Today’s post is an excerpt from the article HIRE POWER, published in PM Network on July 1, 2010, and authored by Jenn Danko, a writer based in Chicago, Illinois.  The excerpt below was featured in a sidebar entitled A Virtual Foot In the Door.

It’s not all about after-work cocktail hours and lunchtime panel discussions anymore. Project managers looking for career opportunities should also consider heading online to do some networking, says Lucian Tarnowski, BraveNewTalent Ltd., London, England.

“Don’t think of networking as just face-to-face interaction. Your online brand is just as important – if not even more,” he says. “Specific to project management, people skills are important, and being able to communicate that over social media is huge. If you can’t have a one-on-one relationship with a person, the next best thing you can have is a connection through social media- and who knows which of those connections will end up with a job?”

Online networking can be a great resource for information about company projects and potential career leads, too, says Miles Jennings, ProjectManagers.net. Hartford, Connecticut, USA. He knows a thing or two about the subject, having started the Project Manager Networking Group on Linked In. Sometimes who you know can help you with what you know. “Social media is a quick path to network in the profession and learn from experts in the field,” Mr. Jennings says. “Use social media to drive real-world connections.”

Beyond establishing initial contact, you can use social media sites to set up in-person meetings when appropriate. Don’t be shy, either- interact with colleagues on message boards and forums.

“If you are passionate about something and want to be a leader in your field, leading debates is important,” Mr. Tarnowski says. “There’s a big opportunity online to do so.”

And although it seems everyone is atwitter over Twitter, blogging, can be another powerful way to showcase skills and build relationships, advises Jason Davis, Systems Evolution Inc., Boston, Massachusetts.

“Yes, you have to go out and get solid project experience, but the blogging community is allowing people to interact about their experiences.” he says. “It’s allowing people to get involved with other project managers they wouldn’t normally have been able to connect with.”

It can also help those just starting out to gain some credibility.

“Young project management talent can not only get a presence that way but can also build their résumé, and ultimately, their careers,” Mr. Davis says.

The main article was about social recruiting and how companies are using this as a tool to recruit good project managers.

I was quoted as emphasizing the power of community on Twitter – “Primarily, I see the Twitter space as a place to build community within the profession and keep a pulse on the conversation,” says Jason Davis, Principal Consultant at Systems Evolution Inc., a project and technology management consulting firm in Boston, Massachusetts.

6 months later, I still couldn’t agree more.

A Virtual Foot In The Door is a post from: HR Think Tank

Today’s guest post is from Eric Leist, a Public Relations major in Boston University’s class of 2010.  Eric blogs over at Meghan Biro’s firm Talent Culture and on his own blog, EricLeist.com

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You’ll never figure out what’s wrong with me. Am I lazy? Arrogant? Rude? I’m an enigma. A puzzle waiting to be solved. I have wired veins; technology is my DNA. I pay for pre-ripped jeans. And yes, I do expect to wear them to work.

I’m Gen-Y. Hear me roar.

Like it or not, my generation is charging into the workforce. Yep, all 70 million of us. We’re a talented herd, too. HR directors will play Ringling Brothers trying to tame us, hire us, and retain us. Most will fail.

The Gen-Y stampede of talent cannot be stopped and refined. It must be harnessed.

So for all you HR directors out there struggling with the wild Gen-Y animals, here are five characteristics we look for in the workplace. Know them. Embrace them. Love them. You’ll need to in order to attract and retain the top talent in my generation.

1) We want to wear jeans. But it’s not about the denim. It’s about the casual atmosphere. We want coworkers we can hang out with. We like relaxed environments. We’re not afraid to log long hours. We’ll get our work done before the deadline, and the results will be stellar. So what difference does it make what we wear when we work? If you don’t let us wear pajamas, at least let us wear jeans.

2) We want flexibility. Forget these formulaic job descriptions. You won’t be able to force our skill sets into roles defined by previous generations. You’re better off creating roles around our skill sets. Give us the freedom to work from home, and we’ll prove we deserve it. Gen-Y-ers don’t mind checking in on their BlackBerry over the weekend if they have the option of working remotely.

3) We want the latest and greatest gadgets. Our generation was the first to grow up with computer classes. Cell phones and texting were everything in high school. We get frustrated when we know better, faster, sleeker technology is out there and we don’t have it. The most defining value of Gen-Y is the desire to be tech-savvy.

4) We want mentors. Our grandparents held long-standing relationships with employers. We don’t. People work for people; not brands. We want to work for people who take a genuine interest in our careers. We seek out the opinions of our peers and our superiors, and we’re equally as willing to give advice.

5) We want to contribute, and we want to be paid for it. The Internet wove incredible information access into our upbringing. We competed fiercely against our peers for college admission. We’re deeply in debt after slaving over coffee machines and data entry programs at unpaid internships. Yes, we expect to be paid handsomely, but we’re eager to earn the cash and the respect that comes with it.

If we can’t find these things, we’re not afraid to start our own businesses. We’ll sculpt our own corporate cultures to fit our needs.

Eric Leist is a senior at Boston University and currently interns with TalentCulture. He has previously interned with the New York Giants, Mills & Company and 451 Marketing. When not studying Public Relations and Business, he’s an anchor and producer at BUTV10′s InsideBoston and VP of BU’s Public Relations Student Society. Eric also coaches a competitive public speaking team in Newton, MA and spends his extra time experimenting in the kitchen.

Photo Credit: Deanwissing

Harnessing the Gen-Y Beast is a post from: HR Think Tank

Imagine your candidates showing up to their interview totally unprepared – not at the top of their game – expecting you to look past the wrinkled clothes, poor resumes, and bad attitudes and hire them anyway.  It isn’t the first impression you hope for when you greet the candidate in the lobby.

First impressions matter – in person, on the phone and especially online.  Similar to how you are judging your candidates, your customers will make inferences about your capability as an organization based on the quality of your website, and candidates will make snap judgments about the attractiveness of working at your company within minutes of seeing your careers site.

In fact, everything you put out there in the social media space has the potential to play into someone’s impression of you as an individual, or as a company – twitter bios, tweets, blogs, websites, LinkedIn profiles, Facebook pictures – all fair game.  And when it comes to securing new customers and attracting new talent to your organization, none of these are more salient than your corporate website.

The company I work for, SEI, is going through a complete website redesign.  I tell it like it is, so I’ll say that I have been hesitant in the past to show this website openly to potential clients.  While I’m completely confident our service offerings adapt to change with the demands of the market to meet the needs of our clients, our website remained static.  Even more importantly, a stale and out of date website has the ability to affect recruiting.  It’s tough to on one hand say you are a premier business and technology consulting firm, and on the other have your careers page asking candidates to fax resumes.  Best practices for website development have changed rapidly – content density matters, and the best websites have gotten increasingly more visual and interactive.  Did we lose candidates because of our website?  It’s too hard to know, but the risk alone has us engaging in a redesign.

How do you know if your website needs a redesign?  Basically, if you start to feel like your website doesn’t reflect your company’s employment brand, people, or culture without you sitting next to the reader, don’t wait.  You should assume that you only have one shot at the next candidate that goes to your page.

If you are okay with candidates that don’t reflect their true value in your interviews, then sit tight with your sub-par careers page, but if you expect your candidates to be their best during their interview, pitching their experience and value proposition to the firm, you should be making sure your company is doing the same.  If not, your competition will.

Photo Credit

People Will Make A First Impression From Your Website: Don’t F It Up! is a post from: HR Think Tank

Back in March, I was asked to write the monthly ‘Living the Value Proposition’ column for my company’s monthly newsletter.  In a very Jerry Macguire-esque effort – I stayed up all night thinking about value propositions – the tough to define, ever-continuous search to define the elusive catch-phrase that pops into peoples minds when they think of our company.  I wasn’t looking to write marketing collateral or website material here – I wanted to dish some old school stream of consciousness thoughts on some basic questions: Why do people work here?  Why do clients hire us?  What enables us to get long term traction?

I decided to talk about the value of people and trust, and what they meant to our company – About how they defined our sales and delivery approach.

I wasn’t on Twitter yet – but I found Amber Naslund (@AmberCadabra) who wrote in her blog back in 2008 that “Delivering something worthwhile is not achieved in a board room with big flip charts or spreadsheets and ideation sessions. It’s not delivered with a slick brochure or well-written copy, or a stack of press hits in the Wall Street Journal.  It’s not delivered in key messages or brand attributes, even.  It’s delivered in the work that you do with and for your customers, each and every day.  The hard stuff, where you roll up your sleeves and show what you’re made of.  Solving real problems for real people.” When I read this – it instantly resonated with me – it sounded like my company.  It was at the heart of why we were experiencing real traction with clients.

I used Amber’s message as a spring board into talking about our hiring model as a key differentiator for the firm.  We don’t hire ‘revenue streams’ for short term opportunities; We don’t bend on out model to snatch up a high performer that isn’t a cultural fit; We don’t have partners and directors and mangers and associates and note takers in an endless ongoing hierarchy of escalating bill rates.  We hire good people that do great work and we give those people the opportunity to be part of a great company, and it works – Good candidates come here – and stay here – and we’re better because of it.

I also ran across Chris Brogan and Julien Smith’s blogs and their pre-Trust Agents eBook called Trust Economies.  They spoke about a business universe build from decades of empty promises, overused buzz words, and buyer skepticism.  They were hitting on the key to our value proposition: linking great people with great clients with a relationship grounded in the common currency of trust.

As we know all too well, a typical sales person (and in many cases a typical consultant) has a short-term mindset, focusing on monthly targets, quarterly/yearly quotas, and high-profit engagements.  But in the Trust Economy – it’s the relationship that drives the sale. Some companies will come in with glossy paper and big names and sell on reputation, but their long-term viability and stickiness are hampered by the lack of a sound, trusting relationship with their clients and numerous cases of non-delivery.

Companies and individuals alike can learn some valuable lessons here.  A strong commitment and focus on building sound relationships, and then adding value to those relationships without a greedy, take more than you give approach can lead to long-term benefits.  Focus on selling this way – Deliver.  Do what is right.  Focus on doing what is best for the client, without selfish and misaligned agendas.  Don’t gouge clients on rates because you can, and don’t change order clients to death. Take Amber’s advice and treat them like peers – roll up your sleeves and solve real problems together!

It’s about the Fuzzy Stuff: People and Trust is a post from: HR Think Tank