I often advise candidates on targeting their answers in a job interview.  But sometimes this gets misinterpreted.  It's something hiring managers will complain about occasionally,  "I think the candidate was just telling me what I want to hear."  Avoiding that seems to be a very slippery slope, and a very fine line when trying to do your best in a job interview.

It is always a good idea to ask the interviewer what they feel are the most important qualifications to have in the job for which you are interviewing.  Listen carefully to the response.  Then try to target your answers accordingly.  What you want to avoid is attempting to interpret what the interviewer wants to hear in answer to each question.

Interview questions come in all shapes and sizes.  Some are quite innocent and straight forward.  Others are designed to see how your respond to tricky questions.  Others still are open ended and attempt to get you to "speak freely" about a subject.  Don't attempt to get tricky in your response.  Just remember what the job is, and what the interviewer said are the qualities they feel are important.  Highlight the truth about your background and skill set that compliment those things.

It will help to be well prepared.  Be sure you know your resume as it applies to the job description.  In a great article written by A-List Solutions' Jeff Lipschultz on How To Prepare for the Interview, Jeff suggests making a check list to bring with you to the interview:

• On the left side of your desk, put the job description (and any other company information beyond the job description—a good recruiter will have this, along with the company’s web site).  Put your resume to the right.  Then put a blank sheet of paper next to the resume.
• Literally connect requirements and company info on the left with the resume experiences and skill set on the right.  Literally, it’s like connecting the dots with a crayon—child’s play!  Hopefully, you create a complex web of connections as you may connect a requirement to several spots on your resume.  And several requirements on the left may link to the same experience on the right.  These connections are checklist items.
• Build your checklist by listing the requirements (and related company info) along with the best examples of your ability and experience.  You should include boxes to check off as you interview.  You need not write out details, as all you will need is some code words to remind you of the example(s) you want to share.  More

And what about those tricky interview questions?  It may help your nerves a bit to know, in advance, what some of the seemingly innocent and obviously tricky questions you may be asked are geared toward.  Colleen Clark has a nice list of What an Interviewer Wants to Hear on Monster.com.

What motivates you the most?
They want to know what gets you out of bed - helping people, building a safe facility, developing teams, completing projects on time, implementing fair and honest practices, making people laugh.

How would you describe your personality?
Mention two or three personal characteristics that you are confident about -- a sense of humor, patience, supportive of others or highly versatile. Try to make them relevant to the company or position being applied to. If you have done any assessment testing, take words you most identify with out of them. Of course, prepare for this question beforehand.

How do your subordinates perceive you?
Stick as much as you can to work-related skills that you know they know you have. Interviews are not personality disclosing interrogations; they are to ensure you have the skills and fit to do the job. Say you are conscientious, ambitious, tenacious or helpful.

What can you offer us that other candidates cannot?
You have no idea what the other candidates bring to the table so your best answer is to mention at least two benefits you will provide: I will save the company money on.... OR I will decrease OR improve OR increase OR implement...

What is the most demotivating work environment for you?
This question comes in the back door of what kind of people or office personality do you like best? Negativity, inflexible, non-team supported or closed-door policy are safe answers and not too revealing. You can always turn that question around and say, work environments that are supportive, friendly, helpful and congenial are my favorite places to work.

Where would you like to be in five years from now?
Keep in mind that you are not interviewing for any other position than the one you are there for right now. Best you say something like, I hope to still be working for the company and hopefully promoted based on my accomplishments. Telling them you want their job is not a job idea or saying that you want to start your own business, but you need some practical experience first, do not go there.

What important trends do you see coming in our industry?
This is your opportunity to tell them your opinions and to show that you have read up to the minute articles or books on what's coming down the pike.

In your last position, what where the things you liked the least? The most?
Have a reserved list ready of activities or tasks that you don't like, but really try to accentuate the positive as best as you can. Know your must-haves and flexibilities.

So now that you have seen these questions, remember not to try to do any interpreting on the fly by saying what you think the interviewer wants to hear.  Know yourself, your background, and your skills.  Know how they apply to this job.  Target your answers, but don't suck up.  A savvy interviewer will spot it and likely rule you out as a candidate. 

The bottom line is that if you are well prepared, you will be most likely to do well in an interview.  Being prepared gives you confidence and a positive attitude.  And if that still isn't enough to you you the job?  Chances are there are other factors involved about which you will never know.  No use worrying about them.  It's also possible that the job is not right for you.  In which case you chalk that interview up to good experience and move on. 

You will land the right job if you continue to prepare properly and stay positive.  Happy hunting!

Labels: careers, First Impressions, Hiring, interview tips, jobs

I have collected the most clicked upon recent links that I have shared on Twitter about interviewing and job searches as compiled by Tweetburner.

There is some great info in these articles.  Hope you find them helpful.  If you want to tune in for these links in real-time you can follow me on Twitter, http://www.twitter.com/fishdogs, where I am always sharing great career, hiring, marketing, and branding tips daily.  I will continue to list them here as well. 

Let me know what you think.

1. fishdogs: Life after layoffs: How to move forward after a job loss: http://twurl.nl/qxv5vj

2. Preparing For Your Next Job (Hint: start now) http://twurl.nl/qiq8y8

3. Happy Thursday good Twittizens: Do You Want Your Executive Resume to Generate More Interviews? http://twurl.nl/i31k2g

4. In Depth Interview Preparation and Checklists: http://twurl.nl/tekq3w

5. 8 Job Interview Tips: http://twurl.nl/vrccwv

6. Looking: Applying, Follow-Ups, and Interviews: http://twurl.nl/ns5zyf

7. Phone Interview Tips for Entry Level Job Seekers: http://twurl.nl/sc7tyh

8. The Idiotic Things People Say in Interviews : http://twurl.nl/d78rc1

9. How To Prepare for a Newspaper Interview: http://twurl.nl/cakyus

10. Pour some sugar on my . . .job search.  http://tinyurl.com/6mh9l4

11. Job seekers, don't take December off, experts advise:http://twurl.nl/sa0hlv

12. The Importance of Interview Practice: http://tinyurl.com/6rrdoe

13. Resumes and Interviews: A Thin Line Between Embellishment and Lies:http://twurl.nl/8ixvg5

14. Can social networking hurt your job prospects? Or help them?http://twurl.nl/tbvalr

Labels: branding, careers, Hiring, interview tips, jobs, Resumes, Twitter

If your company's HR department is not already utilizing Web 2.0 tools and Social Media to market the company to job seekers, it should be. A new report by Gartner, Inc., shows that even though corporate marketing and web strategies are embracing social media, HR departments are generally slow to align with those efforts for the purpose of employer branding.

Job seekers today research companies the same way recruiters research job seekers.  They look at what other people are saying about them on social media, blogs, and other Web 2.0 outlets.  HR Organizations who don't attempt to control their employer brands online are missing a great opportunity and run the risk of missing the most sought after job candidates.

A recent study by Potentialpark Communications, a Swedish-based research and consulting firm, surveyed 1,800 U.S. students and recent graduates in an effort to identify the leading corporate careers sites.  Rusty Weston wrote an article about the study, Checking Out the Best Corporate Careers Sites, that states:

"about one third of the rated companies use videos to present possible future colleagues, a walk through the office or the day-to-day work," says Potentialpark's Magdalena Knott. "The use of blogs, pod casts and web casts has not advanced too far until now, but the importance is rising."

The Top 10 U.S. Corporate Career Websites

by Potentialpark Communications

1. Deutsche Bank

2. Microsoft

3. BCG (Boston Consulting Group)

4. Merrill Lynch

5. Accenture

6. Charles Schwab

7. UBS

8. Booz Allen Hamilton

9. Intel

10. Bertelsmann

The Gartner report concludes that "By 2011, Organizations That Do Not Manage Their Employer Brands Effectively Will Fail to Attract Key Talent.

"Organizations are investing significantly in adopting marketing and sales strategies for social software, and Gartner predicts that by 2010, more than 60 percent of Fortune 1000 companies with Web sites will have some form of community that can be used for marketing purposes. Although many organizations hasten to adopt and exploit social computing in marketing, sales and customer support roles, Gartner has found that HR tends to lag behind."

According to Gartner, the first step that organizations need to take is to understand what is being said about them on social networks and informally benchmark this against competitors and peers, as well as companies that tend to lead in this area. They need to be prepared for candidates to enter the recruitment process with a much-deeper understanding of the organization than would have been expected previously. The organization must also look at new ways of improving its image online."

So where is an HR organization to start?  UK-based Web 2.0 development firm, Organic Development, offers these suggestions.

5 ways social media can benefit an Employer brand

1) Blogging is a great way of building up your online presence and generating awareness of what it is like to be employed 'on the ground' within a company. They help the business engage with candidate and employee audiences directly. Moreover, with blogging comes the opportunity to 'comment', where readers can actually speak back to the business, giving their opinions and input: free market research.

2) Engage and respond to feedback. Responding to your candidate and staff opinions makes for a stronger relationship, gaining your customer's trust and understanding. If people say good things about you, say thanks. This shows that they are genuinely being considered and their opinion matters.

3) Recruitment and HR Managers should welcome social networking sites such as Facebook, Linkedin and Myspace into the workplace. Not only are they tools for colleagues to recruit, promote HR policies, interact with employees and build relationships with each other but having them viewable by the public makes the company seem more approachable and engaging. Many companies are now using these sites already to recruit new members of staff, search for new business or to induct new team members.

4) Advanced search facilities allow people of all interests and niches to find and target what they are looking for quickly and easily. New and evolving audiences can be identified and reached without spending a penny.

5) If you create media that people enjoy and find useful in some way, they are likely to pass it on. Therefore, it is worthwhile seriously thinking about how social media could be incorporated into your business. The beauty of the concept is that through processes such as word of mouth, making a success of social media means sooner or later your audience will start to do the work for you. "

Blogger beware!  Corporate blogging has its pitfalls.  In an article written by Forrester Research analyst, and co-author of the book, Groundswell, Josh Bernoff comments on the recent Forrester survey that showed Only 16% of online consumers who read corporate blogs say they trust them.  Bernhoff says, "This means that if you blog, your goal should be to create a blog about which people say "I like that - I don't think of it as a company blog." For the most part, that's a hurdle you need to jump to gain their trust. I don't mean to hide who is writing the blog. I mean it has to be more about your customers than it is about you."

The survey, and Bernoff's comments, are geared more toward corporate marketing efforts than employer branding.  But the lesson is good for both.  The job candidates you are seeking are savvy.  They do read blogs and utilize social media.  So relying solely on a blog for your HR and employer branding is not advised.  Nor is posting the usual HR propaganda.  Get your real employees involved and make your message transparent and believable.  And use that content in conjunction with social media to create an organic source of top job candidates.  Give them a real face to associate with your Employer Brand.

You can find more great articles for Career and Employment at the A-List Solutions Weblog

Labels: blogging, branding, careers, Employer Branding, FACEBOOK, Hiring, jobs, LinkedIn, marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, web2.0

I found this today on PickTheBrain.com and wanted to share it.  Truly an inspiring piece that can help many of us during stressful times.  What really moved me was the thinking on perspective, and how it can change everything. 

So if you feel stuck, in anything, step back.  Take a break.  Come back to the situation with a new perspective.   If you think about a jigsaw puzzle, how different does it look when you are right on top of it trying to put the pieces together, vs. when you stand up to get the bigger picture?  Both views have value.  But if the macro view appears daunting, dive into it and tackle the problem piece by piece, step by step.  And when you hit a wall there, step back and look at the bigger picture from above.

The Jigsaw Puzzle of Live

by Stephen Cox

Image courtesy of zaxl4

Would you like to become more productive by doing less? Would you like to be capable of solving complex problems with sudden bursts of insight? Would you like to learn how to apply consistent effort to complete the most daunting of tasks? Great! Do a jigsaw puzzle.

Wait…What?

Recently, on a whim I purchased a 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle. I’d never completed a jigsaw puzzle before but I do enjoy all manner of mental stimulation. Interestingly the experience turned out to be unexpectedly instructive. As the pieces came together over the next couple of days the process of joining 1,000 pieces just so revealed a number of important lessons in productivity and the power of perspective and consistent effort.

Increase Your Productivity by Taking Breaks

As pieces of the puzzle began to come together there were times where I was engrossed for hours on end. The going was easy and the time spent productive. But then, suddenly I would hit a wall. No piece could be made to fit and for the life of me I couldn’t see where certain pieces should go.
At times such as these there may be a tendency to push doggedly on. You might want to keep at it until a breakthrough is somehow forced. Unfortunately the reward for such determination is more often frustration, stress and wasted time then success. Instead take a break from the task.

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” - Ovid

Get up and out of the environment and allow your mind to clear. You’ll return refreshed, motivated and most importantly with fresh perspective. So armed, the pieces of the puzzle (metaphorically speaking) will soon fall together. You will achieve much more while using a smaller amount of energy and effort.

Finally, to be productive, instead of attempting to multitask, focus on one task at a time. Multitasking serves only to reduce focus so you accomplish more things slower and make more mistakes. Mistakes mean you’ll have to redo the task and so reduce your productivity even further.

The Power of Perspective

Much of the improvement in productivity that comes from taking a break comes as a result of the fresh perspective produced as a result going away and letting your mind clear. At times while staring at the many scattered pieces of the puzzle progress seemed unlikely. Then the next day while walking pass the table where the jigsaw puzzle in progress sat obvious connections would leap out at me and once again the pieces would fly into place with ease.

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is perspective, not the truth.” - Marcus Aurelius

Perspective is one of the most powerful forces in the world and in our lives. The perspective you take, by conscious choice or otherwise, largely determines the nature and quality of your life. See difficulty and you life will be difficult. See opportunities and possibilities and you life will be constantly interesting. Life will be filled with excitement and unbounded experience.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” - Winston Churchill

Sometimes we find ourselves banging our head up against a wall. Nothing seems to be working and everywhere we turn our path forward appears blocked. At such times simply relaxing and letting things be for a time serves to give our conscious minds a break from matters.

Meanwhile the subconscious mind is working diligently away at the problem. Within a short space of time new events occur and the situation shifts. Doors that were previously locked are suddenly wide open and new doors we previously hadn’t known existed appear. The doors may have always been there. Only now our perspective has changed.

Consistent Effort Leads to Achievement

Famously it was said that a journey of 10,000 miles begins with a single step. After that first step comes another step. And another. All the way to the final destination 10,000 miles away.

1,000 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle looks like a lot when you have them all loosely spread out in front of you in one big mess. However connecting one piece to another is a simple task requiring just a moment to achieve. This idea of chunking things down into smaller things that we can easily do now and consistently over time is applicable to all manner of goals.

When I was studying at university one way I kept up consistent effort was by realizing that reading just one sentence of the reading for the week carried me closer to completing my degree. Just one paragraph. Just a page. Hardly a daunting task. This reveals the truth about monumental undertakings. They are simply a massive amount of small tasks combined. Do one today and do another tomorrow. Soon great progress is made and eventually the task is complete.

On Jigsaws and Life

More often then not the pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that is your life will come together in a manner beyond your currently ability to imagine. Be concerned if you wish so that you take appropriate action. However, do not worry. Temper consistent effort with time out. Apply movement and stillness at the appropriate time. Seek and allow for fresh perspectives both from within yourself and from exterior sources. Remember that jigsaw puzzles are made to be pulled apart. Most important of all, relax and learn to let go. The right pieces will come together at the right time. It’ll all work out.

This article was written by Stephen Cox. Stephen writes daily at Balanced Existence where he shares the knowledge and insights gained from his personal journey of holistic health and well being.

Labels: Productivity

As a veteran of the recruiting industry I look at resumes every day.  Dozens of resumes.  Dozens of cover letters.  Most are very generic and appear to be intended for a mass email audience.  This is a big mistake, whether you are sending the resume to a staffing firm, or directly to an employer.  Recruiters in staffing firms have the same reaction as hiring managers and recruiters in corporations.  Generic cover letters and untargeted resumes often go to the bottom of the pile, added to a database and forgotten, or sent to the deleted items folder.

An article in the Interview Edge Blog entitled How Easy is it For Someone to Hire You? has some great suggestions to follow the requested protocol and target your approach to those who may help you get hired.

"many candidates make it simple for hiring managers to exclude them from consideration.

Worse yet, this often occurs very early in the process.

Don’t let it happen to you. Today we’ll focus on things you can do at the initial stages to improve your prospects.

Follow Instructions
Seems obvious, doesn’t it? Yet you might be surprised how frequently candidates fail to comply with directions.

Consider the application. Complete the entire form accurately and as indicated. If you’re doing this offline and are asked to print, for example, don’t submit something written in cursive. Don’t leave fields blank. If you’re asked to insert your resume in the body of the email, don’t ignore the request and send it as an attachment instead.

Avoid Sloppy Mistakes With Your Resume
• Proof it – more than once – and have someone else proof it, also. Don’t rely on spell check. Spell check won’t catch the fact that you used the word “their” when you really meant “there.”  Spell check won’t catch all consistency errors – like the fact that you switched between present and past tense from one sentence to the next.

• Next, make sure you’re sending your resume to the correct person. If Paul Adams is the hiring manager, but you mistakenly send your information to Sue Richardson, you’re not helping your cause.

• Send it to a person…not “Dear Hiring Manager.”

• If you’re sending a lot of resumes, keep track of what you’re doing. Make sure what’s inside the envelope matches what’s on the outside (i.e. Sue Richardson shouldn’t open the envelope to find a letter addressed to Paul Adams – at another company!). Same thing with email. If the body of the message opens with a cover letter to Sue, you’d better be sure you’re sending it to her email address.

• Make sure you’ve included your contact information – it should be easy for the hiring manager to get in touch with you. That means you need to provide them with multiple options: email, phone, physical address.

In addition, you should always include a cover letter with your resume. Even if you’re submitting your information electronically, add a cover. These few paragraphs are a golden opportunity to get your foot in the door. This is your sales letter – use it to capture the reader’s attention, communicate your unique selling proposition, and convince her to read your resume. "

Labels: careers, Hiring, jobs, Resumes

Executive Recruiter Herman Collins has some no-nonsense resume tips.

by qpk8rX5

My cousin came to me a while back upset about his resume. He had paid a professional over $300 to have a great resume written. But after sending out dozens of copies, he still had not been granted any interviews. He was blaming the resume and was disappointed with the person he paid to write it.

My cousin calmed down after I explained that the writer was not really the problem. The resume was well written, but a well written resume is not necessarily a great resume.

What a resume can not do, no matter who writes it, is guarantee you interviews. And the whole point of your effort is to get interviewed so that you can get a job offer. A great resume is one that gets you the interview you want.

The problem is that the definition of a great resume is completely different for recruiters and hiring managers than it is for most job seekers. A well written resume can help alleviate your anxiety that somehow you are going to lose an interview opportunity because your resume is not perfectly written. The truth is, you lose interview opportunities most often because your experience does not closely fit the job.

If your resume is clear, concise and without noticeable inaccuracies then it is sufficiently written from the perspective of style and form. But recruiters are mostly interested in content.

Here is the precious secret to a great resume. A great resume reads like the job description! That is it. That is everything. For a hiring manager or recruiter a particular resume is great simply because it matches the job requirements to a tee. Not because the formatting is perfect, or the grammar professorial or the syntax is flawless.

A great resume stands out like a Masai at a Pygmy party. You can not miss it. When reading your resume, if the recruiter does not see a close fit in the first third to half a page, they will not read too much further. However, if they see a good fit they will read it with glee, like it is a treasure map.

Put your resume to the test. Have some friends look at the job description of the position you are interested in carefully alongside your resume. Is there any doubt in their minds when reading both documents together that your background is a close fit?

Most likely your resume will not contain the exact sentences and verbiage as the job description. The key is that they are nearly equal in the very essence of the requirements listed.

If after reading your resume, your friends begin asking you for explanations or clarifications, then there is doubt. Perhaps you are not a close fit for that particular job. If you are a close fit but your resume does not clearly reflect this, then you will need to rewrite the resume.

You may have to customize your resume almost every time you send it out. Not to mislead anyone about your experience, but to emphasize the areas of your background which are most important in that particular job description. If you are paying a writer to do your resume, insist they create one that you can easily customize.

If you have a resume closely matches the job description, then for that particular position, you probably have written a great resume. If there is any doubt, then perhaps all you have is a well-written resume.

About the Author

Herman Collins is an acclaimed executive recruiter and known around the globe as The Job Search Specialist. His proven job hunting strategies have helped 1,000 's . Go to: http://www.realjobtips.com to discover how to put his free powerful tips to use!

Article Source: Content for Reprint

Labels: careers, jobs, Resumes

This is a great post by Jun Loayza on Brandon Mendelson's blog for Newby internet marketers, existing bloggers who are not monitizing their efforts, and jobseekers wishing to brand themselves as experts in their field in order to get noticed and recruited.

How to make a profitable blog with under $20 - The Graduate Student Survival Blog - Graduate student Brandon Mendelson - Albany NY - Times Union#comment-772

December 2, 2008 at 12:19 am by Brandon Mendelson

If you’re a graduate student, you’re probably broke. How can you make some money to help pay for school? How about blogging? With a budget of less than $20, what steps would you take to build a blog that would turn a profit in 90 days? I asked the experts, and they answered. Want to tell us your thoughts on making a profitable blog for under $20? Write a guest post.

How to make a profitable blog with under $20

By: Jun Loayza, jun[dot]loayza[at]gmail[dot]com

I was challenged by Brandon to write a post about how to make a profitable blog with under $20. I of course cannot turn down a challenge, so I excitedly accepted. Here are the assumptions of this blog post:

* I will give advice that is concrete and actionable. All of these tips should be things that you can immediately start doing tomorrow. You will find no generalities here
* Domain names cost $10 to register
* Hosting is $200, so you will be unable to host your own site
* The blogger is starting from absolute zero personal brand and equity
* For the purpose of this post, we will assume your focus is Fashion
There are several ways to make money with a blog: advertisement, consulting services, eCommerce, or speaker events. If you honestly think about it, it all boils down to one thing: traffic. If you have the traffic, then you will be able to leverage it to make money.

This challenge really isn’t as hard as you may think. It’s going to take A LOT of extremely hard work, but you CAN do it. Let’s go ahead and dive in.

Step #1 - Control your personal brand online

The first thing you’re going to do is sign up for every single social network, bookmark, and micro blog out there. Furthermore, you’re going to buy your domain name for $10 and build your blog on top of that domain name using Wordpress

Social Networks and Micro Blogs:

* Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter
Social Bookmarks

* Digg, Stumble, Mixx, Delicious

You do not have the money to host your own account; therefore, you’re going to have to find a friend or contact who can host the domain name for you. If you must, give him the other $10 you have to make it worth his while.
What if you do not have a friend who you can bum hosting from? Then what you do is go to every single blog out there and build a relationship with each of them. Once you have found someone who you have become great friends with, ask her if you can use her host to host your domain name. Hopefully she’ll say yes. We’ll talk more about how to build relationships with bloggers below.
Recommended blog network to start at: Brazen Careerist

Step #2 - Create your identity and thought leadership
Blogs that are profitable focus on one topic and one topic only. Just take a look at ZenHabits. Leo focuses purely on personal development. He focuses on it religious, to the point that he lives and breaths personal development. This is what you’re going to have to do.
Take a moment (a week or month if you have to) and really find that one thing that you absolutely love and have the deepest passion for possible. I’m talking about such a deep passion that you could talk about this one topic for the rest of your life and never get sick and tired of it. This is what you need to find.
Found it? Ok, lets get moving. (Remember, for this post, I am assuming your focus is Fashion)
Set up every single online outlet that you have to reflect your expertise in Fashion. Take a look at Dan’s Personal Branding Blog. I dare you to google personal branding or his name. This guy lives and breaths personal branding. Everything from his Facebook, Twitter, to LinkedIn all reflect personal branding. This is what you have to do.
Every single link, picture, about me, and status update should reflect your expertise in Fashion. Great, so now we have found your thought-leadership. Lets keep going!

Step #3 - Blog your life away
You now have all of your social networks set up and your thought-leadership figured out. You want to make a profit blogging right? Well, it’s time for you to blog.
Don’t write great posts; write posts that are TO DIE FOR. I learned this from my good friend Derek who writes Prevential. In the next step I will teach you how to market, but if the content is not to die for, then people will not subscribe and keep coming back. Worse, if your content is not to die for, then they won’t tell their friends and promote it all over Twitter.
Write a post every single day. You said you want to make money right? Well, you better be blogging a to-die-for post every single day of the week in order to build the traffic you need to make money. If you take one single break, then you’ve lost it.
Guest write on every blog out there. Yes, you should write a guest post for blogs that are about Fashion, but you don’t have to necessarily stick to just Fashion blogs. Write a guest post for a Tech blog by writing an article about the new Web 2.0 fashion style. Write a guest post for a marketing blog by writing about how Fashion companies can use social media to promote and brand themselves. There is a way to write a guest post for every single blog out there. Go out there and do it!

Step #4 - Evangelize, Evangelize, Evangelize!
After you write a post each day, you’re going to go out into the blogging community and comment on every single blog out there that has written about a very similar topic.
Use Google Blog Search to search recent blogs that have written about a very similar topic. If you wrote a blog post about Paris Fashion, then write those exact keywords on Google Blog Search. Now go to each of those posts and write a very relevant comment that adds value to the post and tell them about the blog post that you just wrote. Tell them that you feel your post is similar to the post that they just wrote and that you would value their feedback on it. They WILL go to your post, read it, and comment back.
Use Twitter Search in the same way you use Google Blog Search. Search for the keywords “Paris Fashion” and @reply to each one of the Tweeps who Tweeted about it. Tell them that you love Paris Fashion as well, and that they should definitely read your blog post. Tweeps are super friendly! They will @reply you back and hopefully follow you as well.
Build relationships on Stumble, Digg, and Mixx. This can be an extremely time consuming process, but if you do it very well, then it’s very worth it in terms of growing your traffic.

Step #5 - Generate Revenue
With enough hard work and amazing content, you can build your readership to 100K+ a month. Once you have this traffic, you can leverage it in any way you want to generate revenue.
You can of course, lay out ads all over your site. But isn’t that just so boring and messy? Here are some exciting ways that you can generate revenue:

1. Fashion Consulting. You have proven to be a powerhouse in the world of fashion. So what if you didn’t go to FIDM. So what if you haven’t worked in the corporate world of the fashion industry. You have 100K+ people following every word that your write about the fashion industry. You can leverage this following to become a fashion consultant.

2. Speaker Events. People want to read your every word about Fashion; therefore, organizations and companies will want to hire you to speak at their events. This works double time for you because you make money, and more importantly, you reach a new group of people who you can turn into your evangelists.

3. Sell an eBook for free. Yes I said it: “Sell it for free.” Why? Because I don’t believe you should sell an eBook for money. However, do ask for Donations. Write on the bottom of your eBook: “If you loved this eBook, I would greatly appreciate a $5 donation.” Trust me, people will give you money if you have high quality content.

And there you have it. In under $20, you just turned your blog into something profitable. You turned your blog into your career, and you did it by building your personal brand and spreading your thought-leadership.

Labels: blogging, branding, careers, marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, web2.0

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Labels: Contact

Craig Fisher is a founding partner of A-List solutions, and an 18 year sales veteran who has been an innovator in the Recruiting Industry since 1995. He has been a top performer and sales leader in start-ups as well as large, high growth companies. Craig specializes in Information Technology Staffing, and Executive Search services.

Craig writes about Social Networking and Branding strategies for careers and employment at his blog, www.fishdogs.com. He is a regular contributor to technology and career forums, and has authored articles that have been published internationally and featured in HR publications, industry newsletters, and career web sites.

Craig graduated with a BA from the University of Oklahoma, majoring in Advertising.

Craig enjoys devising extensive boolean search strings and other alternative sourcing methods that take advantage of Web 2.0 and Social Media technology.

Craig spends his "spare" time with his wife, 3 boys, and 2 dogs at their home base on beautiful Lake Grapevine just outside of Dallas, TX. They are rabid Oklahoma Sooners and Dallas Cowboys fans.

Craig's hobbies include web and graphic design. He geeks out with computers and personal technology, mystery books, and great music. Craig attempts to exercise on a regular basis mainly for the health benefits.

Labels: About