Naomi Marr.com

What is the key to job hunting success? Hint: It’s NOT social media.

April 27th, 2011 1 Comment

I have spent the last five months learning my way through the Human Resources Human Capital Management (HR HCM) SaaS software space. The HR space is not a completely foreign market to me because I have been a valuable member of the workforce since I was 15 years old, I have searched for and secured new positions during my career, I have been a hiring manager and managed large teams, and my background is generally in software, but I am thoroughly enjoying better understanding the HR space from the business side of the house. If you pair what I have learned recently with my experience in the social media space and in being a consulting recruiter for several organizations, I am well equipped to help job hunters navigate the space. Not an expert or anything – just someone who can help.

I could ramble on forever about resume formats, cover letters, your online profile, network building, the value of written communication, great job hunting websites and resources, and on, and on, and on…but – when it comes right down to it, the most exciting part of job hunting these days is the role social media can play in that search. Yes. Everyone needs a network. Yes. Everyone needs to be conscious of their online profile and walk that very thin line between your personal and professional lives. Yes. Everyone has the ability to use social media to their advantage when job hunting. But the truth is, most people don’t know what that means or how to do it.

So what is the key to job hunting success?

The hiring manager.

You see – this is where most people go wrong. They focus on defining what they want in a new job and use the traditional paths of navigating through Human Resources organizations to find a job. Channels like outside recruiters, job boards, blind social media posts (I.e., “I need a job doing X. Anyone know someone who’s hiring?”), following social media job boards, and even job fairs and newspaper ads.

All of this works – but if you want to experience success you need to hear one thing during your conversations. You need to hear, “I AM HIRING.” If you hear those three magical words you know you have a better shot than any of the other people trying those other things. You have a direct line to the hiring manager. You may build rapport, invest time to better understand their challenges, and tailor your communications to their goals. It is the best possible spot a job hunter can find him or herself in.

Those traditional channels of navigating the HR process might get you in front of the hiring managers. But how do you accelerate that process? Or how do you stand out from the other candidates you’re competing against? Find the hiring manager in a more creative fashion and use all the tools available to you to do it more quickly than those other candidates.

If you think of this as a database segmentation project (because all geeks like me do) then you just need to define your hiring manager audience.

What software would your potential boss want you to use?
What special skills would your potential boss want you to use?
What would some of the titles be for your potential boss?
What size company would your boss work for?
How large would your team be?
What industry would your potential boss work in?
What are the pain points for these potential hiring managers (compliance? resource overload? budget? technology constraints?)

Once you’ve defined the qualities of your new boss it becomes easier. You may use the social medias to find the local events and groups where your prospective manager might participate. You may conduct conversations with those perspective managers because you better understand where they’re coming from and how your background and experience will assist them. You still need to end up in a position that matches your long-term career goals, but focusing your search on the hiring manager will get you there more quickly.

Ode to English Sticky Toffee Pudding

March 15th, 2011 No Comments

For those that know me well, you know that I take my desserts VERY seriously. If I could, I would eat every meal backwards starting with dessert. I say this only because it makes the statement I’m about to make, even that much more important. I found the BEST DESSERT I’VE EVER EATEN IN MY LIFE.

That’s right. Best. Ever. I found it at The Living Room London W1 on my last trip to London. The dessert is called English Sticky Toffee Pudding, but is anything BUT a pudding. It’s this wonderful, almost spice-cake like (but without the spices; I know – hard to figure) warm dessert that is served with a velvety warm caramel toffee sauce over the top. Hmmmm….sounds good, right?

Well – it turns out there are many variations of this wonderful dessert so I went on the hunt to produce one that was the most similar to the one I’d had at The Living Room London. The result is a concoction of a few of the different recipes and I’ve left out some of the final preparation steps (for example some of the recipes called for a last-minute broiler session to crystalize the sugar on top and make it crunchy, but that’s not how it was served at The Living Room.) Please feel free to give this recipe a try — it’s warm yummy salty sugary goodness.

If you like it – I’d love to hear about it!

http://naomimarr.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/English-Sticky-Toffee-Pudding.pdf

Fear versus Insecurity?

December 6th, 2010 No Comments

In a recent conversation with a friend, I said something out loud that struck in a chord in me and I felt as if I had uncovered a small piece of what makes me the person I am.

I said – fear and insecurity are two distinctly different emotions and while one can feed the other, a person can be very secure but fearful of something.

What do you think?

Fear is defined by Merriam-Webster Dictionary as, “to be afraid of (something or someone.)” Insecurity is defined, as “deficient in assurance.”

Some of the debate centers around the connotations associated with these two words. For example, the word “insecure” has a more negative connotation as it feels as if it is tied more closely to emotions and to feelings of jealousy or envy. The word “fear,” while also having a negative connotation, feels more closely tied to an innate reaction to a dangerous situation – something that can not truly be controlled (although many argue it can be overcome to a certain degree.)

I would argue that fear and insecurity are two distinctly different emotions. A person may be very confident and secure in whom and what they are, while at the same time very fearful of any number of things that drive and/or influence who they are as an individual.

Can the reverse argument be made? Can a person’s fear drive insecurity? Absolutely – but in this instance that is a much more scary prospect. A person who is both insecure and fearful has cyclical and compounding issues.

Ideally we would all love to be secure and unafraid. I would have to say I envy J anyone who achieves such peace. It seems – and perhaps this is naïve on my part – that conquering fears is easier than altering assurance perceptions and insecurity.

I think my message to my friend was that perhaps we all are too hard on ourselves and sometimes we feel insecure when in all reality the emotion we are feeling is fear and not insecurity. If you start to understand that you are secure in whom and what you are as a person but are afraid of particular aspects of your life then you have the confidence to address those fears head on and challenge yourself to overcome them.

If you assume you are insecure then will you ever have the confidence to address your fears? I could discuss this one for hours…

Knock, knock. Who’s there?

July 12th, 2010 1 Comment

There are two aspects of human nature that are always fascinating to me. The first is that people, generally speaking, rarely take immediate action when they have a positive customer experience. The second is that people, again generally speaking, rarely like to say bad things to someone’s face. Combine those two aspects of human nature and you’ve got the fuel for social media.

Regarding positive customer experiences, I am referencing the immediate-type responses like — “Wow! Dragonfly Farms just blew my socks off with the bag of vegetables they provided this week – nice work. #CSA.” You see them – but not as often as you hear the griping and dinging. Positive customer feedback is often delivered when someone asks your opinion on a particular brand/experience at a later point in time. For example, next spring when people are considering joining a CSA and they ask my opinion, I willingly go on and on about what a wonderful job Dragonfly Farms did and how much value we derived from their products.

That positive customer experience is very important – don’t get me wrong – but don’t expect immediate feedback from your efforts. This is important for companies to remember when launching and maintaining social media efforts. You may not truly understand the impact of your actions on the customer experience until much later. And, you may never be privy to those conversations because they will happen between the customers. Don’t underestimate your role in the experience, though, just because you are not seeing direct feedback. I like to encourage folks to pay it forward with providing immediate positive customer experience feedback because it is very motivational for organizations and the people that work for them, but the truth of the matter is that it doesn’t always happen.

Regarding our tendency to hedge on saying bad things to someone’s face – in my opinion this is probably one of the most important reasons to participate in social media. Every negative comment is an opportunity to engage and turn that experience into a positive customer interaction. The minute you engage with the person making negative comments they step back and rethink the directness of their delivery and approach. I am not suggesting that they will not provide any feedback, but rather that it will have been inadvertently filtered if it’s not given spontaneously and more anonymously. People speak their spontaneous thoughts which may be more brutal than you would prefer to a broad anonymous audience, but in this situation there is an opportunity to gain critical insights into what your customers think of your business. Then, when you address the situation you have the opportunity to engage on a more professional level with the customer and hopefully improve the overall interaction.

I had such an experience when working from my home office. I had the windows open and heard a very heated and unprofessional exchange between two men installing cable at my neighbor’s house. A quick tweet on my part, detailing how awful I thought the situation was being handled was quickly downplayed when a representative of the cable company tweeted back within moments of my tweet hitting the “wires.” I quickly back pedaled and made my tweets more professional – you see, it is easy to forget that your negative feedback can have human impact until a human is actually talking to you and reminds you of that fact.

This brings me to the point of my post.

Customers will not knock on your door and tell you how much they love you, but they will tell you that you are not so bad when confronted after a negative post – even if they still cringe at the mention of your name. It is only your effort to rectify the situation that will change their perception.

Sounds a bit like seventh grade hallway conversations doesn’t it?

If you tell, expect to talk.

May 13th, 2010 No Comments

It will not take you long to figure out that there is some deeper issue feeding this rant, so I might as well put it out there now. I have a very complex and stressful family situation at the moment, and it’s what made me realize just how many times I’ve told – but didn’t want to talk, and how relative this is to a lot of the issues people have with the transparency of social media.

So – I’ll say again…if you tell expect to talk. Think of all those times you have shared something with your Mom only to have her question your judgment and ask questions. It only takes about three minutes before you think twice about having said something in the first place and although the two of you may move on, it’s a pretty darn good chance that 3 months after the conversation when something related to the original topic surfaces again, your mom will have more to say about it and more questions.

Think also of that friend of yours who broke up with their boyfriend or girlfriend and then shared with you all their horrible flaws and sought your solace only to get back together again and expect you to forget the conversations ever happened.

In both of these situations – it’s impossible to go back once the initial conversations happen. If you tell, expect to talk.

You give the listener the right to ask questions. The right to judge you. The right to be worried about you. The right to experience a myriad of emotions related to the situation. Pity. Anger. Sadness. Relief. Whatever those emotions might be, the listener now has an open door.

You have to remember that YOU are the one that opened the door and that you are the one that might have to defend your thoughts and feelings. You might have to accept that others respectfully disagree with your approach. You might end up regretting it all.

But – hopefully…and this is the most important part…you’ll learn something from the entire experience. That’s what telling and talking is all about. You open yourself up to the talk, suffer and learn from the conversations and then hopefully come out on the other side having somehow improved your relationship with the teller. You have to tread lightly because unforgiveable words could be spoken and inescapable judgment could be laid down.

It’s no different with social media, right?

Social media is transparent. That’s for sure. And some people do all talking but don’t ever share anything about them. Some people do nothing but tell and then don’t engage when people try to talk to them. It’s hard to talk – to have to defend your thoughts and feelings, but it’s what makes the interactions genuine.

So – buck up – you told. Now TALK.