I recently joined the ranks of the unemployed, and have been forging ahead with my search for the next exciting opportunity. Let’s face it: I hate being unemployed. Unlike a lot of people I know, who have recently recommended that I live off the state for awhile and spend a summer off, I actually enjoy having a job, and miss having something to do every day.

Back in 2005 and early 2006, when I was last doing a full-time job search, my primary venues for advertising myself were the standards: Monster.com and Yahoo! HotJobs. Am I utilizing these tools again? Absolutely. But so much has changed in the last five years that I have started using other methods of reaching potential employers. From that, I have learned a few valuable lessons to employ when conducting one’s online job search.

Google yourself. The Internet never forgets. I did a recent search on my name and ended up with 3,670 results. I’m actually astonished. On the upside, my top four hits were the places I would most prefer employers to visit:

• My website
• This blog
• My LinkedIn profile
• My Twitter account
• My Facebook profile

Many of the other links were mentions of the blog on other sites, comments that I’ve posted elsewhere, and things related to some of my past jobs. It’s always a good idea to check and see what kind of things are listed in Google under your own name, because you never really know what you’re going to find.

Make sure your LinkedIn profile is complete. A lot of recruiters look to find discrepancies between your resume and the information that you put on your LinkedIn profile. Make sure the information – including dates, title, responsibilities, and so forth – match up. Also, it’s always a good thing to have recommendations. I was lucky enough to be recommended by five people so far, three of whom were my managers. Recruiters are more impressed to see recommendations from managers than from co-workers, so if you don’t yet have any, request them! You never know who might come up to bat for you.

For additional information, Jessica Simko over at Brand-Yourself has an excellent post entitled “Build A Social Media Resume – How You Use LinkedIn Can Impact Your Job Search.” Read the full article.

Apply to companies directly. I had a long discussion with a recruiter last week who informed me that, because Monster.com and sites like that make it very easy for people to apply to jobs, HR departments tend to be overwhelmed with resumes from potentially under-qualified people. That is not to say that these job sites don’t work – I actually had an interview today with one to whom I’d applied on Monster – but by going directly through a company, you have more of a chance of your resume getting to the hiring managers, rather than being discarded early on by an HR assistant.

Be creative! Last month, I read a fascinating article about a young copywriter who managed to land himself a job using Google AdWords. Essentially, he purchased ads using the names of certain creative directors at companies for which he wanted to work as the keywords. He ultimately received calls from most of them and landed two job offers while spending approximately six dollars in total. A number of people have also had success hunting for jobs via Twitter, whether it was by hearing about a job from one of their connections or using a tool like TwitJobSearch. Simply by tweeting about my job search, I’ve gotten about six leads for jobs in the NYC tri-state area so far.

The job hunt is tough, especially with the current economic climate, but I’m keeping positive and chugging right along. The interviews keep getting set up, and I am confident that I will land an exciting, stimulating job soon. Fingers crossed, and best of luck to all of you who are out there with me!

I am expecting my new business cards to arrive by the end of this week.  I have a new title at work, and since I never got around to updating them with my last title change, I figure now is as good a time as any.  So my new title is there, along with my work phone, cell phone, email address, and company contact information, all plastered into the standard company business card template.

But for events, meetings, and introductions that are in no way related to my current company, I think it’s time that I had my own personal business card as well.  I’m talking about those instances where I run into friends from my past, where a potential consulting gig exists, where I want to pass my name and web site address out to people who might possibly be interested.

A recent blog post over at Ever-Real Modern Marketing inspired me with its display of seventy-two brilliant business card designs.  Now, I’m of the mindset that business cards should always be in the standard rectangle shape and in the standard size.  Many of the cards listed play by those rules, and I think the artists have done an amazing job working with colors, graphics, and typographies to make it their own.  I’m absolutely going to attempt the same.

In my experience, business cards that are shaped or sized differently from most tend to present more of a headache than anything.  I received one at an industry trade show I attended last year that, though novel in its approach, failed on all accounts.  One, it was too small, approximately the size of a fifty-cent piece.  Two, it was shaped like an octagon.  Three, it had light text on a very dark background, and four, the text was so small that every line looked cramped.

Oh yes, and I promptly lost it.  That’s what happens with small, oddly-shaped bits of stock paper.

The point is, I’m looking to create a business card for myself that is eye-catching, sensibly-shaped, and exudes a whole lot of me.  Because, let’s be honest, one’s business card is another means of advertising oneself as a product or a brand, and I need to be sure my card is as me as possible.  This is going to include some thought as to color schemes (reflecting, of course, the other self-promotional venues I use such as my web site and my Twitter page), typography (I tend to veer toward cleaner, sans-serif fonts, so not too many problems there), and any graphical elements I might think of.

And, no, despite my face being on pretty much every site of which I’m a member, I’m inclined not to put my photo on the card itself.  That just strikes me as very ‘real estate agent’ or ‘financial adviser,’ neither of which is my chosen vocation.  Personal opinion, of course, and no offense to those of you who aren’t either of those but do in fact have photos on your business cards.

Hmm. I think some Photoshop play is in order here.

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The inspiration for this piece came from Ian Lurie’s amusing article, 38 Things I Wish I Knew When I Started In Marketing.  He’s a guy with over a decade of experience in marketing; I’m just finishing up my first post-college job.  Clearly, he has some lessons that I have yet to learn, so it’s well worth a read for those of you in the business of marketing.

I entered university convinced that I would one day become ambassador to a swanky European country.  I left university with a Master’s degree in international relations and the realization that testing the waters of the private sector was really more my thing.

In 2006 I moved up to New Jersey from the DC-area and got a call about an executive assistant position that needed to be filled at an enterprise software company.  Within a month of holding that position, I had wedged myself into the fledgling marketing team.  Two years on, I am preparing to leave this position for a new opportunity, and I will take with me everything I learned in this tumultuous start-up environment.

1. Everybody has a different definition of marketing.  Some say it’s the promotion of a company’s goods or services; others maintain that it includes the “processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers.”  But fixating on the definition of marketing doesn’t mean you’re actually doing anything.

2. Marketing jargon, while thrown back and forth between marketeers with undeniable enthusiasm, is misused and misunderstood more often than not.  For those of you who have no idea what I mean by “marketing jargon,” Michael Bloch at TamingTheBeast.net provides an example:

“Through an inverted dynamic and proactive CRM process,  we are a best of breed online company – a goal-directed, innovative digital firm which fast tracks cyber stickiness through turnkey solutions that guarantee targeted eyeballs using multiple streaming channels and viral e-services, providing the best ROI on your media spend.”

3. Using two monitors instead of one is the best decision I ever made, especially where collecting data and doing graphic design are concerned.

4. Work for a start-up, and not only will you get to wear jeans every day and blast music in the office, but you’ll also get to go for beers on occasion with the C-level executive team.  Where else would you get that opportunity?

5. If you can’t sell a ‘new media’ idea to your old-school boss, continue to slip it into conversation wherever possible.  Eventually, it will stick.  Or, it will become so ingrained in their minds that they’ll shout it out at an executive meeting and get the credit for it.  Either way, your idea will be put into place.

6. Don’t be the sole administrator for a CRM system for longer than six months.  If you are, be aware that training a new person to take over, who has never used the system before, is a bit of an overwhelming affair, especially if you only have your obligatory two weeks to do it.

7. Metrics are great, unless the team can’t agree on them.

8. Success in marketing isn’t black and white; everything you do ends up looking a funny shade of gray.  If you want black and white, join finance.

9. If you must, use the first month or so on the job to be a listener in meetings.  After that, you have no excuse.  Speak up.  No matter your level, your opinion does matter.

10. People laugh at off-site, team-building exercises, but they work.  Especially when you get to be completely honest and blunt about your team members, and they get to do the same to you.  Think of it as a character-building experience.  Constructive criticism is the way to build loyalty and trust.

11. Knee-jerk reactions generally don’t end well.  For your newly-implemented marketing processes to succeed, you really need to give them at least a few months to mature.  One week doesn’t give you a clear view of anything, especially in online marketing.

12. If you don’t support the product you’re supposed to be marketing, you shouldn’t be marketing it.

13. You’re going to make mistakes, but you learn from them.  And it’s nice if you have a boss who realizes this point and who believes in giving second chances.

What other advice would you give entry-level marketing folks?

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