Cabernet makes the world go around, the world go around...LinkedIn helps get you hired!

Misss Smokey is home and still pretty drugged up.  She is in a daze but doesn't seem to be in any pain.  I am surprised at how easy she is taking her bubble gum flavored antibiotics!!  Yes I said bubble gum.   I would have thought it would be tuna or salmon flavored.  Talk about feeling bad when you are holding down a one-eyed cat and shoving a dropper full of bubble gum in her mouth.  And did I tell you I have to do this twice a day for 2 weeks!!  Yikes

Had a lovely glass of Cabernet last night, Toasted Head, 2011 barrel aged California Cabernet.  Yummalicious!  If you haven't tried it, you should.  Reasonably priced and very smooth.  I am looking forward to the fall when I will start opening up some of my heavy cabs and zins with the peppery flavors.  Add some stinky blue cheese and you have yourself a party!

It is Saturday so I am going to digress a bit.  I just have to say that homemade strawberry jam in Greek yogurt is the best!

Yesterday I talked about how I was always ready with my resume, being the anal retentive person that I am.  Well, that isn't enough it seems.  So many people are applying for positions that they are not qualified for that it blogs the hiring managers down and they may not get to your resume even if you are the most qualified.  I track my job search with an excel spreadsheet.  (Remember, anal retentive?) I list out the date, the company, the job, where I found it, if they responded, etc.  

I guess my statistics aren't too bad; I have had 14 responses back from 22 jobs that I applied for online. I have five jobs that recruiters called me for:

• ·        One I turned down, it was in NYC and the pay was awful.  I would only be able to afford an 8x12 apartment with what they were offering and how traumatic would that be for the cats?
• ·        One the company decided to hold off starting the division they originally wanted me to run
• ·        The other three I am in the process of interviews

So how do recruiters find you, you ask?  One of the best places for recruiters to look for candidates is LinkedIn.  If you are not on LinkedIn, you should be, even if you have a job. Remember, always being ready for that great opportunity? I guess I am an early adopter and have been on the site for years.  I get calls from recruiters all the time regarding jobs.  And if I am not interested in the position, I will generally see if I know someone who might be and I will forward their information to the recruiter (I always let the person know I did this too).  That is called networking and it is critical to your success of not only finding a job, but hiring good people yourself.  

There is a great articles on the web detailing how to use LinkedIn to its fullest.  Here is one site with a great discussion on maximizing the FREE site.

http://www.impacthiringsolutions.com/careerblog/2010/07/13/why-dont-candidates-use-linkedin-effectively/

Some of the highlights of this article written by Barry Deutsch include these tips:

Start to leverage all the great tools LinkedIn provides for your job search, such as:

• Ability to participate in Questions and Answers
• Ability to constantly evolve and change your Profile
• Ability to Get Testimonials/References to say good things about you
• Ability to share books/reviews/thoughts with others
• Ability to participate in group discussions
• Ability to post useful information into groups
• Ability to contact directly potential hiring managers and recruiters
• Ability to post rich content/media of PowerPoint presentations, white papers, video, and audio
• Ability to “LIKE” and comment on the status updates of people in your network
• Ability to easily build a powerful network to generate an abundance of job leads and referrals.
• Ability to include your twitter stream and blog postings

I belong to groups, I post on the discussions, and I interact with my network.  All of these are fairly easy to do once  you get in the habit of doing it regularly.  While employed, during the few lunches I had with no scheduled meetings, I would have my salad in front of my computer and update LinkedIn, network with old colleagues and read what was going on.  It kept me up to date on topics being discussed in my industry (healthcare) as well as others.

Ok, I need to get back to my canning, I have one more batch of beets to do until the tomatoes come out in full force, then it is sauce!!  Happy Saturday.