by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jul 13, 2011 | Job Search, job search tools, Social Networking
LinkedIn has passed Myspace to become the second-most popular online social network in the U.S., behind Facebook. According to an article this week on CNN, comScore, an Internet analytics firm reported that LinkedIn had 33.9 million unique visitors in June, approximately 500,000 more than the month before.
By contrast, Myspace experienced a drop of about 1.4 million U.S. visitors from May, and Facebook smashes all of them soundly with 160.8 million unique visitors in June.
This doesn’t really surprise me, because I have been using LinkedIn more and more for professional networking, and have been helping clients understand how to use the network effectively. A couple of months ago, I did my first local seminar here in Athens, a half-day workshop on LinkedIn, coupled with an opportunity to get a professional headshot from one of my local clients, Ann Yarbrough.
The seminar went well, and resulted in a few opportunities for me to get my name out in the area. One of the attendees was the publisher of the Chamber of Commerce magazine for the next county over (Barrow), and she offered me a chance to contribute an article. Two representatives of one of the local phone book publishers and they really enjoyed the seminar, and offered me a free ad in next year’s phonebook. And Ann got a free ad and an offer to possibly have her photos on the cover of the phone book, as well. I’ll be offering an online seminar soon on LinkedIn, based on the format of this presentation. In the meantime, I’ll be running articles this week on how to get the most out of LinkedIn.
Tomorrow: Why you need to “get” LinkedIn.
Don’t forget! If you are still looking for a job, I am running a coaching special until July 15! For $300, participants will get 4 coaching sessions, access to online activities, and brief e-mail and phone check-ins for 6 months. The special price for this offer will expire July 15, or when enrollment reaches 20, whichever comes first.
This is the lowest rate I expect to offer on individual coaching this year, and I am planning to raise my regular rates on August 1st, and to change the structure of packages I offer individual clients.
So, if you are still looking for a job, and could use a strategic partner to help you move forward in your career, act now!
Go to the sales page and sign up now for the Summer Coaching Special.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jul 7, 2011 | Coaching, Job Search
If you are still looking for a job, July and August can be tough times. You may see your friends and colleagues moving into new positions, starting trainings, and getting ready to teach classes. Search processes can move quickly at some institutions, and come to a standstill at others.
Staying motivated during this phase of your job search is essential, but it can be really hard to do on your own. But this phase is not a time to give up or back-burner your search. Filling essential positions is a priority for most institutions, and being in the right place, at the right time, and in the right frame of mind can make all the difference.
To help you keep going, I’m offering a coaching special again, and it will feature 4 1-on-1 sessions over 3 months, brief e-mail and phone check-ins for 6 months, and access to online activities and select webinars. And, after talking with a few potential clients about what they would find attractive, I’ve kept the price the same as last year’s “8 Weeks to August” coaching program ($300) but set up a payment plan for it, to allow clients who join the program to stretch out the payments.
And, like last year’s coaching special (and like I offer for all of my coaching services), I am offering a money-back guarantee. If you participate in all the coaching and are not satisfied with your progress, you can ask for your money back (some of it or all of it!) If I can’t help you, then I don’t want your money.
More information about the summer coaching special is available at the sales page for this program, or by e-mailing me at sean@higheredcareercoach.com.
If you are still looking for a job, don’t wait! The special price for this offer will expire July 15, or when enrollment reaches 20, whichever comes first. At this point, I have a few clients already lined up, and based on early feedback, I’m expecting a good response.
This is the lowest rate I expect to offer on individual coaching this year, and I am planning to raise my regular rates on August 1st, and to change the structure of packages I offer individual clients.
So, if you are still looking for a job, and could use a strategic partner to help you move forward in your career, act now!
Go to the sales page and sign up now for the Summer Coaching Special.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jun 24, 2011 | Career Skills, Coaching, Higher Education, life purpose, Site News, work/life balance
How many times in your career have you faced a decision where there was a good job in front of you (maybe even offered to you) and you knew it was a terrible fit, or that the benefits outweighed the costs? This has happened several times to me, and luckily, in most cases, I had the good sense to walk away.
In those cases when I didn’t, though, I took a job and was miserable. It’s also happened that I took jobs and the jobs changed, or my interests changed at a different pace than the jobs (or institutions) adapted to change. In cases like these, it’s best to know what you are not.
In this vein, I want to clearly describe what I am not, and what Higher Ed Career Coach is not.
- I am not strictly a professional blogger. First and foremost, I am a professional career coach, organizational consultant and speaker. The blogging supports the dissemination of my ideas, of my perspectives on career strategy, and serves as a marketing vehicle for my coaching programs and services (individual and group coaching, webinars, information products, etc.)
- I am not an advertising professional, and this is not a “job search” site. You cannot find job listings here, and I have no intention of becoming a job board, in part because that is a saturated market, and in part because I believe that sector of the advertising marketplace is dying, as the web 1.0 model of “job boards” is being replaced by social advertising.
- I am not a conventional information marketer. I am an educator and a coach. Anything I sell through this site will be:
- Educational (i.e., based in philosophy but instructional in nature and delivery)
- Reflect my personal and professional perspectives as a reformed educator, critic, strategist, and an educational reformer (i.e., an outsider from the inside, now looking back in, and commenting on what is good and what is broken)
- Concerned with convergence of ideas, lessons from other industries and fields, and real-world factors, including economic factors, political concerns, and the environment.
- Intelligent, in that readers can expect articles to be generally written at or above the college reading level. My assumption as publisher is that my readers are smart, not easily confused, and engaged in the development of coherent and well-rounded perspectives on a variety of topics. The Flesch reading ease score for all submissions is available to me as editor and publisher, and most articles on the site rate as “difficult” or above. Articles are not revised for that reason, as long as uses of grammar and spelling are appropriate. Articles appearing here assume that the reader is an academic professional, member of the faculty, or someone capable of functioning in those capacities, so articles will not be “dumbed down.”
- Social, in that topics that relate to social networking and intelligence, and how they play into job searches and career planning, will be regular features. Understanding how to create a socially intelligent career strategy is a core concept of this site, and in most cases, coverage of other topics will also include ways to approach those topics in socially intelligent, relevant and appropriate ways.
- A good-humored, good-natured and personal brand. I want this site, and my corporate brand to reflect my values and the values of everyday educators who work in the trenches and persevere in living lives of service and commitment, despite the many and growing challenges of modern higher education.
The site’s values are drawn from the well of my experience, my commitment to the core values mentioned above, and my belief that the best answers are rooted in how individuals, institutions, businesses (including independent small businesses like my own), and personal learning networks work together to raise the collective intelligence of our society and mobilize change through social action.
To be most effective, we need to have a sense of humor as well as a sense of commitment, a belief in the good intentions of others, met with our own good intentions, and brought to life and to action by the power of personal relationships, common interests, and common goals, and not dictated by traditional methods of business, most importantly closed networks, claims on personal ownership of collective public information, and the sheer pursuit of financial gain at the expense of competitors and the public good.
My financial goals for this site are simple and rooted in the American dream. I want to support my family and spend time with them, support my profession and be able to criticize it, so that it can change and grow. I want to have good conversations with intelligent, kind, committed people. And one day, I want to be able to retire and play with my grandchildren and work in the garden, without being a shriveled up husk of a man, spit out by a system that didn’t understand him and never valued his contributions appropriately. (Which is where I was headed, if I had stayed at Penn State.)
As I mentioned, it’s never been about money. It’s always been about passion for ideas, service to the greater good, and helping people like me live lives of purpose and authenticity
Hopefully this article, and others published recently have cleared up for you what this site is and is not about, and who is or is not responsible for the content herein. If you like the ideals that this site is committed to, please keep reading and join the conversation.
If you are looking for intelligent career strategies to help you move forward in your career, and intelligent ideas for solving the problems of higher education, and you don’t mind the contrarian views, crusty language and occasional humor, then Higher Ed Career Coach is the site for you.
If you just looking for position listings, or run-of-the-mill career advice, visit a job board like HigherEdJobs or Monster.Com, a university human resources page, or LinkedIn.
That’s where I would go, if I were looking for a job, instead of planning a social revolution.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jun 23, 2011 | Career Skills, Higher Education, life purpose, Site News
In any job search, and indeed, any business, an understanding of convergence will help you to contrast yourself from the “competition.” Potential employers or potential clients need to understand how you are different, but they will make decisions based on perceptions that you are a better fit for their needs, or a better value for their budget. To stand out, you need to explain your Unique Value Proposition, and start building your personal brand in alignment with it. This makes it clear where their needs converge with your own. This point of convergence is your potential point of agreement. I’d like to share the approaches I have taken, and open up a conversation about how to differentiate yourself from competitors.
When it came time to put some names to things, I began researching potential site names, to make sure that I could contrast myself against others trying to reach the same market. I followed the advice of several well-known bloggers and began by searching for preferred names and seeing which ones were already taken. Then I searched on terms that might mean something similar, but were not taken.
Then I combined related terms to come up with a new semantic term that did not have any results or competition. This is called working from the “long tail.” The idea is that by creating a convergent idea and a new term to go with it, you can stake out some digital claim to use of the new terms, and work to connect deeply with a smaller market. This was the case for “higher ed life coach” and “higher ed career coach” in July 2009, so I moved ahead on registration.
I had already eliminated many options because they were already taken, or seemed similar to names that already existed. I would have loved to use the words “college” or “student affairs” in my site names, but most of the good names were taken. I thought about other terms that might be appealing and settled on “higher ed.” This made sense because it was not well-worn digital ground, and because few people outside of the career field referred to the field as “higher ed,” instead using the terms “university administration” and “faculty” to describe working in the field. For all the great terms related to “college life,” they seemed to be locked up by admissions advisors, and people trying to sell lifestyle merchandise to college students. So, while it may have seemed boring to many, I chose titles that described my target audience and what I hoped to do.
I won’t claim to be the only person working in higher education that can provide solid career advice. I read other blogs, including Mama PhD, Eric Stoller’s Blog, Insider Higher Ed, Higher Ed Jobs, BreakDrink, On the Go with Ed Cabellon, and many others. I won’t claim to be the only life coach or career coach working with college students and higher ed professionals. There are many others out there doing the same things, and who have been doing so for many years.
I will say that I believe myself to be the first person with a national brand premise based on providing these types of services primarily for higher education audiences. I say this because I did the research for quite a while before betting my career on it. My brand premise and the promise that comes with it is unique, and in describing it in the way I did, publicly and as early as July 2009, I opened up a new niche in both the coaching industry and in higher education, by creating a new sector called higher ed coaching. I’ve been providing advice and coaching services under these brand names since 2009, and gaining ground. I won’t claim to have universal appeal, but readership has been climbing steadily, and my network has been growing. It’s clear that I am on to something.
So clear in fact, that I’ve been identified by some as a promising player in the coaching industry and in higher education, and by others in both fields as a threat to the status quo. I’ll explain more about that as it becomes necessary and appropriate, but for now I want to concentrate on the Unique Value Proposition of this site, its brand promise, and the services and programs that go with it. I’m not really concerned with what others are doing. There’s room on this stage for many players and I believe in improvisation and cooperation. I also believe in the unique nature of what it is I am trying to do, and in my motivations for doing them.
My name is Sean Cook and I am the original and only genuine Higher Ed Career Coach™. It is my personal coaching brand, and is supported by web properties and coaching programs and services that support my personal brand. I am solely responsible for the content of these sites, and not affiliated with any other corporation or individual coach or consultant, unless you read a specific disclosure indicating otherwise. Higher Ed Career Coach™ is my personal brand.
The Higher Ed Career Coach™ brand is…
- An Outsider brand, based in part on the idea that the higher education system and industry is broken and unable to adapt to the realities of the modern economy, political landscape, and the changing nature of learning and communication.
- A Convergent brand, based on the idea that fixing the problems of higher education will require adaptation, and that adaptation will only happen when those inside the broken ecosystem of education look outside their ivory towers and embrace open-system thinking, as well as new ways to construct and support learning and communication.
- An Intelligent brand, based on the belief that creating opportunities for understanding, reflection, research and debate are key to solving the problems of higher education.
- A Social brand, committed to the belief that intelligent networking and awareness of network resources will create opportunities for new knowledge and practice.
- Good-humored, Good-Natured and Personal, based on the value of relationships, and not measured by the value of business transactions conducted.
How would you describe the different core aspects of your personal brand? And what do you think about mine? Did I forget anything? What do you think I can do to reinforce the ideals above? Do you find them appealing?
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jun 20, 2011 | Coaching, Higher Education, Interview Tips, Job Search, job search tools, Student Affairs
Are you still looking for a job in higher education? If so, my summer coaching special may be for you!
I’ve been having a few issues with getting my sales page done for the summer coaching special, but wanted to let people know the details. Sales pages can come later. The important thing is the offer.
Here it is:
For $50 month for 3 months and the balance $150 within 6 months? ($300 total), here’s what you will get:
- 4 sessions of 45 minutes to an hour (4 coaching hours) over 3 months-by end of September
- Unlimited brief e-mails and phone coaching/catch-ups of 20 minutes or less for 6 months. (until the new year)
- Membership in the online group and all activities there, to do on your own, and work out your strategy. I will be participating in the discussions.
- Free admission to select job-search webinars and teleseminars for 3 months.
- Ability to renew at the same rate for 3 more months if you don’t have a job.
- Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied for any reason, as long as you have actively engaged in coaching and activities.
If this sounds okay to you, I can invoice you via PayPal for $50/month for the next 3 months. You would need to pay the PayPal service fees. Or you could send me a check.
Either way, I am hoping there will be interest. I am equipped and ready to take a maximum of 20 job-seekers at any time, so respond now if you are interested. I will have a waiting list, if necessary, but if you need help now, that probably won’t do it for you. So don’t wait!
If all this sounds good, e-mail me at sean@higheredcareercoach.com and I will get you online access to the course and an invitation to the course e-mail list.
I have already had several inquiries without even advertising, so I expect this group to fill quickly. Don’t let that discourage you, but also don’t sit on your hands.
Let’s get you a job this fall. Act now.
LinkedIn has passed Myspace to become the second-most popular online social network in the U.S., behind Facebook. According to an article this week on CNN, comScore, an Internet analytics firm reported that LinkedIn had 33.9 million unique visitors in June, approximately 500,000 more than the month before.
