To My Fabulous Colleagues – THANK YOU!

I truly believe the wireless mouse was invented so people at work had one less thing to hang themselves with.
- Mike Vanatta

I’ve been self-employed for many years and in the process there have been many contracts. By and large I’ve worked remotely and made myself available for meetings in order to avoid the ugliness of the corporate world which quite frankly offends me to my core. Watching corporate animals trying to destroy each other for career advancement makes my blood run cold. I’ve spent a lifetime believing that every human being deserves to be treated with respect and dignity, and as a result I’ve avoided the corporate jungle.

Eighteen months ago I began a new contract in a major corporation. I needed the cooperation of others to get my job done so I spent more time onsite than I normally would. Amidst the swirling winds of corporate intrigue, the team that I landed in was like Fantasy Island - an oasis of calm where people liked and respected each other and came to your aid before you even knew you needed it. My manager is the most wonderful you could imagine – a human being of the highest order who is somehow able to survive among the corporate vultures nipping at her heels. She sincerely has the best interests of her staff at heart and her modus operandi is to encourage and nurture, bringing out the best in everyone - totally contrary to the common corporate practice of “rule by fear; divide and conquer”.

As a contractor, I’ve always worked alone, until now. I was fortunate enough to begin a collaboration and friendship with a U.S. colleague that transcends the border and will continue after I’ve walked away from this contract. One of the happiest parts of my week were our Wednesday afternoon video chats where we discussed our business at hand (yes, we really did get our work done) and then chatted about anything and everything under the sun. Thanks to video we were able to play “show and tell” with our latest shopping acquisitions, hairdos and nail polish colours. I think I’ll miss these video chats most of all!

Over the last year and a half I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know and becoming friends with my Toronto colleagues. We all share a love of travel and enjoy a variety of ethnic cuisines. I love seeing the photos of our resident world traveler who with his family sets off to exotic locales. I am definitely “shopping simpatico” with one of my colleagues; we share a love of bargain hunting. And I adore our resident free spirit who moves through life in her own special way. She lights up the room every time she walks in. I love learning about all of their lives and hearing about the latest additions – in this case it was an adorable puppy. Regrettably my time has been too short with my U. S. colleagues but I’ve enjoyed working with each of you and the time we spent together.

A few nights ago my manager was in town and 9 of us went out for my farewell dinner. I’ve never had a farewell dinner before so this was all new to me. It was at my favourite French Bistro. Quite frankly, I’m still a little stunned. They had cards and gifts for me with lovely notes from all of my colleagues on both sides of the border and other people in the organization that I’ve worked with. In the past when one of my contracts ended, I just rode off into the sunset without looking back. I realized that next week I’ll be walking away from my contract, but not from my friends. And, I will look back. You have all in your own way enriched my life in ways you can’t even imagine and for that I will be eternally grateful. I guess that all there’s left to say is THANK YOU!

It’s true that hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?
- Ronald Reagan

Make someone smile today.

Geri

Job Hunting’s A Lot Like Online Dating

Sometime I think “Screw this job. I’ll just quit and be a stripper”. Then I remember I’m fat and can’t dance.

The funtab.com

I’ve been self-employed for quite a long time now. At the end of every contract the inevitable job search begins. I’m now in job search mode and it occurred to me that job hunting’s a lot like online dating. A resume (or CV if you prefer the more highbrow approach) is no different than an online dating profile. And it appears that job candidates lie almost as often as online daters.

A recent survey from CareerBuilder of more than 2,500 hiring managers found that 56% have caught job candidates lying on their resumes. This jives with The Society of Human Resource Managers who reported that 53% of the resumes and job applications that they reviewed contained falsifications such as misleading statements, fraudulent degrees, altered employment dates, inflated salary claims, inaccurate job descriptions and falsified references. These lies are not unlike those told by online daters. I once had coffee with a lawyer who on his profile said that he was a golfer. When I asked him where he played, he said that he had taken his son to play mini-golf on one occasion. But, this fine legal mind thought that this one outing to mini-golf was adequate for him to misrepresent himself as a golfer. Breathtaking isn’t it?

The job hunting world is really like the online dating world where people create fantasy personas with fake photos and made up histories. One would think that job hunters would strive for more authenticity, but clearly that doesn’t seem to be the case. My legitimate and truthful resume is being compared to others that are highly inflated or outright lies. In both cases the only thing I have to say to online daters and hiring managers is Caveat emptor! Buyer beware!

Why do you say “entry level” and then require a Masters Degree, 8 – 20 years of experience, every certification known to mankind and the blood of my first born child?

Wann-joke.com

Make someone smile today.

Geri

Don’t Get Sucked Into Social Media Hype!

Everyone's like sheep on social media; like, one person starts making noise, and everyone's like, 'Hey, yeah!' and then you got a whole bunch of people making noise at you.

Earl Sweatshirt

It always amazes me when I see headlines like the ones below:

• More than 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn

• Become a marketing superstar by generating leads with social media

• Tapping into social media can transform your lead generation

That’s all fine and well but these headlines don’t tell the real story. In fact social media is the least effective way to generate B2B leads. According to www.placester.com this diagram demonstrates the most effective methods for generating B2B leads.

 

                                                                                           

As you can see, social media effectively generates leads 5% of the time. So, LinkedIn accounts for 80% of 5% - Big Whoop! How much time and effort are you wasting on social media platforms when you could actually be devoting your efforts on strategies that may actually work? To add insult to injury there is a whole cottage industry of companies out there who (for a fee of course) will show you how to improve your LinkedIn profile, how to get more LinkedIn connections, etc. Have you been sucked in?

The reality is that social media doesn’t work as a B2B lead generation tool and LinkedIn is still no more than Mecca for recruiters. Would you really have invested your time and effort into attempting to generate leads on LinkedIn if you knew that the headlines were all deceptive and the rate of effectiveness was 80% of 5%?

Speaking of LinkedIn, I came across this article by Robert Hennessey. The study surveyed 200 B2B marketing professionals in the U.S. who were screened based on their experience with various lead generation channels, tactics and metrics. The study was conducted by lead generation technology reviewer Software Advice a Gartner company. Here are the highlights of the study:

• Marketers found trade shows, referral marketing and in-house email marketing to be the best channels for generating large numbers of high-quality leads

• Videos were not only the most-used type of content (used by 92%); they were most commonly cited as producing a very high volume of leads

• Most B2B marketers (79%) use at least 11 different marketing software applications, with 97% using email marketing software

Don’t get sucked into social media hype and don’t be seduced by salacious headlines. Do your homework and make sound business decisions.

Social media has given us this idea that we should all have a posse of friends when in reality, if we have one or two really good friends, we are lucky.

Brene Brown

Make someone smile today.

Geri