The Web 2.0 Resume: Why, How, Now!

Author: Lisa Rau

Getting carded... online

Why students need a professional I.D. for job search!

Internship and job search for students just got way tougher. The depressed global economy, Googling of students by employers, invasion of Facebook by recruiters... what’s a student to do?

 In the age of Web 2.0, employers want more than just a paper resume. Getting a professional online identity (a.k.a. your online resume portfolio) is a new avenue for students to market themselves and get hired. Think of it as being carded online and "getting in.” Your professional online identity includes your blog, articles, portfolio, online resume and even testimonials.

 According to ExecuNet.com, 83 percent of recruiters used search engines to check out prospective employees last year, and 43 percent eliminated candidates based on the results. So what are recruiters going to find when they Google you?

 Here are the top 5 reasons you need an online resume portfolio, followed by the top 5 ways to craft your online identity ASAP!

5 Reasons to Get a Professional Online Identity Now:
 

1. Stand Out. Yes, we all know its tough, but we’re not going to take it lying down. Take a virtual stand for yourself and get noticed. Build a professional online page with a portfolio and custom URL in your e-mail signature to boost your credibility when sending out resumes and job apps.

2. Google. Recruiters scout the Internet every day for an inside look at the next generation of eager grads, and they're influenced by what they see. Let your professional resume be what recruiters see first.
3. Economy. The scare of a nationwide recession simply means you need to be more aggressive about marketing yourself. As an employer's stack of resumes grows, you need a way to jump off the page in under 6 seconds. A URL on your resume automatically buys you more of a recruiter's attention span.
4. Networking. Social networking may help you find friends, but it’s professional networking that’ll help you find your next gig. Marketing yourself as an employable, career-minded individual means maintaining professional visibility and transparency online to build those career-friendly relationships.
5. Recruiters are looking for you. The game of sending out dozens of resumes and watching paint dry as you wait by the phone has hit a new low level. Web 2.0-snazzy recruiters are on the prowl to purge non-professionalism from their applicant pool, and transparency is key. If you’re not listed online you can’t be found. It’s that simple!

So how do you start?

Google yourself. What comes up? An angst-filled LiveJournal entry you posted a few months ago? Don’t be the student getting picked last in the game of “fill this job.” It's time to build your online resume portfolio.

5 Ways to Craft your Professional Online Identity:

1. Get Your Resume Online. Professional networking sites such as NuResume.com and MyResumeOnline.com offer both students and professionals a career-minded profile and custom URL for your online resume. Social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace have a spot for work experience-related information, yes, but these should be supplemental, not primary homes to your online credentials.
2. Add a Portfolio. Videos/photos/audio of your work, experience or other professional output instantly boosts your employability. Aspiring film director? Upload your projects to YouTube or MySpaceTV. Experienced Web designer? Showcase images of your best work with links to your contact information. Good at public speaking? Post a video that showcases your voice. Check out my video resume here. You get the picture, and so do employers.
3. Get Testimonials. Let somebody brag to the World Wide Web about you! While it's good to list references on your online resume, testimonials speak immediately. You can plug yourself all you want, but the most competitive online resumes show what other people have said about your work. Take a look at a real testimonial for business student Jesus Huerta on his student resume page.
4. Post Position Wanted. Post an ad for your ideal job or internship! Companies won't know what you're looking for unless you tell them. NuResume, for example, allows you to post "Internship/Project Wanted" ads directly to your profile, making it easy for recruiters to find you. You can also post custom "looking for" ads on Craigslist.
5. Write a Blog. Making your voice heard online is one of the fastest ways to catch an employer's attention. Free blogging sites like WordPress offer you a space for a simple, paragraph-per-week entry to write about your career interests and learnings. Read a fellow student's blog on her online resume.

Now's the time! 

Go ahead and take the first step on the road to career success with your professional online identity. A new site, NuResume.com, has popped up as a one-stop professional spot for students to house their resume, portfolio, testimonials, position wanted and blog, all under a custom URL.

If you have a handle on basic Web design and blogging, consider building your own site or start logging your daily professional experience on WordPress or other blogging service.

If you're still not convinced, check out what Dan Schawbel's Personal Branding Blog has to say. Because just like the good Lady Justice, the Internet is blind when it comes down to you. So let’s give them something to talk about!

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/resumes-articles/the-web-20-resume-why-how-now-658390.html

About the Author

Lisa Rau is a freelance writer based out of Los Angeles.

Salary History Strategies for Applicants

Author: Kelli Smith

"Include Salary History." You see the instructions on employment ads or initial email feedback from the Human Resources department of the company to which you've applied. Sometimes the request is paired with a request to see your resume. At best, it's an uncomfortable moment when you're trying to find a job and you're asked to reveal confidential information before you even speak to someone. Should you even reply?

There are several clear-cut answers. But the certain one is: never right away. If you're seeking an entry-level position with an employer, you won't have much of a history to report within the profession. You'd be stuck offering up summer jobs during college which paid low wages, or internships, which paid nothing. Or, you might be sending a prospective employer a wage history for jobs where your skills and responsibilities had little to do with your current aspirations.

More people than not would prefer to simply say, "What I make now and what I made at previous jobs is really none of your business!" Declarations like this may be apt, but you'd fear that such a firm position would take you right out of the running for a job you'd like to have. On the other hand, do you want a job from someone who really hopes to take all flexibility in negotiating your wage out of your hands?

Salary History Requests Are Part of the Screening Process

What if you don't respond to the request? First let's look at the absolute negative aspects of providing your salary history to prospective employers from the get-go. If the advertisement for the job opening says "send resume and salary history" what does that say about the employer or hiring process?

If an HR department wants both documents from the initial contact, it probably means there is little flexibility in salary, or at least a very narrow range. When you send a resume alone, the employers have to weigh your skill sets and direct experience. The resume will show a progression of employment along with increasing leadership or accomplishment, and milestones that reflect general salary growth in the profession.

However, if they want your salary history, it probably means they are not as interested in your unique accomplishments so much as seeking an individual who will agree to be paid what they're offering. You may be weeded out immediately for reasons that are not really germane to your expertise. Perhaps that's a good thing, because an inflexible employer is probably just looking for a body to put in a chair. And you don't want to work for them, do you?

Negotiating a Salary versus Settling

There's more than a raw wage involved anyway. If you have made initial contact with an HR representative, the following steps can include supplementary emails, a telephone interview for additional screening, or an entry interview at the company. Along the path, you may be asked more directly, "What are your salary expectations?"

An HR representative may ask for your "salary range". That query is slightly more respectful of the candidate but is still being used as a screening tool. HR staffs want to know whether to spend time with you or cut you loose if you're too expensive a candidate.

Your current salary is confidential. You're not really interested in having it blow you out of the running if it's higher than they want to pay, or lock you into a low wage if they expected to pay more. The question is how to respond with tact.

In this case, it pays to look at your progression of wages. Examine salaries for your level of expertise in the field. Salary.com has a web engine that compares wages by job title with specific zip codes to adjust for cost of living. Perhaps you've been underpaid in your current job. To report that wage as part of your salary history may jeopardize your chances of earning what you're worth.

Today it's customary to put off any discussion about salary until you've advanced past the initial interviews. Even then, you should determine what is involved beyond the basic wage: health benefits, retirement plans, investments, vacation, stock options, etc. Many candidates diplomatically tell HR representatives that they would be delighted to examine a range when they actually have a face-to-face with the hiring manager who would ultimately offer you the job if they pass muster.

There are the buzz words that show your HR representative you don't want to talk wages without being rude about it. You might say you are "open to offers", that you expect that your salary and benefits "will be negotiable", or that you will "require competitive wages" for the level of skills you're expected to deliver. Each message reveals a general level of flexibility or an insistence on a prevailing rate.

You Have Little Choice and You Want the Job

Now you're in a fish or cut-bait position. You love what you've heard about the company, you've been impressed with the people you've met, and you want to work there, period. And now they absolutely demand a salary history.

If you've determined there's a lot at stake here, your best step requires honesty. If your salary history shows wages decidedly lower than what they're offering or what you're seeking, you'll need to impress hiring managers that your skills and talents have grown to the level at which they're paying -- not what you've been paid.

Since they're likely to review your history previous employers, it's essential that you are completely honest in your history. It's beneficial to list the company name, the job title, a brief sentence listing accomplishments, and your starting wage, and your final wage.

Take your best shot. The rest is up to completely subjective reasoning.

Here's an example of a salary history:

Hopeful Applicant, Salary History -- Confidential

Junior Sales, Amalgamated Nuggets, 5/98 to 6/01

Successful campaigns increased sales by 6% across three Western states.

Beginning compensation: $26,000

Bonuses: 8% based on exceeding performance quota

Ending compensation: $38,900

Marketing Manager, MC Solutions -- 6/01 to Present

Led web marketing effort for t-shirt manufacturer

Beginning compensation: $46,000

Current compensation: $55,600

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/career-management-articles/salary-history-strategies-for-applicants-360640.html

About the Author

Edu411.org is a career education directory for finding colleges and universities, training schools, and technical institutes. For more information about careers, online education and campus based career programs, please visit us at www.Edu411.org.

Profile of a Marketing Manager

Author: Geetika Jain

In today’s competitive business environment, marketing department in any company is a very crucial department. The marketing strategies of a company have the potential to make the products or services of that company a success or a failure in the eyes of the target audience. Thus, the job of a marketing manager is very critical. It is a prestigious but there are huge responsibilities on the shoulders of a marketing manager. Marketing manager jobs are available in all big companies and some large companies even have multiple marketing managers if they have more than one type of product or services to offer. To understand more about a marketing management job, it is important to go through the job profile of a marketing manager. In this article, we will explore what are the different duties and responsibilities of a marketing manager.

As the job title suggests, the responsibility of a marketing manager is to formulate a firm's marketing strategy and plan keeping in mind the policies of the company and revenue targets. In a marketing management job, the incumbent would be required to plan such marketing strategies that can win over new clients and retain the existing ones. With the support of the sales team and the marketing team , a marketing manager makes estimates of demand in the market for a company’s products and services and sets targets accordingly. It is also the duty of the marketing manager to promote these offerings to the customers in a positive manner and communicate with the target audience how the product or service is beneficial for them.

It is the job of a marketing manager to study and research the market and based on the practical results of such research, make a marketing plan that best addresses all the concerns of the market. A marketing manager can influence the enthusiasm and willingness of customers and thus help in increasing sales. As per the budget of the organization and the business environment of the industry, a marketing manager has to come up with the most effective and cost-efficient plan. Thus, the marketing manager becomes responsible for the profit and loss with respect to the product and its sales.

To get a marketing manager job, one must hold a master’s degree in business administration with the specialization in marketing. This educational qualification can be acquired even after a few years of working as a graduate. This is generally essential to land a marketing manager’s job in most firms. During the course period, the students are taught best practices of the industry and the ways to assess and read market demands and data and conduct research productively. Thus, it is good to acquire this qualification, if one is looking to get the job of a marketing manager.

Other than this, the soft skills required to be a successful marketing manager are very good communication skills, persuasion skills, a certain degree of shrewdness, quick thinking and appropriate decision making skills. These are some of the essential qualities that are required to be a good marketing manager. Most companies try to assess these skills and qualities before hiring a marketing manager. Strong verbal and oral communication skills are a must to possess to be successful at the job of a marketing manager.

Mostly all decisions of a marketing manager are based on the market research based on qualitative, quantitative, technical and observational techniques. It is after all these studies and researches that the marketing manager formulates policies and makes strategic decisions with an aim to increase the profits of the company. Some decisions are taken keeping in view profit over the long run, market share and revenue growth.

Thus, summing up the job of a marketing manager is to formulate, direct and coordinate marketing activities and policies for proper promotion of products and services. It is his job to work with advertising and promotion managers to implement the strategies. It also comes under the purview of a marketing manager to direct the hiring, training, and performance evaluations of marketing and sales staff and supervising their daily activities. A marketing manager is also required to evaluate the financial aspects of products and ensure that expenditures and investments are according to the profit-loss projections. Basis this, he develops pricing strategies.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/careers-articles/profile-of-a-marketing-manager-903246.html

About the Author

Geetika Jain writes on behalf of Naukri.com, a leading job portal for jobs in India which has job listing of hundred of jobs like career in marketing manager. Naukri.com is a recruitment platform and provides services to the corporate world, placement agencies and job seekers resume development.etc in India like and overseas. It offers a bouquet of products like Resume Database Access, and Response Management tools and its services include Job Postings, and branding solutions on the site. With 2, 00,000 jobs live at any point; Naukri.com serviced over 32500 corporate clients in the past year.