It’s easy these days to get overwhelmed by the continuous stream of information that comes at you through social media, and e-mail. A while back, I discovered a great tool to help cut through some of the noise. It’s called Gist, and it brings your contacts into one place to give you a full view of your network, making it easy to find anyone, anytime. You see email addresses, phone numbers, work details and more, all assembled and updated automatically. You can also directly ask your contacts to provide their latest information by requesting a profile update.
I’ve been using it to help kind of take the pulse of my inbox and social network each morning, so I can prioritize my follow-up. It’s also great for getting some background on people you are meeting with each day. And it can be used in GMail (including hosted Google Apps Mail), Outlook and Lotus Notes, and works on your iPhone or Android phone.
Check it out and you’ll probably agree that Gist helps you stay organized while monitoring your mail, your calendar, and your network.
Thanks to everyone who gave their input on who should be recognized as the Higher Ed “Who-Do?” of the month for July. After considering suggestions, I posted a poll last week with four nominees: Ed Cabellon, Eric Stoller, Rey Junco and Women in Housing. 41 people participated in the poll. The results are included below.
All the nominees were extremely worthy, and have made great contributions to higher ed, so Ed Cabellon, our “Who-Do” of the month for July 2010, was in great company. Ed will receive a lovely certificate (suitable for framing) and will receive consideration for this year’s “Who-Do Highsman” award, which will be announced in late May or early June 2011. The other nominees are still eligible for future consideration, so please send along your suggestions to me at sean@higheredcareercoach.com or @hiedcareercoach on Twitter.
Congratulations, Ed! You are doing great things to introduce new people and ideas to the higher ed community through your blog, twitter, and your live screencast interviews. Thanks for all you do, “Who-Do!”
Using RSS feeds to keep up with vacancy postings during your job search with Eric Stoller, an academic advisor at Oregon State University, who also shares his thoughts on higher education, technology, and social justice issues at EricStoller.com and consults with institutions in higher education about technology issues.
From my Google Reader: Higher Ed News and Views, plus other interesting articles on social media, education, etc.
Cook Coaching Programs and Services: Information on my 8 weeks to August Career Coaching Program for student affairs professionals finding themselves “stuck” in their job search; Accidentally on Purpose sideshow, with Sean Cook and Monica Moody; upcoming workshops for high school students transitioning to college, parents hoping to avoid the “helicopter parent phenomenon,” and more.
Call-Ins: Please listen in to the show and call in your questions and comments to (347) 989-0055 or send them via twitter to @hiedcareercoach. I’ll be asking for comments at various points, especially between 3:15 pm and 3:45 pm when talking with Eric Stoller, but callers are welcome to comment on or ask questions about anything we cover, or other issues in higher education.
Much has been said lately about the value of social media to job seekers. Since you’re reading a blog post about it, which you probably learned about from a post on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or BrazenCareerist, the value of social media should be obvious. It is likely what brought you here.
So let’s cut to the chase: You know social networking can be valuable, but you just aren’t sure how to do it the right way. Here are 5 great posts that can help you figure some of this out.
7 Secrets to Getting Your Next Job Using Social Media by Dan Schawbel gives some unique ways to use search engines, bl ogs, LinkedIn, Facebook, Video Resumes and your blog/rss subscriptions to stay on task, monitor your personal brand, an d get connected during your job search.
This article about a panel presentation by the Sacramento Social Media Club about using Facebook and Twitter for your job search gives some simple but good advice from panelists. I also like the idea of social media clubs. If you have one in your area, this could be a great place to find people who could help you understand ways to use social media to enhance your job search and career.
Alison Doyle offers a good overview of networking sites at her About.Com page. Alison is a great person to follow, and her articles on About.Com are very much resource-packed. I visit often and always learn something.
And listen in the morning:
I am doing a BlogTalkRadio show on using social media in your job search tomorrow (Friday) at 11 a.m. My guest host will be Mallory Bower, Assistant Director of Career Services at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. Mallory writes periodically for my other site, HigherEdLifeCoach.Com, and will have some articles on this site soon, as well. Our guests will include some of Mallory’s colleagues at UNCP, including Mike Severy, Director of Student Involvement and Leadership, and newly hired Assistant Director Becca Fick. Twitter was integral to posting the job, getting candidates and to Fick’s eventual hiring. Mike and Becca wrote great posts on their perspectives on using Twitter in the job search. Mike’s post, on the Student Affairs Collaborative Blog, can be found here, and Becca’s guest post at On the Go with Ed Cabellon can be found here.
We’ll also revisit last week’s discussion on “purpose” and what it means to people working in higher education. Plus news, events and perspectives of note in the higher ed/student affairs world. Show is scheduled for 90 minutes to allow call-ins, discussion, etc., but may end after an hour or so.
You can listen to the show by following this link. And you can call in live to ask questions during the interview to (347) 989-005 or via Skype from the show page. (I’ve never really done that, but it is supposedly possible. Someone should give it a try, and let me know how it works!) Please listen in and share your questions and comments. After the show, you can call in and record your comments to my GoogleVoice comment line, 706-352-9467. (352-WINS) and I may play them on the air in a future episode.
So please check out these links, think about how you might use social media to advance your job search and career, and call me in the morning.
Editor’s Disclosure:This post reveals that the author is a 40-something interloper on the “Gen-Y” career network Brazen Careerist. For anyone disturbed by this revelation, the author claims to really only read it for the “stories.” And now, on to the show….
The other day, I got involved in an interesting discussion on Brazen Careerist about whether length of experience matters in establishing credibility these days.
The comment that led off this discussion:
The conversation really struck a chord with me, because I think it is central to understanding, and perhaps navigating, the divide between Millennials and their Gen X and Boomer managers. There is a disconnect between their generation, which wants to be acknowledged for their ideas, and those who came before, who do value ideas, but feel they’ve earned respect through hard work and years of experience (and sometimes feel they don’t get it from the youngsters.)
The discussion about the value of experience and status, versus the value of ideas, goes back much further. The young have always felt discounted, the old disrespected, the rich and scholarly have always felt more enlightened than those who work in the trenches, and those who work in the trenches have valued their experiences in life and work more than ‘book learning.”
My favorite example:
Socrates was a great example of someone who was in fact a great teacher (and a guru), but it’s useful to remember that he’s only thought of this way because of what others said about him, and none of that would have gotten down to us, if it hadn’t been for Plato.
Socrates was actually a stonemason, who spent his days in the Forum taking people down a notch, by asking them simple and pointed questions, giving his observations, and playing devil’s advocate. It was Plato who enjoyed his style, wrote about it, emulated it, and taught it in his academy.
So herein lies the crux of the credibility issue: Are you someone who is engaged in questioning as the means for discovery, in debate as a delivery vehicle for new knowledge and points of view, and in mutual interplay between others who might teach you something (including people you may not agree with, or even find to be “small-minded?”) Are you nimble enough, confident enough, and curious enough, to be engaged?
The key to wisdom, then, is to know a good question when you hear it and a good conversation when you are in it. And to ENGAGE.
There are many, many cartoons that depict a seeker going to the mountaintop to ask a wise guru for advice, only to be met with questions. The punchline here shouldn’t be lost on you…this is how people learn.
So you can’t be a guru if you only learn by osmosis, or repeat back what you have learned verbatim. To be a guru, you must light a fire in others for knowledge, ask them compelling questions, and send them away with their minds racing, frenetic, and full of wonder for the search.
And how will you know if you are a guru?
They’ll climb back up the mountain with more questions.
Work with Sean. I help higher ed professionals take control of their careers with tailored services including resume and CV development, LinkedIn profile optimization and networking strategy, interview coaching, and one-on-one career guidance.
