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: 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.

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.

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(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.

by: Adrienne Rodney

You think you got it bad? Try waiting in a mile-long line where a callback is like hitting the jackpot and landing a part is like going to heaven.

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First Lesson: CHANGE THE GAME

Darbi Worley, producer of the Everything Acting Podcast, knows that not every role is right for her. “I look at every project as a jigsaw puzzle missing one piece,” she says. “I am a puzzle piece and I only fit certain puzzles. If I jam myself into the wrong puzzle, both the puzzle and I are going to be really uncomfortable. Better to wait for the right puzzle. It’s out there.”

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Second lesson: RE-FRAME REJECTION

Lidia Ryan says most thespians go on twenty auditions before getting a job – sometimes more, sometimes less. There are too many circumstances to take it personally. “I may lose a part not because I’m not a good actor or they [casting agents] didn’t like me,” she says, “but perhaps because I look too much like one of the actors in the project that are already cast, or they decided to go with…the opposite sex. It’s never a rejection of you; they just decided to go with someone else. If you see it as a rejection of you, well then you will probably just give up.”

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Third Lesson: KEEP GOING

Brooke Lewis, a horror-film actor and producer, knows how hard you have to work to be noticed. “When you get in front of those people you better be prepared and you better be good,” she says. “However, how will these people ever know you exist if you don’t put the work in to get there? If you’re not putting yourself out there in the work sense, then you’re not moving. You’re not getting to the next place.”

Ms. Lewis put herself out there by staying busy. “I can’t tell you how many coffee and dinner meetings I used to take, with anyone and everyone in the industry who I could have some kind of beneficial relationship with – where I could help assist them and they could teach me. I mean, you really have to put the time in.”

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Fourth Lesson: TAKE ACTING LESSONS

Dan Nainan was a senior engineer at Intel touring around the world with cofounder Andy Grove as his “Demo God” doing technical demonstrations on stage. He says, “Although the technical part was easy, the public speaking was terrifying, so I took a comedy class to help with stage fright, and found I had an affinity for comedy.” Now he’s a professional comedian and actor who appeared in a “Get a Mac” commercial for Apple. Learn how actors and comedians deal with their fears and it will surely help your career, and perhaps even lead to a new one.

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Fifth Lesson: DO SOMETHING ELSE

Kai Soremekun, creator of the web series CHICK, says, “When you’re looking for a job and worried about your future you’re already afraid.” She recommends, “Stop watching the news.” and “Get a hobby or project.” She describes a friend who renovates houses, “Often she is so wrapped up in the latest house she’s working on that it almost becomes a hassle to drop what’s she’s doing to go to an audition. But the result is she’s less invested in the outcome of the audition and so books more acting gigs.”

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Kai brings up a very important point. Optimism, helplessness, and depression have been studied for decades by Martin Seligman, past president of the American Psychological Association, and director of the Positive Psychology Center at the University of Pennsylvania.

In his book, Learned Optimism, he describes how worrying about things out of your control (e.g., the economy, most news stories, etc.) will make you feel helpless and depressed. However, being engaged in an activity like a hobby or side business will keep you positive, particularly if it is meaningful and benefits others. Watch Dr. Seligman explain how to live a fulfilling life on this TED Video.

Interview by: Brooke Allen

LISTEN TO NEIL and learn to MASTER A JOB INTERVIEW from a master.

Years ago, Mike Myers (aka Austin Powers) taught Cambridge educated Neil Mullarkey how to be funny, and along the way Neil discovered his authentic self.

Neil has been in double-acts with Mike Myers, Nick Hancock, and Tony Hawks. He has performed in numerous radio and television shows, including BBC’s Whose Line is it Anyway. (The show began in1988, ten years before ABC brought it to America.) He has been in many films including Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and Goldmember.

For 25 years, as a founding member of the Comedy Store Players, and as owner of Improv Your Biz, Neil has been teaching the art of improvisation.

I recently caught his performance in the British Comedy Invasion in New York City. The audience was thrilled when he introduced his colleagues and mentors, Eddie Izzard and Mike Myers, as surprise guests.

So I asked him if he would speak to NSoW about the importance of mentors, and he graciously agreed.

Listen to Neil describe his relationship with Mike and what he learned. He talks about how he mentors others, teaching people from all walks of life how to improvise. You will hear about his alter-ego, L. Vaughan Spencer, the world’s worst self-help guru and author of Don’t be Needy, Be Succeedy.

Neil explains how improv can help you discover your authentic self. While actors might play people they are not, improv artists have no time to be anyone but who they are. In a good scripted performance, each line leads to the next. In good improvisation, each person hands other performers an opportunity to carry on, using what is called an “offer.” You may not know where you are going, but you offer the opportunity for another person to go somewhere. However, in normal conversation, we often bring a conversation to a screeching halt with what is called a “block.” These are conversation enders.

But a really good improvisationalist sees a block as just another form of an offer. Neil and I role-play with what is probably the most dreaded block job seekers face: The Turn Down – “I can’t possibly use you.” You will learn how this is not a block at all, but an invitation to explore everything else you might do with your life. And the best place to start is in the hiring manager’s office; the best time to start is immediately after you are rejected. The conversation does not need to be over. You have just been handed an “offer” to begin an entirely new discussion.

LISTEN TO THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW NOW.

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

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Before there was Dr. Evil, there was Dr. Wicked.

Watch MIKE MYERS and NEIL MULLARKEY perform together at the Edinburgh Festival on YOU TUBE.

Read the Humongous Shortage of Work’s  review of Neil’s latest book, Don’t be Needy, be Succeedy. They even have a promotional video you can watch that is a real hoot.

You can always find or create a job for yourself if you are willing to change your job, change your location or change the amount you’re asking to a lower amount.

If there is insufficient demand for your particular skills and experience, first you will have to learn to do something else and provide skills that are currently in demand.  Employers don’t care about your past.  They care only about your future and your ability to contribute value to their customers.

You can change your location.  Sometimes you will have to move from one part of the country to another, from where there are few jobs to where there are more jobs.  Many people transform their entire lives by moving from an area of high unemployment to an area of low unemployment.

The third thing you can do to get back into the work force is to lower your demands.  Remember, because your labor is a commodity, it is subject to the laws of supply and demand.  If you ask too much, people will not hire you, because customers will not pay your demands in the price of the product or service that your organization produces. It is not the employer who is forcing this downward revision in wage requirements; it is the customer, through his or her buying behavior.

There is a small, creative minority in America who is never unemployed.  No matter what happens, they always have a job; sometimes two jobs.  If they lose a particular position in one place, they find another position doing the same thing, or something else, somewhere else.  They are fast on their feet.  They move quickly and they don’t accept unemployment as an option.  And they always have jobs.

There are always jobs to be done.  Even in the worst economy, there are always problems to be solved and consumer needs to be met.  For this reason, all long-term unemployment is ultimately voluntary.

There are more opportunities for you to fulfill your dreams and aspirations in the American economy than have ever before existed, or exist anywhere else in the world.  You can be, have, or do anything that you can dream of by preparing yourself for better and better jobs.  It is never crowded at the top.  There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.  Your job is to get good, get better, and then make yourself indispensable.

Now, here are two things you can do immediately to put these ideas into action.

First, examine the trends in your company and your career. Determine where the market is going and what you need to do well if you want to be a leader in your field.

Second, be prepared to change your job description, lower your demands or move to somewhere else if necessary so you can get and keep the ideal job for you.

Refuse to put limits on your imagination.

By: Brian Egge

In the mid 1990′s the advent of the Internet promised to make our lives easier and markets more efficient. The availability of information and low transaction costs made sites like eBay and Amazon possible, and in turn changed many primary and secondary markets. The Internet has also had a large effect on labor markets; it has allowed people to work from home, and also allowed work to be performed where and when it’s most economical. Some of the most interesting changes have occurred only in the last few years.

When Jeff Bezos started Amazon.com, he decided to start by selling books because there were so many existing databases of book information. Taking the existing databases of standardized products, and offering a more efficient market for them, allowed Amazon to make an economic profit. The revenue for a website which improves the efficiency of labor markets stands to be larger than any of the existing marketplaces on the Internet.

In a perfectly competitive market, each participant is a price taker and has no influence over the price of the product it buys or sells. One of the requirements for a competitive market is homogeneous products. A product, like a new book or a bond, is homogeneous because every unit is alike. As no two people are alike, it makes it difficult for buyers and sellers or employers and employees to agree on a rate and transact business. The easier the output is measured, or the more quantifiable the skill, the easier it is for markets to become competitive. Some jobs, such as sales, have quantifiable outputs, and pay is often tied directly to the revenue produced. While the output of many knowledge based jobs is difficult to quantify, the knowledge and skills required can often be quantified and measured. Various industry certifications exist to help validate a candidate’s skill, though it varies to the extent in which employers rely on these measures.

For a while now, sites like eLance.com have attempted to connect buyers and providers, or employers and employees.  The majority of the projects on these sites ask for bids for a specific project. One of the difficulties with the project based approach is again the homogeneity.  Each project is unique as is each provider (or worker). This results in an increase in higher transaction costs and requires parties to bid on less than perfect information. Each bidder has to attempt to estimate the time the project will take and convert that into their rate. If bidders were to spend 25% of their time bidding on projects, that time would be added to the cost of the average project. Additionally, one often has the problem of the winner’s paradox. That is, the bidder who submits the lowest bid and ‘wins’ the project is also probably the same bidder who either underestimated the project time or has the least skill to complete the project. The buyer doesn’t have to accept the lowest bid, but instead evaluates each bid and may look at the provider’s history and background will contribute to their choice. While this can help prevent ‘a race to the bottom,’ it increases the transaction cost even further. The time the buyer spends evaluating each bid adds to the transaction cost as well.

One way of reducing the transaction cost is to agree on a time based rate. Traditionally, most employers pay either an hourly wage or an annual salary. If each time a boss wanted to worker to do something they had to negotiate a fixed price, huge amounts of time would be wasted estimating and negotiating. This model is very easy to implement in a brick and mortar setting, where employees may time in using a time card, or for call centers where when you’re on the phone, you considered to be working. The site oDesk.com is working on changing this, and allowing people to work remotely and charge an hourly rate. The solution oDesk has come up with is for workers to run a program on their computer which takes a screenshot about every 10 minutes, while the worker is signed in to a project. At the end of the day, the worker can remove screenshots during periods that they weren’t working, and their employer doesn’t get billed for them. On oDesk, a provider can offer their service, say Ruby on Rails programming, at a fixed hourly rate. Buyers can then post projects and accept bids, or directly contact a worker at their posted rate. This creates a double sided auction, a more homogeneous offering, and results in lower transaction costs.

In a market, if one party has more information than the other this can create an advantage to the person with more information. If the information asymmetry is too large, it will discourage trading. Jewelers allow customers to get an independent appraisal of a potential purchase, not because they want to be nice, but they want to reduce the information asymmetry just enough to encourage trading to occur. Consumers in this situation recognize they have virtually no ability to price a product, and the dealer has near perfect information. Allowing for a third party appraisal gives the consumer enough information so they will trade, but still gives the dealer plenty of room to make a profit. Outside of government jobs, salary information is usually kept fairly secret, and generally the employer has more information than the employee. Many websites and salary surveys have attempted to gather this information, but the results they gather are incomplete at best. The website oDesk.com makes all transaction information publicly available. A provider can see what a buyer has paid other people for similar work, and has visibility into the market as a whole. This also benefits the buyers, by seeing their earnings history. While, it can be a bit uncomfortable at times, the market as a whole becomes more efficient. Not only can skills and projects be priced better, but it allows the market to adapt to changes in supply and demand. When the iPhone SDK was first released, there was a shortage of workers with the skill to create apps. As the information became known – through higher wages paid to those with the skill – many people around the world taught themselves the required skill.

The Internet has greatly reduced many of the barriers to entry/exit the labor market. Generally, it’s easier for the suppliers (employers) to enter and exit the market. An employer simply needs a credit card and some work to be done to enter the market. For most firms, labor is a variable cost, but property and equipment are fixed. When sourcing work online, generally the provider has their own office space and equipment. This allows firms to rapidly enter and exit the market, and means they can shutdown quickly in the event their average total cost exceeds the price of their product. At the same time, it allows employees to rapidly enter and exit the market. While there is some barrier, as buyers prefer providers with longer histories, it generally takes only a short while to setup an employee profile. Unemployment figures might make people assume that the supply of workers fixed, but it reality it is quite elastic. Consider a stay at home mom who as a four year degree. Her indifference curve might make her willing to work part time if she can do so at home and earn more than $30 an hour. If the demand of a skill like medical insurance processing causes wages to move into this range, then she will enter the market. If, absent any regulation or unions, there are 10 workers for nine jobs, the wage for the workers will drop to the point in which one of them decides they would rather not work than accept the offered wage. The more elastic the supply of workers, the better off those who are working will be.

The same low barriers to entry/exit in the online labor market also discourage larger employers and higher paying jobs. First, it is not easy to filter the supply of workers and determine who is serious and capable about working, and who is not. Despite the large number of online job sites, recruiters or head-hunters are still used by employers, and provide an important benefit. Qualifying and filtering applicants is time consuming and certainly a skill. Finding someone who can commit to working for 2000+ hours in a year can be difficult to do, and is even more difficult online. This causes employers who want long term work to avoid looking at sites like oDesk and eLance, and also means it’s difficult to find workers there. The company which runs oDesk.com hires most of its employees as full time non-telecommute positions.

In an efficient market transactions are costless. Even if costs related to non-homogeneity are minimized, there are many other exogenous costs. These costs create a gap between the supply and demand curve, and causes less trading or employment to occur than would otherwise. Both employers and employees pay taxes, and the amount of taxes largely depends on where there are physically located. This gives an advantage to firms who choose to locate themselves in a lower tax area, and also to employees whose location offers lower taxes. For example, News Corp relocated itself from Australia to the USA largely due to the lower corporate taxes. In general, this is good, as it can encourage governments to find other methods of raising revenue other than income and corporate taxes. oDesk charges a 10% transaction fee on all payments going through the site. Other sites charge listing fees and one may be exposed to exchange rate fees or other costs. When transaction costs are low, it makes it possible to profit from arbitrage opportunities. Subcontracting work out is an arbitrage. One can simultaneously change a higher rate for the services for which one pays for at a lower rate. The less friction involved in the transaction, the easier this is to do. The existence of these parties who are neither have work nor have employees, but rather make money by either connecting buyer and sellers as recruiters do, or by being an intermediary as consultancies and agencies do, can have the positive effect of increasing liquidity.

I’ve used the site oDesk.com to find workers to help me with design and programming projects. The hourly model, salary transparency, low barrier to entry, and low transaction costs make it one of the better online marketplaces for employers and employees to meet. The site is most suited for employers with small projects and defined work, and for employees who value working where and when they want. The efficiency gains being made by sites like oDesk and it’s competitors will benefit employers and employees alike and both traditional jobs as well as jobs performed online.

Learn how to have purposeful conversations with anyone, and the job interview will be a piece of cake.

by: Brooke Allen

When Darya Gorlova met Lola Falkowski through No Shortage of Work, they did not just chat; Darya interviewed Lauren about her business, LolaFalk.

And Darya did not just write down notes, she wrote up an article.

She published it on her blog.

I am often asked by colleges to speak to their seniors about interviewing. I ask the colleges why they don’t want me to speak to their freshmen.

By the time a student is a senior, and ready to apply for the first serious job, she could have dozens, perhaps hundreds of interviews under her belt. And, I’m not talking about “practice interviews,” I’m talking about real ones. An interview is little more than a purposeful conversation intended to obtain information. If you want to learn something from someone, interview them.

A college friend of mine was never satisfied simply referencing publications in her schoolwork; she often called the authors on the telephone and interviewed them.

In a classic scene in Annie Hall, Woody Allen gets in an argument with a pedantic professor. Woody finds Marshall McLuhan behind a movie poster and gets him to straighten out the professor. Likewise, my friend could tell her professors, “Well, when I spoke with the author last night, he said…”

I admired my friend, but I did not emulate her, and that is why, when she graduated, she had many more useful contacts than me, and she was much more at ease speaking with strangers – particularly ones more powerful or knowledgeable than her. She had practice. I did not.

Here are some suggestions for how you can be more like my friend:

When you interview someone, your goal is to learn something. You will soon discover that people love it when you take an interest in their interests, and they will be very forgiving if you are amateurish at first.

It is important that you take notes. Not only does it make it clear you respect the person’s words, it will help you remember later. And if you don’t remember a conversation, it may as well not have ever taken place.

Take some time and write up your notes in more formal prose. As you do, you will uncover follow-up questions. This will give you a reason to call or write and that will solidify your relationship.

Everything is interesting when viewed from the right angle. Occasionally, you’ll find yourself interviewing boring people, and you’ll start to lose focus. Here’s a trick I use: I ask myself, “How am I going to make this interesting when I write it up?” Committing to producing a finished product gives you a goal that will motivate you to continue. You will discover that almost everything can be made interesting.

Learn to interview like a reporter (and get lots of practice), and you’ll ace the job interview. Few hiring managers know how to conduct an interview, so it will help you greatly if you do. My suggestion: don’t just make the other person’s interests (or yours) the topic of the interview. Make the conversation be about the WORK. Look to learn all about what needs to be accomplished, how it gets done, and why. Don’t try to impress people with your knowledge (reporters don’t do that) but rather with your interest. People would rather hire a learn-it-all than a know-it-all.

Look for every opportunity to interview people, and there is a good chance you’ll get job offers without needing to answer ads or go on “job” interviews. Hiring managers know how hard it is to find people with a sincere interest in the job at hand, and when they run across you, they will wonder if you might be available the next time something opens up. They don’t enjoy conducting “job” interviews any more than you like going to them.

So, take the initiative as Darya has.

A No Shortage of Work networking party is a good place to find people to interview – we’ll even help you. Of course, so is every other place in the world – wherever you find people.