Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Buy Your Own Career Web Domain to Contol Your Future!

Give Your Career a Page of it's Own

The very best way to control your career and the career documents that tell your story to others is to buy your very own personal web domain name. With some free, easy web authoring software and an FTP file transfer package, which is inexpensive or free, you can become the webmaster of your own career site.

Leverage it

Choose a domain (your name or a derivative of it is best) that leads interested parties to a web page where you have control over the lay out and what information you share and how you share it. I really like Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com/ for easy access to purchasing and control of my domain names. A personalized career page is a great marketing tool and sets you apart from others because your information is always available at a moment's notice.

It should always be there.

The first page of your site should state only your name and a brief overview of your career with a value statement and a few examples of the kinds of companies and situations where that value has been demonstrated. An availability statement is important so you can always keep your information on your page updated without your employer feeling uncomfortable that you really just want to fish for a new job. If you openly post your resume and information on the web and on job boards you are risking that your employer will get wind of your intentions to leave. If you simply keep your brief overview up to date on your own career page with a link that generates an e-mail back to you which allows those interested to request more information, you can keep a toe in the water, monitoring interest just in case something fantastic comes along. Any accusations that you are "looking" become invalid because it will clearly state on your over view page that you are not looking. If it's clear that you are happy and challenged in your current job your employer should not be concerned about your career site remaining active.

If you are not concerned about people connecting you to your company you should leverage that connection by including a link to your company's web site on your career page. This will bring additional attention to you and to your company which can only be good for everyone.

I will point you to some decent examples of personal career pages in the next installment.

Until then,

Live Long and Prosper!

Jeff C.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The Internet for Career Management?

The Internet for Career Management.......be careful

The web is the most powerful tools available to manage your career, or ruin it, if miss-applied. It is important to sail those murky web waters while being aware of the danger in over exposing yourself along with your personal security, anonymity and confidentiality. The key is to be in control of your information and to monitor who has it and the reason it is being reviewed.


Don't Blow Your Cover!

The fastest way to “blowing your cover” as a person actively looking for a new career opportunity is to openly post your resume on web boards. Even if you are not currently employed this should be avoided. Once you have filled out the web forms, inserted your resume and clicked on the "Post" button, that information stays visible on the boards for a year or more depending on the site and if you decide to remove it, you leave a lasting resume foot print behind. Anyone willing to pay for access can buy a code to search that database and can find you. There is no customer qualifying involved, and, no mater what their true reason for doing so, anyone can pay the subscription fee and access your information. (like your boss) At Monster.com its $900 for a 2 week national peek with up to 500 page views. Imagine all the people who will know about you and your background without you being aware of it. You may as well just throw millions of photo copies of your CV from a hot air balloon over Manhattan. Sounds a bit desperate doesn't it? Remember, too, that your resume posting has an after life thanks to those who grab your information on line, save it to local computers and use it, later on, to gain access to you for legitimate and, some times, less than legitimate purposes.

Come back soon to discover some effective ways to protect your confidentiality, maintain your dignity and avoid being taken advantage of while making a powerful, positive and professional on line impression.

Live Long and Prosper!

Jeff C.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Welcome to our new blog about all things Human Capital!

"Human Capital Considerations".

Welcome to the blog about all things related to Human Capital. This is meant to be of value to anyone at any phase of their career working at any level in an organization. If you are seeking your next career opportunity or you are responsible for building your organization through the addition of highly valued People/Human Capital, please know that we will strive to make this little peice of bloggosphere heaven a place you will want to re-visit and subscrib to.

As we all know "Human Capital Considerations" is of vital importance to all of us out in there in the wild, wacky and wooley business world of today . You've heard it over and over again, Talent or, "Human Capital", (that's us) is our most valuable asset representing upwards of 80% of a company's value.

Here, our goal is to share some observations and incites on all things related to human capital while inviting questions, input and ideas from others out there who would like to participate. Our plan is to spark discussion and meaningful idea exchange so please post away and ask questions. If we don't have an answer at this end we'll help you find one.

There may not be daily genius available here but I'm pretty confident that an occasional nugget of knowledge and truth might stay and resonate with you. It's our wish that something you find here will help in building your business and your career.

Live Long and Prosper!

Jeff C.