HOW AMERICA CAN LEVEL-UP SKILLS AND LAND GOOD JOBS.

Article and Video Interview by Brooke Allen

I’ve often wondered what can be done to make it fun to learn new skills and hunt for a job. Surely if FarmVille can make farming fun, and Call of Duty can make war fun, isn’t it possible for the people who produce those games to apply what they know to making the process of finding and qualifying for a job just a little bit more effective and enjoyable?

As it turns out, the answer is: ABSOLUTELY.

Recently I discussed this very question with Gabe Zichermann, an expert in “gamification,” author of Game Based Marketing, and creator of the Gamification Blog.

Gabe explained that the job search is usually a long process that has many moving parts including the concept of career mastery. He says this is the kind of thing that is well suited to modern multi-player social games.

In order to take someone through the “player’s journey,” game designers break complex processes into their component pieces and by providing guidance and rewards along the way. As missions are completed and skills are “leveled-up,” the player can look back later to see that they have accomplished something amazing – and had fun along the way.

After hearing his fascinating advice on how you can make your own job search more fun for you and for those who are helping you, I asked Gabe if this idea has ever been commercialized.

After all, Zynga has figured out how to get 1% of the world’s population to play Farmville, growing crops that nobody can eat. You join for free through Facebook and begin building your farm. Then you invite friends to start neighboring farms, and you interact daily, by visiting each other and complete specialized tasks in order to receive rewards and “farm coins” which you can use to buy gifts for your friends.

Gabe has famously highlighted Farmville’s social aspect by calling it “poke with cows.”

Wouldn’t it be great if Zynga created a “JobsVille” as “poke with resumes” – a place where you and your friends can help each other level-up your real-world connections and skills, land good jobs, and put real food on the table? What’s in it for Zynga? After all, if Zynga goes public, they will have shareholders to feed. As Gabe suggested in the interview, if people help you with editing a resume, making an introduction, or practicing an interview, it is entirely appropriate you reward them, perhaps with a real (or virtual) gifts bought through the game platform.

Better yet, why not help a charity in the name of the person who helped you?

Zynga has already thought of this; they handle the distribution of charitable contributions from their users through their non-profit Zynga.org.

Gabe told me he has not heard of a single person who has made a massively multi-player on-line social game out of the job hunt, but that it is ripe for development.

by Steve Amoia for No Shortage of Work

Playing baseball was Joe DiMaggio’s first real job as an adult. He had worked at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco with his father, and sold newspapers as a boy. Neither job held much appeal to him.

Few first jobs in life could have the impact of this one. To be a first generation Italian-American teenager with a job at the ballpark. To watch the first American sports icon, Joe DiMaggio, in a way that few could imagine.

An American Cultural Icon

If you ever played baseball, the mystical Joe DiMaggio was as familiar as the crack of the bat, or the thud of the ball hitting the back of the catcher’s mitt. Just like cold beer, hot dogs, and the seventh inning stretch, Joe DiMaggio was an integral part of American baseball tradition and lore.

Giuseppe Paolo DiMaggio was born in Martinez, California, on Nov. 25, 1920, and died March 08, 1999 in Hollywood, Florida. He was the eighth of nine children born to Giuseppe and Rosalia, who were immigrants from the Sicilian island of Isola della Femmina (Women’s Island). His father was a fisherman; however, young Joe did not like the rigors of Fisherman’s Wharf. He preferred to play on the sandlots of North Beach, which was and is an Italian neighborhood of San Francisco. His father thought that Joe was lazy, and hoped that the allure of baseball would soon leave his son. Young Joe was not an avid student, and at the age of 16, he dropped out of Galileo High School,
and worked various laborer jobs for the next few years.

From North Beach to the Bronx

He played semi-professional baseball for the San Francisco Seals, and after hitting in 61 consecutive games, his star rose in the direction of the New York Yankees. He was scouted and later signed by the Bronx Bombers. His career with New York spanned from 1936 to 1951, and included a three year break during World War II. Two of his brothers, Dominic and Vincent, also played professional baseball, respectively. Interestingly, all three played the position of center field.

In an era without television and mass communications, DiMaggio became an American cultural icon. Mostly due to radio broadcasts, magazines and newspapers. To Italian-Americans, and other new immigrants, he represented much more than the perfect swing, the graceful strides, his devotion to Marilyn Monroe, or “The Streak” (he hit safely in 56 straight games in 1941) that would make him immortal. Mr. DiMaggio exemplified that a first generation American could assimilate and become a reference point in the nation’s most popular game of baseball. This sport has the same popularity in the United States as soccer does in the rest of the world.

Rare Childhood Opportunity

My father, Michael Amoia, had a rare opportunity as a child. His family lived near Griffith Stadium, which was at that time the home of the Washington Redskins and Senators. In 1965, the stadium was torn down, and now is the site of the Howard University Hospital. My father was very athletic, and competed in baseball and football for his high school, McKinley Technical. Somehow, and it remains a family mystery, my father obtained a job working for both the Redskins and Senators. My grandfather was not a sportsman, and one can imagine that few adolescents would have been brave enough to walk into the administrative offices of Griffith Stadium to ask for a job.

The ironic facet of this story was that few of his old friends knew about this part of his life. When I mentioned the experience during his eulogy, some of his friends approached me later with seeming disbelief. It was a memory from my father’s life that was very private, but one that always fascinated me.

During his life, he would mention DiMaggio on occasion. I had an older cousin, Robert, who had heard the story in more detail. My father worked in the clubhouse for the Redskins, and was a batboy for the Washington Senators, where his assignment was the visitor’s dugout and clubhouse. He handed Joe DiMaggio his bat on several occasions. My father was able to observe Mr. DiMaggio both on and off the field, and the experience was imbued upon his memory.

Lessons and Memories for a Lifetime

First jobs teach us lessons for a lifetime. In my father’s case, they provided extremely rare memories. He witnessed how a famous athlete conducted himself on and off the baseball diamond. Athletes are not role models nor should be. But my father saw how a quiet, shy man from San Francisco handled intense pressure. He made the effort to remember the name of a young Italian kid called Mike. That alone might have been the most precious memory.

Personal Reflections by Michael Amoia

Dad, what was he like?

“He was a very quiet and private man. In the clubhouse, he didn’t say much, and the other players left him alone. But you knew he was their leader. He had custom-made suits, and always looked sharp. He even looked good in those baggy uniforms they wore back then. He used to drink coffee and smoke Chesterfields between innings, and a few times we had to run out to by him smokes.

You were told by the Senators to treat all the players the same, but with Mr. DiMaggio, it was a different story. After the games, he used to sign balls for me. I sold them outside the stadium for $1. That was a lot of money in those days. That’s how we were paid. We had to ask the players to sign balls or broken bats.”

What made him great?

“Instincts. He always seemed to do the right thing. You never saw him out of position in the outfield. He was quick as a cat. Strong arm. Didn’t miss cutoff men. At bat, you never saw a smoother or quicker swing. Only Ted Williams was a better hitter. He could hit for power and for a high average. He was very graceful for a big man, and ran the bases very well. He played each inning as if it were his last. I never saw him get angry.”

Few of us could have such a childhood memory. It is said that youth is wasted on the young; however, in my father’s case, I would beg to differ. A job that didn’t pay him a salary provided him with a lifetime of memories.

“Do the job in the interview.” Joe DiMaggio did it every day.

Do you have an interesting story about your first job? Please share it with us.

“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you.”

— Paul Simon, “Mrs. Robinson.”

Steve Amoia is a freelance writer, editor, and translator from Washington, D.C. He focuses on alternative health, career-related themes, historical figures, Italian and international soccer, and martial arts. He can be contacted at info@sanstefano.com and his writing portfolio can be found at www.sanstefano.com.

How my grandparents thrived during the 1930′s.

by: Brooke Allen

The Great Depression was very good to my Grandparents, and it wasn’t a matter of luck so much as the approach they took to their circumstances. What they did, you can do.

In the mid 1920′s they met on a date in New York City and decided to marry within a week. Granddad Tom was assigned to Havana to start a bureau for the United Press International; he and Anne married in Key West on the way to Cuba.

When he returned near the end of the decade he was handed a 40% pay cut, even though the cost of living was higher in New York City than in Cuba.

If that wasn’t bad enough, in October of 1929, the Stock Market crashed and the economy began a long slide into what became the Great Depression. Granddad survived multiple rounds of layoffs by accepting further pay cuts.

Grandmother Anne realized that they couldn’t afford their current rent, so she found a bank that would rent to them the mansion of a bankrupt stockbroker for less money. To help care for the children, she found a lovely couple at the unemployment office. The wife was a nurse and her husband was a handyman. They exchanged room and board for childcare and yard work.

Then Anne took a job as a receptionist with a developer who was building houses on the farm next to their rented home in White Plains. Soon she was managing four salesmen. She received 25 percent of the salesmen’s commission on every home sold.

Grandmother convinced the developer to build at cost a home for them in exchange for using it as a show model. She became a stellar saleswoman in her own right. Before long, her commissions had completely covered the construction costs, and the home was theirs outright.

Granddad wrote to a friend that the Great Depression had been unbelievably good to them. Before the Crash they had had high hopes, but owning a house ‘free and clear’ in just a few years was inconceivable. Where could they have found a trained nurse and groundskeeper simply by letting them live in a spare bedroom and join them for meals? Freed of the burden of paying bills, the young couple soon saved enough money working odd-jobs to buy a gas station and start their own business. Because most of his coworkers had either been laid off (or quit rather than take a pay cut), Granddad had no competition as senior positions became available. His career took off.

Here are some of the lessons I have learned from my Grandparents:

Grab the bull by the horns. They never tried to deny the facts of a bad situation.

Get lucky by planning for the worst. Because they never expected things to get better, they worked very hard in the present to survive the worst-case future scenario. Invariably things worked out better than expected so their less industrious friends considered them very lucky.

Find the opportunity, not the excuse. I never once heard my grandparents explain why they were unable to do something. Instead, it seemed they were always asking, “What just got better?” In this story, the things that got better included: rents declined, it became easier to advance simply by being loyal, a soft housing market meant the builder would make a deal, and the cost of childcare dropped.

Keep working. In 1993 I returned from a high paying job in Japan to face an economy in terrible recession. I accepted a consulting position that paid about 80% less than what I’d made the prior year, and I am glad that I did because I maintained discipline and I improved my technical skills. It took a few years, but eventually I eclipsed my prior successes, and I owe it to the skills I honed as a consultant.

Adjust your price. During the first year of the Great Depression prices declined by 27%, which meant that you could take a 25% pay cut and have a real raise in purchasing-power terms. But the real question is, What is the price for what you can do? In 1993 there was no market in New York for what I had done in Tokyo in 1992, so I accepted what the market was willing to pay for what I could do.

Learn to be a good salesman. My grandmother learned a lot from Dale Carnegie, and then she sold him a property in White Plains. She knew that done properly, selling is an unselfish act that involves motivating others to do what is in their best interests, not just your own.

Share; don’t do it alone. By sharing her home and food with a struggling young couple, my grandmother was free to take a  job and everyone came out ahead.

Survival is a better strategy than winning. In natural selection, the species that survive are winners, not the ones who hog all the resources to themselves. I will talk more about this in a subsequent piece.

—

Did you learn something from someone who went through the Great Depression?

Post a comment and tell us.

by: Adrienne Rodney

Journalism is everywhere. Blogs, Twitter, Podcasts – all give voice to a new generation of reporting. But is every journalist a reporter?

What about finance? Is there a difference between a financial journalist and a general reporter? What do financial reporters need?

KNOWLEDGE

“I don’t believe anyone can be a journalist today unless they speak the language of finance,” says Toni Reinhold, editor with Thomson Reuters for more than two decades and the president of the Newswomen’s Club of New York.

Reinhold believes that since every major news story has some underpinnings in finance,  every journalist should understand how money works. But does market knowledge make a journalist good at his or her job? Should journalists know finance before they start reporting, or can they learn as they go?

Reinhold says it is a little of both, and recommends reading everything you can get your hands on. “Go out and buy a good book on the first principles of journalism…and read it cover to cover. Do your homework.”

TRUTH

Hana Askren, MergerMarket.com editor and reporter, says it’s vital to be honest to your readership and your sources. “I can’t predict who is going to be successful,” she says, “but there are people who really have an innate skill for journalism and a talent for connecting the dots and…gaining people’s trust. You don’t betray. Part of the innate talent of journalism is respecting the people who are giving you information that maybe they shouldn’t be giving.”

Toni Reinhold agrees. “Journalists are born. You have to have a passion for truth and a real, persistent desire to get at it and except nothing less.”

GOOD REPORTING

Strong reporting is different from writing. “Writing can be taught,” Askren says. “That’s why we have editors. Writing is a skill where the more you practice the better you get. I think the skill of being able to talk to people and ask them questions that may sound rude or nosy, and being able to pick up the phone and talk to people you don’t know, I think that is harder to teach.”

But what can be taught – and learned – is up to you. “Be entrepreneurial,” Askren says. “Write the story you want to write, even if no one will pay you for it. Be open-minded about the kinds of publications you’ll work for and the kinds of stories you’ll write. Watch the markets and look up terms on Investopedia. People should find out what they’re interested in and if they don’t know they should read a lot of stuff and they’ll happen on something.”

PASSION FOR THE CRAFT

Phil Wahba left a job with the Canadian government to become a retail reporter with Reuters to follow his passion for news. “Journalism puts you on the front line of lots of things,” he says. “It’s not just one thing happening.”

Kristina Cooke twice applied for the Reuter’s graduate program before being offered a full-time position. Cooke says Reuters likes people who find finance fascinating. “Everything is learn-as-you- go,” she says, “but you have to show you have an interest in business. Knowing the big stories, what’s affecting the markets – that shows commitment.”

But even with the advice Cooke and others offer, a good reporter understands the role finance plays in the world.

“Money is underneath everything,” says Wahba, “and [knowing that] makes you influential.”

—-

Adrienne Rodney has a degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University and is currently working on a Quantitative Trading Desk, where she has obtained an ever-growing interest in finance and financial journalism.

by: Brooke Allen

Read this and watch this if you wish your life were more meaningful and fun.

In 1970, during my senior year in High School, my father told me, “It is easier to make money doing what makes you happy than to buy happiness with the money you are paid for doing what makes you miserable.” With that, he quit the business world and returned to being a full-time sculptor. For the remaining 30 years of his life, he made almost no money.

I have discovered (as did my father) that it is not particularly easy to make money doing what makes you happy. Example: You want to get paid to play video games?… good luck with that.

My father’s words are true because no matter how much money you have, it is impossible to buy happiness if your life’s work makes you miserable.

If you want to make money, do what makes other people happy. And, if you want to become rich, do what makes rich people even richer. If you want to make money in the video game business, make games others want to play.

As the head of a quantitative trading group at a securities firm, I consider some of my most important deliverables to be: 1) keeping things interesting, 2) keeping things fun, 3) keeping us from doing stupid things.

To this end, on Sunday our group and a bunch of our friends (including a few NSoW subscribers) are going on a week-long cruise to Bermuda where we will discuss a dozen books we’ve read on everything from psychology and economics to sociology and management. I’ve hired experts to run workshops on reputation banking, standing up to management (i.e. me), collaborative consumption, and game design. (You can read about the cruise here.)

One of our books is The Art of Game Design by Jesse Schell, professor at Carnegie Mellon, and founder of Schell Games. In it Jesse says “Game design is the act of deciding what a game should be.” The book presents 100 “lenses” which are collections of questions to ask yourself during the design process.

As I read the book, I was reminded of another thing my artist/businessman father told me, “Everything is about everything.” Even though I am not a game designer, everything in the book seems to apply to some aspect of my life.

Here are a few examples:

From: The Secret of the Gifted (page 6)

You might have noticed that skilled game designers seem to have a special gift for the work. It comes easily and naturally to them, and though you love games, you wonder if you are gifted enough to succeed as a designer. Well, there is a little secret about gifts. There are two kinds. First there is the innate gift of a given skill. This is the minor gift. If you have the gift, a skill such as game design, mathematics, or playing the piano comes naturally to you. You can do it easily, almost without thinking. But you don’t necessarily enjoy doing it. There are millions of people with minor gifts of all kinds, who, though skilled, never do anything great with their gifted skill, and this is because they lack the major gift.

The major gift is love of the work.

From: The Deepest Theming (page 460)

You might think it is easy to listen to yourself. But our subconscious mind holds many secrets. We often do things, and we don’t know why. Why, for instance, is game design very important to you? Do you know? You might think that the time for this kind of self-reflection can come later. But it can’t, because life is very short. In a blink, you will look up, and realize you don’t have any time left. For time destroys everything, takes everything away. Like Poe’s raven, it mocks you, crackling “nevermore” as it glides into the night. You can’t stop it. Your only hope is to do your important work now, while you still can. You must run like death is behind you because death is behind you. Quick – take this lens so you don’t forget.

From: Lens #99: The Lens of the Raven (page 460)

To remember to only work on what is important, ask yourself this question

• Is making this game worth my time?

From: Lens #100: The Lens of Your Secret Purpose (page 461)

To make sure you are working toward your one true purpose, ask yourself the only question that matters.

• Why am I doing this?

I wrote to Jesse and asked if I might interview him. Here is an excerpt from my email:

It feels like I can convert your book into a handbook for life by simply doing a global search and replace of “game” with “life.”

So, your new book becomes The Art of Life Design.

Hence, “Life design is the act of deciding what a life should be.”

We’ll need a new word to replace “player” to refer to both you and the people you interact with in your life. For now, I’m going to coin a new definition of the word “lifer’ to mean someone who is committed to playing this game we call life for the duration.

And it seems like a good idea to design one’s own life as a fun one worth living for intrinsic reasons while delivering endogenous value to other lifers who interact with you. You make an excellent case for educating oneself broadly, and for developing the major gift: the love of one’s life work.

Although we start with our genes, we become the sum total of our life experiences, so it is useful to focus on life in terms of the experiences one creates for oneself.

In the interview I’m going to ask you to comment on some of your lenses with these substitutions made. Examples:

#3 Lens of Fun:

Fun is desirable in nearly every life, although fun defies analysis. To maximize your life’s fun, ask yourself:

• What parts of my life are fun? Why?
• What parts need to be more fun?

(Are you saying everyone is a lifer and it sure would be a shame to reach the end and say, ‘Boy, that was no fun.’)

#6 Lens of Problem Solving

Think about the problems you must solve to succeed at your life, for every life has problems to solve.

• What problems does my life ask me to solve?
• Are there hidden problems to solve that arise as part of lifeplay?
• How can my life generate new problems so that I keep coming back?

(Are you saying problems are good? A reason for living?)

Anyway, you get the idea. To be honest, I haven’t read the entire book yet, but so far I have not found a single lens that doesn’t apply to Life Design, but I’m sure you are aware of that because I’ve skipped to the end and read your #100: The Lens of Your Secret Purpose.

Why did you write this book?

I think I’ve uncovered your Secret Purpose.

Jesse responded:

Hi Brooke-

Heh — you figured out the secret of the book, all right! … I look forward to talking to you.

The next day I drove to Pittsburgh and interviewed him.

If you have the slightest interest in improving some aspect of your life, be it the amount of fun, meaning, success, profitability, excitement, or even beauty and elegance you experience, then I strongly recommend you buy The Art of Game Design, read it, and then apply what you learn to designing your life. And, if after you read it, you can’t figure out what to do, then give the book to someone who can, and then watch with envy what they make of their life.

After you’ve ordered the book, while you are waiting for delivery, watch excerpts from my interview with Jesse here. He will explain why, “Game design is bigger than all other kinds of design because everything can be part of a game.” You knew this when you were a playful child; now you can relearn it as an adult.

Note: This is the most positive endorsement I have ever made for anything to date, and you need to know that I am not paid to do this and I have no personal stake in Jesse or this book. If you write a book this good, I’ll say good things about it too.

by: Kristen Contrera
Unemployment rates are at an all time high in the financial sector and hiring managers have their pick of the litter. So it seems logical to ask, in this day and age while the financial industry is undergoing so many changes, what skills are most valued on Wall Street?

To answer this question, let us break down the financial sector into its two key components: trading and sales trading. General trading takes hard skills and know-how, while sales-trading takes personality and an adept ability to communicate.

People skills are a necessity for this second discipline. Though many aspects of the industry have become computerized and automated, good old-fashioned people skills will always be in demand. They are not programmable and therefore are highly valued in this industry that depends as much on sales as it does on intelligent trading. Marketing trainer Dr. Elliot B. Jaffa explains, “It’s walking their talk with the client, following through, and client obsession: treating each client as if they were your only client.” Particularly in the wake of the financial crisis, the sector needs a new face, and that face must merit consumer confidence.

In addition to sales skills, one cannot discount the general skills needed on the trading floor. Inarguably, one of the most valued skills today is knowledge of compliance. In the past three years regulations have become tighter. There is a growing need for those who are knowledgeable on the current regulatory reform and new compliance requirements. This means BASEL II and soon III for European trading and familiarity with the Dodd/Frank Act of 2010 for domestic shops. Often knowledge of certain applications such as the Banking Solutions with SAP can also be helpful when maintaining these regulations.

In addition to knowledge of current compliance restraints, Wall Street needs people with quantitative skills. In more recent history, “Quants,” as they are referred to on the trading floor, and those that offer skills in programming have become increasingly valuable. This means knowledge of SQL, Visual Basic, and C++ have become much more relevant. Many industry forecasters feel as though the finance industry is moving toward incorporating more technological strategies. More and more trades are being executed through computerized statistical modeling processes rather than the broker jocks of yesteryear. As we’ve seen through the emergence of Microsoft in the early 90’s and now more recently through Google, the trend has turned to an appreciation for the ‘nerds’. We now see the industry prioritizing solid applicable knowledge over personality. As Ben Ross Senior, Account Manager at Forest Solutions Group, stated, “companies no longer seek qualitative intelligence but quantitative.”

The industry also seems to be deviating away from more general education. An MBA no longer seem as attractive as a Masters Program in Financial Engineering, Business Intelligence or other specialized degree. The same can be said for certifications. For example, a Project Management Professional certification (PMP) will offer very limited insight compared to a candidate that comes to an industry with specific sector knowledge. While MBAs, PMPs and the like are certainly not downfalls on a resume, they have become less relevant when qualifying someone as the right candidate.

However at the heart of every good worker is motivation. This remains to stand as one of the greatest differentiators. Wall Street needs people with genuine ambition. As Ken Johnson of 7 City Learning, a company that focuses on financial services training, stated, “You must be an athlete. You have to have and seek content knowledge, and a self-initiated willingness to invest in the knowledge of that business.”

Wall Street is looking for and retaining the self-motivated. New hires must be willing to put in the energy needed to come in at a par, and those more experienced must also be willing to expand their knowledge and change with the industry. In this dynamic period, Wall Street has no room for those that fall behind the learning curve.

At the end of the day, Wall Street has many needs. Those who come into the industry prepared, motivated, eager, knowledgeable, and current will succeed, and those people hold the skills that Wall Street values.

Book review by Frank McGrath

At one time or another, everyone has gone to a networking function, returned with a stack of business cards, and said “well, now what?”  That literal and figurative inert pile of cards is evidence of an evening of pleasant conversations – and not action. Talking to folks is an act of prospecting, a key part of networking. But the other key component is closing – a shared commitment to progress. Successful closing is the difference between networking and going to a cocktail party.

Closing is ultimately a sales function- getting people to do something: introduce you, vouch for you, interview you. Fortunately, sales is one of the oldest human activities. It is important, so smart people have thought about it. Sales success is easily quantifiable, so approaches can be evaluated.

Anecdotally, there are few careers that have risen in public esteem since the ‘70s than the salesman. The hamartia of Willy Loman and the jokey stories of the “traveling salesman” are worn.  A lot of that is due to Tom Hopkins and a book he wrote in 1980 called “How To Master The Art of Selling”. Hopkins was a key catalyst to “professionalize” selling – the movement away from pressure and aggression to consultative, non-adversarial approaches. The power of this book is perhaps demonstrated by the fact that it is still in print. There are tons of copies on e-Bay, 403 copies via Amazon’s secondary sellers and many in the NYC library system (with a waitlist here in Brooklyn). How many other books from thirty years ago can say that?

Parts of the book are dated and hokey. But there is still real knowledge in the chapters on closing like a professional, advancing your agenda. With millions of copies, it is also designed for beginners. Closing is a lot like skiing; you can learn enough to be competent at the very first lesson.

Frankly, it is also an informative, smack yourself on the forehead, fun read: so that is how my living room furniture, engagement ring, swimming pool, etc. got here! I got closed by that guy at Macy’s! Is it ethical to close a toddler about bedtimes? Don’t go through life without knowing about the “assumptive close,” a “say no” question or “a bridge”.

Ten years ago, I was tentative about asking for an intercession, help or business. But fear usually stems from ignorance – what do I do here? Hopkins outlines a couple dozen safe, polite, professional ways to ask for what you want – just pick a few that seem comfortable.

Some are probably dubious. I will point out that billions are spent training sales forces, and millions make a living at closing, differentiating themselves in the process. Either there is some intelligence to it or there are a lot folks who are dupes. No one disagrees that there is a robust science to communication. This is merely one of its real useful disciplines. So take a chance and read thirty minutes of Tom Hopkins at the library.

People at networking events long to be closed. They want to help. Be polite and don’t be grasping, but do them the favor of not only knowing what you want but also engaging your targets in a manner that helps them help you.

by: Kitti Brady

Recently I was asked to share some thoughts on what I’ve learned about job hunting so far, so I put pen to paper and came up with a list of the four most important tools any job-hunter should have in their kit.

Okay, maybe this is all stuff you already know.  Maybe you’ve already read articles that told you this stuff because Lord knows there have been hundreds.  However, it bares repeating, because every day there is someone new just starting their job hunt – someone who recently was laid off, or who just graduated from school and hasn’t had any training on the idea of how to go from student to employee beyond ‘okay, time to get a job.’  Not to mention, just because you’ve been job hunting for a while doesn’t mean you can’t refresh your knowledge of what you’ve been told before.

(1) Business Cards:

One of the most important, and yet simplest, things you can do for your job search is have a business card for yourself.  It’s a fast and easy way to get your name and contact information into someone’s hand no matter where you are – a networking event, a bar, a friend’s house, or on the bus or subway.  You never know when or where you’re going to encounter someone, and you want to be able to give them a way to remember you and contact you in a matter of seconds – no digging for a pen and notebook.

Your business card should have your basics: full name (both legal and how people know you commonly, if different), phone number, email and LinkedIn profile.  If you have a professional website you can add that, and if you use Twitter for professional promotion you can put that on too.  Beware, however, of putting non-professional information on, as this is your professional face in a sound bite.

You also want to include a blurb that says who you are in just a few words.  This may take some tweaking; I’ve recently decided I should change my blurb to be more aggressive about what I want; right now it’s just my promotional skills, and I  think I might do better saying what I’m looking for instead.  I’ll let you know how that works out.

Make sure your business card is PROFESSIONAL looking.  Yes, you can buy stock cards at Staples and make them on your home computer, but if you can’t make it look like the card a corporation would make, you might want to consider spending a few bucks.  VistaPrint (http://www.VistaPrint.com) offers a collection of very nice looking professional cards, 250 for just the cost of shipping, and you can customize to fit your needs.  For a little more money, they offer hundreds of really snazzy designs.  It’s an investment in your career.

…

(2) The Elevator Pitch:

Another thing you need to do is have a prepared idea of who you are that you can state in 30 seconds or less – not just you as a person, but also what kind of job you’re looking for and why you’re good for it.  This is called the ‘Elevator Pitch’ and while it sounds stupid, it’s vital.  Just last night I had a friend asking me about my job search, as she had run into an old friend and thought he might be able to help me out.  She sat on the other side of the phone quizzing me about this and that, because she needed an easy way to remember what I was looking for.  I could give her my ‘Elevator Pitch’ and because I’d worked on it and practiced it, I knew it was a concise version that covered the bases.  Hopefully it will make it easier for her to sell me to her friend.

Remember that your pitch should not be recited word-for-word like a script.  You need to practice saying it so that you can make it natural and conversational, getting all your vital information out without sounding like a recording.  The Elevator Pitch is not only for providing your stats, but providing insight into YOU, in a friendly and casual way.  Imagine how you would want to sound if you were trying to convince someone to go on a date with you: you don’t want to sound practiced, because that’s a turn-off.  You want to sound confident and friendly, inviting that person to want to learn more about you.  Practice saying your pitch to your friends or significant other, and let them give you feed back.  Make sure you get feedback from more than one person, since we all have our preferences in how people appeal to us.  Most importantly, don’t take the feedback personally, but DO take it to heart.

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(3) Social Media:

The big argument in today’s market is the importance of the social media system to help promote yourself.  You can find hundreds of articles online which discuss the topic of how, how much, and why.  Last summer I took a couple of online webinars from a company called Social Media Marketing; these online seminars discussed the basic ideas of social networking sites and how businesses should be using those sites to promote themselves. Now, you may not be a business, but these same ideas can be applied to your own personal networking game plan, and I think it is a good idea to view promoting yourself for a job as a business would promote itself for profit.

Of course, the company offering these webinars does so with the goal of getting businesses to pay for a series of classes, but the initial webinar is free (and it’s easy to ignore the sales pitch). You can gain some great ideas for free in just over an hour of your time on your home computer.  It’s worth the hour, and you may find yourself very enlightened. They not only talk about the major sites – Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn – but a number of lesser-known and/or industry specific sites that might be of interest to you.  (http://www.socialmediamagic.com/schedule.html)

GetHired BootCamp is another company (or, possibly the same one under a different name) which offers another webinar, “Keys to a Successful Job Search”. I have not yet taken this webinar, so I can’t advise just yet on its usefulness, but I’ve read some positive feedback about them.  Again, if you can gleen even one gem of information or advice, it’s worth the time, right?  (http://gethiredbootcamp.com/schedule.html)

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(4) Networking:

Networking is not just something you do online or at professional events; it’s something you’re doing all the time – with friends, family, coworkers, classmates, and strangers.  The problem is that a lot of people leave out sections of their lives when they think about networking.  They forget to tell family and friends in a clear way what it is they’re looking for in a job, or maybe don’t think about talking to them about it at all.  On the other hand, when approaching business contacts, classmates and acquaintances, they forget that these people may not know them as well as they think.

Step one is, of course, building your LinkedIn profile and contacts, but often people will send out a request to connect without changing the auto-message that LinkedIn provides.  Don’t assume the person you’re contacting will remember you.  Even if they remember your name, they may not remember where they met you, or what you talked about.  ALWAYS change your message to personalize it – “Hi, it was great to meet you last week at XYZ, and I really enjoyed discussing Company ABC with you.” Remind them you had that specific class together with that specific teacher, or you both know Suzie Jones, whatever.  The important thing is to give them something that  first of all says “I am not just spam-requesting a link to you” (I get about a dozen junk requests a week from people I am positive I have never met) and secondly that you have some sort of personal connection – if you’ve honestly never met, mention that John Smith recommended that you contact them, or something along those lines.  If you’re requesting to connect with someone from a discussion board, tell them that you share interest in whatever particular discussion caught your eye, and what they said on the board that made you want to connect with them.

What matters is that you make it personal.  Not only does it make you more memorable, but it shows you actually CARE about connecting to them, rather than just being one of those people who requests connections from total strangers for the sake of saying you have 500+ connections.  Remember, connections mean nothing if they don’t know who you are.

Lastly, don’t hesitate to try to establish connections with people whom you don’t know that well.  As long as you can say “hey, I remember you from Here” it’s worth the effort of asking.  Also, don’t immediately write off connections with people who don’t live in the region or city where you are job hunting.  You never know who they know.  My brother is good friends with the tech community in Madison, WI, so when I hear that someone I know is looking for a job in tech in that area, I am  happy to send my brother an email of introduction.  My brother may not be able to do anything at all for my friend, but then again, he just might.  I recently met a guy from Florida who went to school in PA with a guy who now lives in NYC and has been kind enough to forward my resume to that friend.  Whether anything comes of it or not, it’s one more thing that COULD make the difference.  Every one is worth trying, every THING is worth trying.

Conclusion:

I repeat, nothing I’ve said here is new.  However, I can say from experience that it makes sense, and I’ve seen it work.  I’ve been able to apply for jobs which I would never have even heard of if I hadn’t made the effort to connect with this or that person, or if I hadn’t had a business card on me while standing in the elevator at school.  I received a potential job opportunity sent to me by someone who works as a professional musician, whom I NEVER thought of as a useful business contact, and if she hadn’t approached me I NEVER would have thought to approach her.

Don’t discount anyone or any avenue of exploration, and be ready to pounce on them when they arise.  You’re looking for a job, and there is nothing that should be put aside without being tried.  What works for someone else may not work for you, but you won’t know until you try it.

And Stay Within the Law

by: Brooke Allen with Adrienne Rodney

This article is about working for free and a follow-on piece will discuss educating yourself at minimal cost.

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Q. Are there laws that prevent you from working for free?

A. NO. You are not breaking any law if you work without compensation. It is a free country, after all.

However, there are laws against an employer hiring you for less than the minimum wage. During hard times, even unpaid internships have become harder to land, not only because there is competition from unemployed people with loads of experience, but also because the government has been cracking down on some of these programs as abusive.

You can find loads of opportunity to work for free in exchange for contacts, experience, and references, but first you need to understand the law.

Internships

Why are unpaid internships so hard to get, with some people paying as much as $8,000 to a broker to land one? (See the New York Times article: Unpaid Work, but They Pay for Privilege.) The answer lies in the law.

An employer may legally take on trainees without paying them (often called “interns”), however the United States Department of Labor (DOL) has issued a six-part test to determine if someone qualifies for an exemption to minimum wage laws. Among other things, the training must not be for the immediate benefit of the employer but rather primarily for the benefit of the trainee who must work under close supervision, and must not displace a regular employee.¹

The DOL and state authorities have recently been cracking down on internship programs that do not meet these standards. Their goal is not to prevent people from getting experience, but rather to keep abusive employers from exploiting workers. In normal times, a firm might have an internship program so as to train a pool of candidates from which they might hire in the future. But some cash strapped firms without the budget to hire anyone, whether trained or not, are trying to exploit a dire job market by getting free labor out of “interns.” Such activity violates both the spirit and the letter of the law.

This does not mean that you cannot gain valuable experience by offering your labor for free. However, you do not want to wait around for someone to design an internship for you, but rather you want to take the initiative.

Self-Employment

The minimum wage laws do not apply to the self-employed. And a self-employed person can give away free samples of his or her work.

Consider this hypothetical scenario: Susie’s first job after graduating from college was as a bookkeeper. Unfortunately, it lasted only seven weeks before her employer folded.

After months of traditional job hunting, she decided to offer her services pro-bono to struggling small businesses, as her schedule permitted. She approached 27 firms and five took her up on her offer. After two months, one of those companies made a full-time job offer, and she had to stop helping the other four.

Even though Susie did work for the benefit of the five firms, and she was not in a training program, this sort of arrangement can be perfectly legal. The reason is because, in this scenario, Susie is most likely viewed as self-employed, and as such, not subject to the minimum wage laws. Just like lawyers, doctors, accountants, and even electricians, Susie may give away her labor pro-bono, and recipients are free to accept her offer. Professionals often do this to gain experience, break into a new market, or even just to be good-hearted in helping the needy. And these days, plenty of cash strapped businesses are in need.

While the DOL doesn’t care what the self-employed pay themselves or charge others, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has something to say about whether you are in fact independent or an employee. One reason they care is that many firms have been trying to reclassify employees as contractors so as to avoid paying benefits. But the self-employed people do not have income tax withheld, and many succumb to temptation and don’t pay their full share. So the IRS.would much rather have as many people as possible deemed employees subject to withholding.

The IRS has a “twenty factor test” they to help determine if you are someone’s employee or truly independent. Many of the factors that would qualify Susie as an independent would disqualify her as an intern. For example, to be independent you should not be closely supervised or receive training. The IRS would consider the fact that Susie worked only part-time for multiple companies, and controlled her hours as evidence she was independent. Because she wasn’t being paid, no income would be eligible to be reclassified as subject to withholding anyway.

Lawyers and Human Resource Experts Chime In

Greg Szymanski is the H. R. director for a large home-builder in the Pacific Northwest. Like many people in his profession, he is worried about risks. When we asked about take our daughters and sons to work day, he said, “To be honest, we don’t do it.” Because his operation runs the gamut from low-risk office work to high-risk construction sites, they decided to prohibit bringing any children into the workplace. He said, “Unfortunately, so much of what I do is contrary to my personal beliefs because we’re constantly worried about the potential downside. In my world, all I get is bad news. Nobody ever calls up and says, ‘I’m really glad I work here and thank you very much; I love my job.’”

However, Greg is very supportive of pro-active job candidates who go the extra mile. He told us a story about how they needed to fill a senior management position, and while all the other candidates looked good on paper, only one visited a few of their construction sites even before the first interview. He presented five things he suggested they change, whether they hired him or not. They did hire him because he was the only candidate who began doing the job before they hired him to do it.

Oscar Michelen is a litigator with CuomoLLC representing many small and mid-sized businesses on wage and hour issues, and he is an adjunct professor at New York Law School. He explains that the DOL six part test is just a guideline for the courts to use in determining if a trainee is subject to minimum wage laws. “As long as the employee is the predominant person who is gaining a benefit, it does not mean that you, as an employer, cannot also benefit. You don’t have to be Mother Teresa; you can obtain a benefit.”

We proposed to him a hypothetical situation in which a college student who approaches a firm offering to attempt a viral marketing campaign to be done simply to gain experience. Oscar confirmed that the firm is not in much risk of running afoul of the DOL guidelines since such project is clearly not exploitative. “The government is not looking to stop that,” he said, “Some employers are being over cautious. I’ve told many of my own clients to relax, since you can comply with the law and have interns. There’s no camera in your place of business. Yes, you can bring your nephews who go to college to work in your office for free; of course you can.”

Michael Helfand, founder of http://www.findgreatlawyers.com, describes himself as a lawyer who believes in speaking bluntly and in plain English. He says that if he were a worker he would not worry if an employer were violating the Fair Labor Standards Act. “Take a neighborhood bakery for example,” he says, “You’ve always wanted to be a pastry chef, and the Michael Jordan of pastry chefs is there in your city, and you find out he’s there every day at 4 in the morning. And you say, ‘Look, I want to learn from you, I’ll be here everyday at 4 AM, I’ll do whatever you tell me to do and you won’t have to pay me.’ Do you think that guy is thinking about the FLSA if he takes you on? It’s more of, ‘You know, I’m really impressed by this kid,’ or ‘I can really use the help.’”

He says that the pastry chef has little to worry about in such an arrangement. “The reality is it’s not going to be policed at small business levels, and the only way you’re going to get in trouble is if the person you hire for the internship reports you. And even then our government is so overworked that the odds of the DOL investigating some small firm are minimal. If you get caught it’s not like you’re going to get shut down; you may have to pay a fine or something.”

For Helfand, ethics trumps legality. Kids in college drink before they’re 21, and there are only minor legal and no ethical problems with that. However, cheating on a test might not be illegal, but it is most certainly unethical. Likewise, in the above example, had you asked the pastry chef to teach you what he knows and then complain to the DOL that you weren’t being paid, you might be within your legal rights, but would you be ethical?

Helfand doesn’t want you to obsess about the law. He wants you to do the right thing.

Questions to ask yourself.

Who is in charge? If you are your own, in spirit and in fact, then nobody can tell you that you cannot give away free samples of your work. Some of the most effective people see themselves as their own boss, even when they have a job that comes with a boss, and they are always giving away free work, not only to friends and relatives, but also by doing more than they are paid to do on the job. These are the people who are often first hired and last fired during a recession.

But if you want someone else to be the boss then the law says you must be paid the minimum wage. Working without pay for a boss (other than yourself) puts that person in a precarious position – the goal must be to help you, not themselves, or they may run afoul of the law. This is a lot to ask for.

How do you define “exploitation?” If you think that to be of use to another person without being paid is to be exploited, then, for heaven’s sake, don’t do it. If you think that you must do this because you have no choice, then you’ll see yourself as a victim of circumstances beyond your control. And that is a recipe for depression. While you’re at it, reflect on what is involved in raising a child, or doing homework for a teacher.

What’s in it for you? Most people who become bitter when volunteering to help others lose sight of (or never saw) what is in it for them. Ideally, you should end every day feeling that the ledger is balanced. Even if you didn’t get a fair day’s pay for your work, you were treated fairly, and you got something just as valuable in terms of skill, experience, contacts, pleasure, self-esteem, or whatever. If you only see your work today as a hardship that might pay dividends in the future, there is a good chance that you’ll be disappointed. But if every day’s work stands on its own merit, any good that comes of it in the future is just gravy.

What’s in it for the other guy? The main reason people won’t want to give you work to do, even without pay, is because they think that managing the process will be more trouble than it is worth. You can’t expect a warm response to, “Tell me what to do, and show me how to do it, and maybe I’ll do it or maybe I won’t.” Yet this is the attitude most people take, even if they aren’t honest enough to say so. And, if they don’t deliver, they say, “You have no right to complain; you weren’t paying me.” That is BS. Any person who has reason to believe they can rely on you has reason to complain if you don’t come through.

SUMMARY: If you are willing to exchange free labor for experience, don’t just wait around for someone to design a program for you. Instead, view yourself as self-employed and find people you can help with free samples of your work. Most of these people would never have thought of offering an internship – but you are not asking for one. You are exercising your right to be of help to others.

¹ The six criteria are: 1) The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to that which would be given in vocational school. 2) The training is primarily for the benefit of the intern, not the employer, 3) The intern works under close supervision and does not displace any regular employees. 4) The intern is not entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period, and 6) The employer and the intern understand that the intern shall not be entitled to wages for the time spent training.

But is it a seduction or a search for true love?

Paul Zak is the founding Director of the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies and Professor of Economics, Psychology and Management at Claremont Graduate University, and he is credited with the first published use of the term “neuroeconomics” which combines psychology, economics, and neuroscience in the study of how people make decisions.

Paul’s lab studies the role of oxytocin in trust and virtuous behavior, and he discusses this in his popular blog at Psychology Today titled, “The Moral Molecule.” He is working on the forthcoming book of the same name.

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<<< Elissa is a documentary filmmaker

Abby is a writer >>>

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Elissa and Abby were two of the many people who responded to an advertisement for an executive assistant placed by Brooke Allen, founder of No Shortage of Work, and who, by day, heads a quantitative trading desk for a securities firm. Brooke has an unusual approach to hiring that involves, in his words, “due diligence and full disclosure.” He says, “I try to be completely honest in presenting myself, the work and the firm, with a concentration on the negatives because I don’t want any nasty surprises afterward.” He has discovered that when he is honest, most people can’t help but be honest in response. Although Brooke got to know both Elissa and Abby very well, and now counts them among his friends, he did not hire them – not because they wouldn’t be excellent workers, but because his job would not get them closer to their dreams.

Many people have compared job hunting to dating, and Brooke agrees. However, he likens most job hunting advice to lessons in seduction, where landing a job is like going to bed for the first time – as if it doesn’t matter what happens afterward. “I don’t want to hire anyone until we both get to see the other person’s authentic self, because who else do we plan on being after work begins in earnest?”

Paul Zak has made a career of studying how people establish long-term relationships and create bonds of trust, whether in the workplace, the marketplace or the home.

Paul joined Elissa, Abby, Brooke and Adrienne (the person Brooke did hire) to discuss how the process of matching people and jobs can be made more honest, effective and humane.

Listen to their conversation:

Or right-click here to download the .mp3 file.

Audio engineering was provided by Glen Allen.