Dad.  It’s not all doom and gloom, but if only 20% of new grads are getting hired and the boomers just ain’t retiring, the job market seems to be in mighty slim pickins.

Don’t let that get you down.  There’s always grad school – more education can only help you here.  You can even go the route of the entrepreneur – just don’t become a snake oil salesman (though if ya do, Twitter is a great platform).  Be smart and conserve your resources – pay for necessities and skip the niceties if you can go without.

The best you can do is to carve out your own living as best you can.  Hold on to a job you might not enjoy as much as you might like.  Express yourself in your off-time as much as possible if your work doesn’t bring you satisfaction.  Do as much as you can to become a digital gunslinger – make your opinions count and your voice heard.

Remember that in tough times good people tend to face situations that aim to make them bad people.  Don’t let it happen to you.  Keep your head up and keep moving forward as best you can – and look to anyone you can trust to help you.

I’ll help as best I can – free resume reviewing, all the free info and tutorials on the website, and so on.  If you have questions, all you need to do is ask!

It all started with Madonna, really. When I first saw Madonna on MTV, back in junior high, it was a revelation. She was the first woman I’d seen who was pretty, feminine, sexual AND powerful. In Madonna, I saw what I wanted to be. She had it ALL, and one day, I would too.

Well, I don’t quite have it all. I’m not famous (yet), and my taste in men has been slightly more, shall we say, subtle. But I do have a lot of what she’s got. I keep up with my appearance, and I’m not afraid to use my femininity to my advantage. I also have power. While I’m no CEO or even the biggest boss in my workplace, I have exactly the position and salary I want. And more importantly to me, people listen when I talk. In a male-dominated industry and workplace, I get to be a decision maker.

So how can a girl keep up with the boys at work? Simple – act like a man.

• Don’t be afraid to speak your mind. I don’t care if you’re a man or a woman, if you don’t have faith in your own ideas and opinions, you’ll never get ahead. Be willing to put it out there. If your ideas fail, shake it off. You’ve got to remember to…
• Never take things personally. If a man is put down or slighted at work, he gets a little aggravated but soon forgets about it. If it happens to a woman, we often worry that the offender won’t be our pal or she’ll quit inviting us to lunch or we’ll never work in this town again!!! Just. Stop. It. It’s not about you or the way you wear your hair or where you went to school. It’s not personal – it’s work.
• When you score, always take credit. Women often like to share the glow and good feelings. And that’s very important. Giving your coworkers credit for sharing in your accomplishments is nice, and helps ensure that you’ll work well together in the future. But the key word is sharing. Not giving away. You did it. You worked hard to wow the client. Your great idea slashed the budget. You you you. Do not be afraid to take credit when you’ve done something well.
• Have a personal life. When a guy leaves work early to catch his kid’s soccer game, he’s praised for being such a good family man. Women try to slink out incognito so that no one thinks they’re shirking work duties for family. So what if a man’s hobby means he has to slip out on Wednesday afternoons every once in a while to play on the best golf course? Can you imagine if you wanted to take an afternoon off to attend a cooking demonstration? You can’t? Well, do it! Tempt fate and take some time off with no explanation and no excuses. Personal days and vacation time aren’t exclusively for men.
• Always apologize for your mistakes. Never apologize for who you are. Men don’t often apologize enough. They screw up and try to throw someone else under the bus. That’s just jerky. But women tend to apologize too much. We apologize for our ideas or for not doing something we weren’t supposed to do in the first place or for numerous things that are beyond our control. And that’s just silly.
• Look good. I don’t mean get plastic surgery or doll yourself up beyond recognition. I mean stay well-groomed and well-dressed. Get your nails done. Put on at least a little bit of make up. Wear the best clothes you can afford. Make sure they’re always clean and well-pressed. Keep up with the latest styles. Show off your assets. A sharp-looking woman simply stands out more than a man in an expensive suit. It’s all about demanding attention.
• Never undervalue yourself. Think of everything you can do, all the education you’ve completed, all the energy you have to give. Then demand you be compensated for those things. I know this is a lousy job market, and you might have to take a lesser position to pay the bills. But never, ever resign yourself to accepting less than you deserve without a fight. Here are two things I’ve said before in interviews:

“I understand that my pay requirements aren’t in your budget right now. However, I’d really love to work with you. Let’s just put it in my contract that we’ll review my compensation after six months.”

“I appreciate your offer, but the compensation is much too low. I am, quite frankly, worth more than that. If you’re able to revisit the salary for this position, please let me know, because I’d love to work with you. Thanks for your time.”

Neither backfired on me. I knew my value, and I wasn’t afraid to let people know what it was. And for that, I was respected. And eventually, I got what I wanted.

And that’s what it’s all about – getting what you want. We don’t have to be Madonna, but we certainly owe it to ourselves and the world to live the life that makes us happy.

Bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch…

How many times did you complain about something today?  How often had you wished that you had the power to change your situation to make whatever it was you were complaining about better?

Most of the time, you do. So what’s stopping you?

Sure, a lot of the things you complain about seem to be outside of your control. Maybe you don’t like your boss. Maybe you don’t like the project you’re assigned to, or the people you’re working with.  Maybe you don’t like the workspace you have or that your company doesn’t provide free tea or coffee anymore.

So what?

The first thing you should ask yourself is “So What?” There was a book called “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” – I think that’s bad advice.  Life is holistic: small details make all the difference in the big picture.  Don’t be afraid to sweat the small stuff, but ask yourself: Is this thing that’s making you belly-ache so much really that important?  Does it prevent you from having as good a life as you would like?  If the answer is no to both questions, then drop it.  Otherwise…

When viewed at holistically, and not piecemeal, problems are daunting and often outside of our control.  But if you examine every angle of the problem, all the little details, you start to see small pieces that you can change.

Fine-tuning the small details can make a world of difference. Focus on the aspects of a problem that you can change, bit by bit, piece by piece, until the big picture looks a little different.

Abraham Lincoln said, “I don’t like that man. I must get to know him better.”  Apply this to your less-than-favorite co-workers or that boss you bought the special voodoo doll to use against.  Is it the whole package that you don’t like?  Maybe it’s the way they chew their food?  Or maybe they just said something wrong at the wrong time and the wrong place to set you off.  The point is - the little details provide a saving grace – you can change minute bits of the relationship until you either avoid or eliminate the things you didn’t like about that person.  Making yourself aware of the details of a situation can only work in your favor.

The time for complaining is gone.  The time to solve problems is here.  Quit yer bitchin’!

A great marketing position that works on commission, you say? Tell me more!

Telling the Difference between Entrepreneurs and Kooks is becoming more and more difficult these days.

Between Twitter “marketers” (in quotes for a reason!) who have 13k followers and do nothing but parade links around all day and Facebook ads promising unlimited wealth from Obama checks, there’s just so much noise it’s hard to keep our heads in the game when looking for that first real job.

Even experienced job hunters are sometimes lured in by the silky smooth words of snake oil salesmen.  It blows, but it’s a great experience.  As millennials, we have a leg up.  Things like… well, the bad things that happened in our lives – 9/11, Columbine, and so on, have given us a great filter for BS.

We have an amazing capacity to detect deception.  But even we get sucked in from time to time.

Some red flags I’ve learned to watch out for:

Any “marketing” position that mentions cold-calling, sales, or seems like door-to-door sales positions. This is a big one, because us creative types go, “Oh, Marketing! I can do that!” and we quickly learn that marketing is really a codeword for “please bend over for us while you pimp our product to people who don’t want it.”

Any job where the CEO meets you at a coffee shop, then informs you that the position is not as advertised.

Any job where your immediate supervisor was never trained for the job you’re supposed to be doing.

Any job where your employee number is larger than your weekly pay.

I’m sure I’ve forgotten some – so please, refresh my memory and post your own in the comments section.  I’ll move the particularly poignant ones up here into a post-published addition.

EDIT: 4/23/2009: Brian came up with another condition – “you should avoid any job that requires YOU (the candidate) to pay [somebody] for anything in association with starting your job.”  This is true – watch out for pyramid schemes!  They’re becoming harder and harder to spot!  If you’re being hired for something, but asked to pay something for any reason – walk away.