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Social Networking For Career Success

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Today’s post is by Miriam Salpeter — owner of Keppie Careers. She teaches job seekers and entrepreneurs how to leverage social media, writes resumes and helps clients succeed with their goals. Miriam writes for U.S. News & World Report’s “On Careers” column, CNN named her a “top 10 job tweeter you should be following” and Monster.com included her in “The Monster 11 for 2011: Career Experts Who Can Help Your Search.” She blogs at KeppieCareers.com and GetASocialResume.com.

Why do companies hire the people they hire? Is it always because the selected candidate is the absolute best qualified to do the job? It’s hard to quantify, but my guess is probably not. Hiring is a complicated art involving selecting a person to do a job, but, often more importantly, someone who is a good “fit” for the role.

Think about interviewing someone to join your family – someone you need to see and spend a lot of time with for the conceivable future. You may be interested in particular skills, depending on your family’s culture. (Cooking? Softball? Driving?) At the end of the day, you probably want to select the one who won’t annoy or embarrass you; someone willing to pitch in (even if it is not his or her job), the candidate who can communicate – and who people like to be around.

It’s not surprising to learn these emotional intelligence skills are gaining more focus and impacting job seekers. A quick definition is in order. Here is one that I like and is easy to understand from Mike Poskey, VP of Zerorisk HR, Inc:

Emotional Intelligence…is defined as a set of competencies demonstrating the ability one has to recognize his or her behaviors, moods and impulses, and to manage them best according to the situation.

Companies are incorporating emotional intelligence into their hiring processes, with good reason. The Sodexo(one of the largest food services and facilities management companies in the world) blog reminds readers that “businesses that will succeed in the 21st century will be the ones that allow employees to bring the whole of their intelligence into the work force – their emotional and intellectual self. Not only does this impact morale, but productivity increases, too.” A recent study from Virginia Commonwealth University shows that “high emotional intelligence does have a relationship to strong job performance — in short, emotionally intelligent people make better workers.”

To be successful in a job hunt, you not only need to demonstrate an association between what the employer wants and your skills and accomplishments, you need to be able to tell your story in a way that makes it obvious you have the emotional intelligence/emotional quotient (EI/EQ – or soft skills) to fit in. Companies want to hire a candidate who will work well in the team; they all seek someone who will contribute and get the job done with finesse. Most seek employees they will trust to represent the company graciously. No one wants to be embarrassed.

This is why social media is such a great tool for job seekers. A job seeker with a pristine online portfolio and nothing questionable in her digital footprint makes a strong case for actually being someone who knows how to negotiate the digital world where we all function.

Using social networking tools to illustrate your expertise can provide entree into a network of professionals writing and talking about the topics important for you and your field. If, for example, you write a blog to showcase your knowledge of the restaurant industry, or use Twitter and Facebook to be sure people understand you know a lot about finance, you have a chance to connect with multitudes of potential contacts, any one of whom may connect you to the person you need to know to land an opportunity.

At the same time you demonstrate your expertise online and grow your network, you are also giving people a taste of the type of person you may be in person. Granted, some people have a distinct online-only persona. Many of us know people who seem mean and spiteful online and are amazing friends in person. Certainly, the opposite is possible.

However, for the most part, it’s safe to assume how people act and communicate online represents how they behave in person. When we get to know people via social media, by sharing tweets (including those all important personal tweets about what we’re eating, watching, and doing for the weekend), trading comments on blog posts, and keeping in touch via Facebook and LinkedIn, we are part of the longest job interview – with a very long “tail.”

No doubt, for some people, social media is dangerous for their job search. The people who aren’t attentive to details (and don’t untag themselves in inappropriate photos), the ones with short tempers and no filter who share every thought, and those who complain about people or things and appear excessively negative online. In an environment where employers are reviewing digital footprints, those people, who are not illustrating high levels of emotional intelligence, may have difficulty landing jobs.

The flip side? If you know your business, connect and share easily online, make new friends and contacts, and try to give at least as much as you hope to receive, social media may be just the “social proof” you need to help you stand out from the crowd.

My book, Social Networking for Career Success, shows you how to leverage the “big three” tools (LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook), and describes how blogging and many other social media tools can help job seekers distinguish themselves. Learn more at www.socialnetworkingforcareersuccess.com. Download a free chapter HERE.

Miriam Salpeter, MA
Coach, Speaker, Author

Empowering Success
http://www.keppiecareers.com

Take a look at what people are saying about Social Networking for Career Success, just released by Learning Express, LLC. Copies are available from Amazon or your favorite bookseller.

IMAGE VIA www.socialnetworkingforcareersuccess.com/

5 Steps for Career Branding: Make Employers Come to You

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In your job search, you, the job seeker, seek out the employer, but that doesn’t have to be the case throughout your entire career.  There are many ways that you can brand yourself to stand out, increase your visibility in front of career stakeholders and inevitably make employers come to you.

Here are just 5 ways you can change the game and get employers to come to you:

1. Start Blogging: Starting and maintaining your own blog requires investment and commitment of your time, energy and creativity.  While you can choose to blog on any topic you desire, focusing your blog’s theme and content to better serve your industry can be an outstanding way to show off your personal brand and demonstrate your unique value to potential employers and career stakeholders.  Not only can this blog be a great entrepreneurial venture to include on your resume and online profiles, but it shows your hiring managers and interviewers industry involvement and contribution outside of your full-time experience.  Blogs are very easy to get started.  There are both free and self-hosted platforms to choose from, including WordPress, Blogger and Typepad.

2. Get Quoted: Whether or not you start your own blog or contribute guest posts regularly to industry-related blogs, getting quoted online in blogs and other online magazines or offline in books or other periodicals on a topic relevant and valuable to your industry and target employers adds a new credential for you to taut in your job search, but also really boosts your personal brand for your long-term career.  HelpaReporter.com (HARO) is a FREE service that links reporters, journalists, bloggers and authors with experts and experts-to-be to get quoted in print or online media.  Sign-up to receive daily queries from HARO and respond as often as possible and appropriate to any related to your field or areas of interest.  Before long, you may be quoted in the Wall Street Journal, a published book or interviewed for leading blog, which will increase your credibility  across your network and beyond.

3. Get to the People Behind the Postings: Most job seekers and professionals neglect informational interviews, likely because they sound boring, hard to get, ineffective and/or all of the above.  Informational interviews are actually powerfully effective both in your job search and in your career networking.  By reaching out and asking for a few minutes to learn about a fellow professional’s career, experience and advice (Note: this does not mean asking for a job), you get a chance to introduce yourself and your brand, share your value and make a stronger connection with someone new.  While this person may not be in the position to hire or ready to hire at the time of your interview, you are now on that individual’s radar and maybe a first go-to candidate for the next opportunity that comes up.

4. Offer Your Ideas: If you’re willing to put a little work into targeted job searches and take a small, calculated risk, you might consider doing a little research for your chosen company, identify the right contacts within and offer them a free proposal of fresh ideas related to trends and opportunities in the industry or functional area.  Consider sharing some relevant case studies that support your suggestions and spark more thought.  It will be essential that you really think these through in putting them together and that they be grammatically correct etc., as these may be someone’s first or last impression of you.  Offering your ideas or suggestions is risky in the sense that it opens the door for rejection or no response; however, it immediately shows the recipient your investment, your creativity 7and ultimately the value you offer the organization.

5. Step Up to the Podium: If you like the opportunity to speak publically and have something relevant to share with your peers, whether it be advice, experience or case studies, consider developing a presentation or presentations that you can pitch to present for various industry associations, alumni groups and other organizations.  Whether they are webinars or in-person events, presenting to an audience sets you apart as a confident thought leader who has true value to share with others, whether it be an audience or an employer.  Do a little background research on both what organizations and associations are out there and exactly what topics and events are currently being offered so to determine how you could offer something to serve unmet needs or compliment their current event programing.

Chris Perry, MBA is a Gen Y brand and marketing generator, a career search and personal branding expert and the founder of Career Rocketeer, Launchpad, Blogaristo and more.

Social Media Meets Lightning Workplace Learning: #TChat Recap

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Two camps.

One that digs social media as THE engine driving recruiting, learning and organizational development.

And the other that does not.

That was pretty clear during last night’s #TChat about social media in the workplace.  Some of you may have tired of the social conversation, but many of us have not.

Remember the resistance to e-mail and the Internet?  Good Gosh — what business value do those time-wasters and secret sharers have?

So much fantastic input last night — like workplace laser word tag.  Zap.  Zap.

Zap.

For me, “social” has always been about networking and learning outside and in the organization and taking the conversation offline to “live” to further discuss:

  • That job opportunity
  • That sweet hire opportunity
  • That business opportunity
  • That learning opportunity
  • That sharing knowledge opportunity
  • That mentoring opportunity
  • That business birth opportunity
  • That consulting opportunity
  • That collaborative R&D opportunity
  • That partnership opportunity
  • You know, these opportunities and more

Again, the key is taking these conversations offline to “live.” The anecdotal statistics are there for me and many others; I’ve generated many of those opportunities above as I’m sure many of you have as well.

But, the business metrics are still all over the place and underreported and overestimated.  Such is the life of a business metric, right?  I wrote a little about that yesterday in my post I say recruit how we do business, and do business how we recruit.

With the rise of the mobile/virtual workforce, I can’t imagine the world without organic and holistic social connectivity.

The “does not dig” camp is choking on the words organic and holistic right now.  We are here to share different views. Like a real workplace. Like a real social community.

Here were the questions we asked last night:

  • Q1: How has #SM specifically impacted the way you conduct a job search and manage your career?
  • Q2: Within your org, how have #SM platforms/tools been used to enhance HR/recruiting initiatives?
  • Q3: Within your org, how have #SM platforms/tools been used to enhance learning initiatives?
  • Q4: How have #SM platforms/tools been effective – or not – at any or all levels within your org?
  • Q5: What business metrics have you established to measure how effective your #SM efforts are?
  • Q6: What specific barriers do you see within your org that impede top to bottom acceptance of platforms/tools?
  • Q7: Be honest – how do you see yourself improving your efficacy in utilizing #SM platforms/tools within your org?

Thank you to all who participated.  It’s good folk like you who make every #TChat a lightning learning round of workplace laser word tag.

Zap.

Social is about us, not the technology.

Here were the top contributors from last night:

  1. @talentculture – 172
  2. @meghanmbiro – 129
  3. @KevinWGrossman – 105
  4. @IanMondrow – 89
  5. @JeffWaldmanHR – 79
  6. @gregoryfarley – 77
  7. @LevyRecruits – 77
  8. @CyndyTrivella – 64
  9. @dawnrasmussen – 53
  10. @Kimberly_Roden – 52

See you next week, January 25, 2011, 8-9 pm ET (5-6 pm PT).

2011 Workplace Culture Predictions and Commentary: #TChat Recap

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It was almost like science fiction.

Almost.

The fact that last night’s #TChat was about 2011 workplace culture predictions and commentary, and we as pseudo-soothsayers and part-time prophets were locked in a post-economic-apocalyptic vault painting the walls with phosphorescent Twiffiti.

Some of which was right on the bottom line, and some of which was, well, not.  Smart, but not.

Here were the questions:

  • Q1: Given what you believe to be true – and factual – will 2011 bring more or less net hiring – and why?
  • Q2: In 2011 will there be a change in rate of A-player exodus? Why or why not? If yes, initiatives can be taken to improve retention?
  • Q3: Will innovation and R&D be taken off life support this year? If yes, what leadership initiatives can be taken to drive it?
  • Q4: Leadership development always on the lips of executives, analysts but will this be the year organizations invest? Why or not?
  • Q5: Managing greater mobile/contingent workforce appears significant business initiative; what are orgs doing to ensure its success?
  • Q6: Social networking will continue to be a critical marketing and recruiting tool, but will the ROI be there?

Some things that struck me were:

  • Hiring will pick up (and is), but there just won’t be enough jobs for all those unemployed, and more of the jobs are in emerging economies outside the U.S.  Read this and that.
  • The contingent workforce will be on the rise.
  • Virtual mobility will be on the rise.
  • Although no one likes to work for jerks, A-players will only jump if they have viable opportunities to jump to, or they get the entrepreneurial bug.
  • Barriers of entry into many markets are so few these days that the companies that want to stay in business never stopped innovating, and investing in R&D, and collaborative partnerships, and marketing, and business development…

I’m telling you — the vault was aglow with prime Twiffiti. You should view the transcript if you have a moment.  Over 300 contributors this week, the top 10 of which were:

  • @talentculture – 249
  • @meghanmbiro – 151
  • @KevinWGrossman – 73
  • @HRMargo – 67
  • @LevyRecruits – 60
  • @JeffWaldmanHR – 58
  • @IanMondrow – 58
  • @dawnrasmussen – 56
  • @CyndyTrivella – 55
  • @ValueIntoWords – 46

Next Tuesday, January 11, from 5-6 p.m. PT/8-9 p.m. ET, we’re tackling The New Old World of Job Hunting and Hiring.

Now, how do I get this glowing paint off my hands?


‘Polishing, Scrubbing and Tweaking’ your Resume (Oh My!)

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After reading a recent US News article, “6 Steps to Polish Up Your Resume,” my vision of a staid, buzzword-rich resume with your top 10 accomplishments waxed.  Though the bones of the article were solid, and the emphasis on translating your work history into achievements respectable, I couldn’t help being consumed by a certain dull roar of the same-old, same-old resume advice.

Unfortunately, the focus on the tactical aspects of resume construction seem to command the most media air-time, undermining, it seems the depth and breadth of a meaningful, meaty and strategically written marketing message.

Having collaborated and consulted with, cajoled and coached 100s of career-transitioning and career-climbing clients over the past 13+ years, I can quickly glean the nuanced differences between a strategically written resume and one that meticulously (and sheepishly) follows the tactical rules of “keyword smattering and front-loading accomplishments.”

Keep in mind that a majority of companies (especially the mid-sized and smaller organizations) still do not use key-word-screening software to ferret resumes, and that your resume will ultimately be absorbed by a human being. In fact, ideal job search, research and relationship practices would have your resume being read by a real-live person from the outset. In other words, depending solely upon job-search boards and other online job-attracting initiatives will certainly limit your results.

Metrics and properly spelled words are essential, basic resume ingredients. Extending the message beyond the basics, however, whets hiring decision-makers’ appetites, spurs calls for interviews and encourages the conversations beyond the interviews. In this way, your resume stands apart from the pack. Here’s how:

  • BEFORE writing your resume, be introspective. Simply put, take the time to perform career brain dump through an exercise comprised of challenge/action/results (C-A-R) stories enhanced via problem-stomping, product building, idea-inducing initiatives you took to spur business improvement. Then, dive deeper (beyond the C-A-R) and weave in the leadership, team-building, relationship-leveraging talents you leveraged to battle through armies of naysayers or climb to the summit of mountainous challenges.
  • Did what you do help your department, division, region or overall company do something bigger and better — save money, reduce time to market, boost revenues, attract new customers, build a better reputation, expand the profit margin, etc.? Command attention for the little things you did and how they helped the organization do something larger. The bottom line is that you must bottom-line it!
  • Of course, command attention for the BIG things you personally achieved, as well. Taking credit for your individual role in business that has skyrocketed, sustained and survived (especially during these lean economic times) is crucial for marketing yourself. If you can take singular credit for a larger, business-transforming initiative, DO it!
  • While bottom-lining is essential resume nourishment, the story around the bottom-line should be equally rich.  Simmer your nuances with the finest of career messaging juices to establish you as a unique individual focused on target companies’ needs.

Rather than churning out a canned resume recipe with career vocabulary inserts across your Summary and Experience sections, blend together a custom recipe of your finest career enterprises that meld forethought, vision, creativity, bottom-line savvy and customer relationship management insights. Warm up the decision-making reader with words that wrap around their needs.

Position your career expertise by writing with passion, tempered with pragmatism. Show flair–be personable and enticing and assert your culture fit that will attract the culture you desire. People hire people who express ideas and show HOW their ideas and execution talent build corporate value. People hire people who are turned on and tuned into the company’s needs (the it’s-all-about-THEM-resume-concept). And people hire people who evoke emotion and show confidence in their contribution and culture-enhancing initiative.

Rather than scrubbing, polishing and tweaking your resume, consider how you can differentiate your candidacy in the interviewing process! Wile them with your words!

Creating an Interactive Personal Brand

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More and more people are talking about the importance of personal branding both in your career search and in your career development. Effective personal branding not only makes you stand out from the crowd to employers and recruiters; it can also increase your job security by communicating your value as a leader and team player to your organization.

What is personal branding?

Personal branding is the process of identifying the unique and differentiating value that you can bring to an organization, team and/or project, and communicating it in a professionally memorable and consistent manner in all of your actions and outputs, both online and offline, to all current and prospective stakeholders in your career.

Everyone has a unique personal brand. You communicate your own brand in everything you do — whether you know it or not. It is important to remember that personal branding is so much more than what you put on your social networks or what you write on a blog.

It’s who you are inside and out, online AND offline. Your personal brand is your reputation.

How do you create your personal brand?

1)     Write down your differentiating strengths (those you feel make you stand out from the rest)

2)     Ask your friends, family and colleagues/managers to do the same

3)     Identify the top 3 to 5 strengths that you feel will support the career direction you want to pursue

4)     Create/find a word or phrase that can become your personal brand and that represents these strengths

5)     Develop a short pitch that can follow your brand, describing your strengths in more detail

Note: Ensure that your word or phrase is versatile and can change with your direction

How do you build your personal brand?

There are many ways that you can build and communicate your personal brand both online and in-person; however, to get you started, here are some topline recommendations for establishing your brand and credibility in today’s career marketplace:

Get active and get visible online and offline: If no one meets you or sees you, it won’t matter how strong your personal brand is.  Therefore, it is essential that you get your name and yourself in front of your target network.  Here are some ways to increase your visibility:

  • Create a LinkedIn profile and follow the suggested steps to complete your profile 100%, making sure you include your personal brand and pitch in your subtitle and summary sections
  • Create a Google account and profile for improved search engine optimization
  • Include your personal brand on your resume, cover letter, business cards, email signature, voicemail message and across your other social networks, such as Twitter and Facebook
  • Consider creating a personal website or blog site where you can house all of your information, including experience, education, skills, honors, entrepreneurial efforts and more
  • Join associations or networking groups within your industry and try attending their events to meet new contacts and build your target network.  Be sure to share your personal brand with those new contacts you meet
  • Conduct informational interviews with target network contacts (whether or not you’re seeking a job) and share your personal brand with them in your introductions

Contribute consistent value: Make sure that everything you contribute is valuable to those with whom you share it and also relevant to and supportive of your personal brand.  Consistency is critical, for the more consistent all of your own marketing efforts are both online and offline, the more powerful and memorable your personal brand impression will be on all current and prospective stakeholders in your career.  Here are some ways you start contributing value:

  • Book or product reviews
  • Tweets
  • Comments on other blog posts
  • Blog articles or articles for print publications
  • Discussions in LinkedIn Groups or in other forums
  • Advice via LinkedIn Answers and other forums

Become a thought leader: As you grow the quantity, quality and uniqueness of your contributions, you may be increasingly considered as an industry thought leader.  Here are some ways to support and even expedite your rise to thought leadership:

  • Start your own blog with a unique POV on your industry/area of interest
  • Found a company with relevant and valuable products/services/resources for the industry
  • Publish and offer print and/or electronic publications
  • Get quoted in the media by joining HARO and contributing advice, experiences and insights to writers and journalists seeking expert sources
  • Find ways to bring fellow industry thought leaders together on a project or at an event
  • Find ways to contribute to the projects or events of fellow industry experts
  • Get recommended on LinkedIn and any other networks where you or your offerings are available and/or collect and display testimonials from customers, clients and partners

Chris Perry, MBA is a Gen Y brand and marketing generator, a career search and personal branding expert and the founder of Career Rocketeer, Launchpad, Blogaristo and more.

Who "Owns" Social Media?

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The Internet really upended the corporate communications industry. Though PR professionals used to jeer at advertising pros for being message control freaks, and marketers used to impress boardrooms with fancypants charts and graphs and make the creatives and spindoctors look as if they failed high school algebra, at the end of the day, everyone got along. Everyone knew their job.

Now, that once playfully competitive scene is a battle taking place over a new landscape we call social media. Who owns it? Who controls it? Who deserves it? You’ll get a different answer from every industry you ask. After majoring in public relations, studying some marketing, and landing a job with an advertising firm, I’ve gained some insight on this issue.

PR’s role in social media

PR professionals are the mavens of conversation. And conversation is a huge component of social media. Daily monitoring and damage control on social media should fall into the hands of the PR firm or department. Brands without a human element are just slogans, and PR professionals are the best for the job when it comes to humanizing brands in the social space. Some brands are using social media for customer relationship management and customer service. I would argue that those practices, in the social space, are operating under a PR umbrella.

Advertisers’ role in social media

Yeah, yeah, conversation is great, but the best social media case studies are showing that brands need to create something remarkable to justify conversation. No traditional PR firm or marketing guru could have pulled off what advertising firm Wieden+Kennedy did with the Old Spice YouTube responses. That’s because advertising agencies, unlike PR or marketing firms, have the necessary resources to create professional video content on a personalized level, which is what is needed to fuel conversation and record view-counts. Many ad firms are equipped with the physical resources that take social media beyond conversation and metrics. If a brand wants to build something with the foursquare API for example, they will likely turn to their advertising firm of record for the job. Traditionally, PR firms and marketers simply did not have the interactive design or software engineer resources for that kind of endeavor.

Marketers’ role in social media

The most beautiful thing about social media for brands is that it’s very measurable. Facebook pages provide statistics. Google Analytics can show how many site visitors are coming from social media sites. There are a lot of online tools that help measure Twitter activity and, if you haven’t yet, check out Awareness Inc’s foursquare Perpectives tool. In B2C businesses, these tools are extremely valuable for marketers. I would also say that the practice of branding takes place in the marketing department. Advertising helps to actualize a brand, and PR maintains that brand with conversation, but the creation and discovery of what makes a brand lies with marketers.

The reality

The fact is that these three practices are converging like never before. These industries will move forward in the digital space and continue to battle over control of social media. However, that is not because any one practice owns social media. It’s because the skills that go along with these practices are breaking through old borders. Marketing tactics are happening in advertising firms. Conversation skills normally reserved for PR departments are being used by marketers. PR departments are reporting charts and graphs on social media now!

If you’re looking for a career in one of these industries, understand your skill set will need to include a mesh of these practices. If you’re a business looking to get into social media, look for the resources and skills, not the industry label on the company history page. There are also digital and interactive design firms setting a different standard for how these practices intertwine, but that’s a topic for another article.

Personal Re-Branding for Career Changers

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There is a lot of great advice out there on personal branding for both students just entering the workforce and for professionals pursuing the next stage in their current, chosen career path. But what about career-changers?  How can they re-brand themselves for new opportunities when they have already invested so much time, effort, training and more into branding themselves for their previous careers?

Here are some tips to help you career changers out there reposition yourselves for successful career transitions:

Improve Your Self-Perception: Many people are stuck in the job description of their last position. You can be a software engineer at more than a financial services company. You can be a network administrator in many industries. You can work in customer service in more than a department store. Believing that you are viable in an array of career opportunities will also go a long way in helping you increase your self-worth and the way you project yourself. – Barbara Poole, Employaid.com

Develop Brand Versatility: As you develop your personal brand and supporting pitch, make sure that it is industry or function-neutral and can be interchanged with different career-specific adjectives.  For example, my personal brand is the “generator,” for I generate a lot of energy, am constantly creating new ideas and solutions to problems and love building relationships and strong-knit teams.  However, generator does not necessarily refer to my career direction.  I am in marketing and brand management, and thus, I would describe myself as a Brand & Marketing Generator; however, if I started pursuing a new career in finance or some other function or industry, I would still be a generator, but could change my personal brand descriptors to align more effectively with my newly-chosen career path.  – Chris Perry, CareerRocketeer.com

Make Social Networking Work For You: You need to make a name for yourself in your new field. In today’s Twitter and Facebook world, you must make yourself known on the internet. You want to be sure that potential employers can find you if they search topics relevant to the field you are targeting. One method I have personally found effective is to review books covering your field on book sites like Amazon.com. To return to the engineer-to-financier example above, the engineer would do well to seek out important new books in the finance field, then write compelling, informative reviews on them at Amazon.com. Many search engines, like Google, consider product reviews to be important and relevant to searchers and will rank them fairly high during searches. For example, after writing a recent review on a marketing book at Amazon.com, even I was surprised at finding that review as the #1 search result when I Googled my name. Sounds crazy, I know, but try it. It works. – Stephan Sorger, StephanSorger.com

Arrange Informational Interviews: Go on informational interviews with hiring managers! Career changers often have the most difficult time making their resumes pop from a pile, because HR is scanning for key words, experiences, and degrees that career changers often don’t have. If you build a relationship with a future boss/company, you will have a much easier time getting face-time when an opportunity in your new field emerges. –  Alexia Vernon, GenerationWeCoach.com

Chris Perry, MBA is a Gen Y brand and marketing generator, a career search and personal branding expert and the founder of Career Rocketeer, Launchpad, Blogaristo and more.