Photo by stevendepolo

Last week, I launched a new project. Fairly softly. I wanted to get it out there but I just wanted it to be discovered. The question is probably why would I launch another blog when my current one has been keeping me quite busy with new clients.

Anyone who knows me well knows I am anything but bored!

But ever since I started with social media marketing, I have gotten questions from people who wonder how I do what I do. Design Resumes dabbles in social media from the standpoint that I do create LinkedIn profiles and coach my clients how to be social media savvy in job searches. But I was finding that there were more and more people who asked for my help with their blogs or wondered what strategies I use when I am tweeting. Or wondered how I seem to be out there all the time.

The out there all the time diminished when the job search makeover story ran in the local paper but I believe that the prompting for the story was the fact that many reporters now know that I am out there. It didn’t hurt that this blog was ready to go for higher volume when it came. The Google rankings on this blog have been growing for the past two years and my clients from throughout the United States frequently find me from my social media connections.

I have been blessed with many partners on this journey. Some of them are more formal partners like Jason Alba, who created the JibberJobber Partner program which has been very helpful to me. I’ve used Jason’s resources for years and enjoyed the friendship that we have developed as we both grew in the knowledge of this space together.

What I have learned in this space made me want to share it with others.

To do that, I needed new space. Design Resumes can only dabble in blog marketing strategies without sounding like I left the career space. I don’t plan to quit the career marketing world and so The Marketing Results Blog was born. It lets me talk about things like my views on Protected Tweets and ways to make your blog more searchable without confusing people. The full URL is themarketingresultsblog.com but you can get there from many links on this page as well as my sidebar.

Now there is a degree of confusion. I was advised that to try to keep the direction of each blog separate, I have two Twitter accounts now. JulieWalraven has been around for a long time. And JulieMarketing is the Twitter account for the Marketing Results blog. Yes, there are times when I forget who I am and tweet from the wrong account. Marketing is all about testing so we will see how this works. If you hear from the wrong me, bear with me!

So if you are just now learning about the new blog, come visit! You will find my voice there too only you will hear more about marketing, customer service, online identities, and other discoveries I have made as I grew this blog the past few years.

Photo by Luca Venturi Oslo

I’ve been in business as Design Resumes for a long time. I’ve lived in Wausau, Wisconsin even longer. But until Sunday, for many people in Wausau, I was invisible.

Now for those of you who read this blog regularly or know me from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or the many blogs I visit and comment on, I am anything but invisible! But when the story ran in in the Wausau Daily Herald and dominated both the front and the back page, I became visible in my own hometown.

All time records

Sunday set an all time record for this blog and Monday, I booked 5 new clients and answered 5 more email inquiries. The first new client came in last night and she is a nontraditional student at one of the local colleges. When she mentioned was going to have her resume written, the head of the learning center asked who she was going to see.

My new client replied that she was going to Design Resumes to see me and the other individual asked, “oh, is she the one on the cover of the newspaper?” When my client said yes, this person replied, “we cut out the article so we can post  it and recommend that our students consider using her services.”

Funny thing is, I have taught resume seminars at this college for 9 years and written resumes for both former students and management! Still, to most of the college and the surrounding community, I was invisible.

In the last year, my business expanded nationally and even globally with a strong reach via this blog and my social media presence. I can share job seeker success stories from clients throughout the United States and the world. My clients in Greece are now in new positions in Barcelona. But I was still invisible to most people here in Wausau.

Invisible job seekers

Job seekers are often invisible too. Despite a strong blog presence, people who didn’t use social media or Google didn’t see me. Many job seekers, even those who chose to have a professional write their resume and it overflowed with accomplishments and keywords, still stay invisible!

Why? They are assuming that they are visible when they use the only the online job boards to apply for positions. Unlike my invisibility caused more by people who didn’t know Wausau had a professional resume writer because they never Googled, these job seekers are hidden in the sheer volume of resumes sent to employers. They had an outstanding resume, perhaps, but no one could see it.

How to become visible

Job seekers who found me previously often came from Google and from referrals or networking contacts. A job seeker needs to commandeer their networks to increase their visibility. How?

• Start by building a network before you need it. Harvey MacKay in his popular book, Dig your well before you are thirsty, advocates:

A network replaces the weakness of the individual with the strength of the group. The idea of the group is to benefit members who have the same race, religion, gender preferences, ethnic background, business, trade and professional interests, economic interests, or personal interests. They are the basic building blocks of any networking system.

• If you think you need to wait until you need a network, you will not be able to successfully build one quickly. But if you have waited too long, you can still gain ground by making an effort to network correctly. MacKay also says:

A network can make you look good. To keep your network up and running, freshen up each entry at least once every six months.

• Work your way into a company through the back door, find out who you know either in the company, or who you know who knows someone in the company. This could be a college alumni, your next door neighbor, your fellow board member in an organization, or your hunting buddy. You don’t know if you don’t ask.
• When you find that answer, it is time to schedule an informational interview. Contact your desired individual and offer to buy lunch or coffee. Your goal is to gather information. You should always have your resume with you but it is not your goal to hand off your resume in the informational interview. If the individual is too busy to meet with you or on the other side of the country, ask if you can schedule a 10 to 15 minute phone conversation. If you get a yes, keep your word when you make the call, plan ahead what you will say so you can be clear what you are asking. Tell them you appreciate their time and if they have any leads for you, please  let you know. Send them a thank you (hand-written is a nice touch).
• Armed with your new information, make the contact in the company and get your resume to that person, letting them know that John Smith suggested that you might be a great solution for the issues that the company is facing. Be sure you ask John Smith for permission to use his name before you do this.

Before you know it, you will be celebrating your successful job search and you will no longer be fighting invisibility. Invisibility is never fun. But the good thing, is that it can be removed and when you remove that invisibility cloak, your talents and accomplishments will take you to the next level in your career.

In the Dining room

The world in 2010 is totally different than 100 years ago or 50 years ago or 25 years ago. If you think about it, to most of us, that’s ancient history!

The world changed in the past 10 years or 5 years, and I bet you can think of significant changes to our lifestyle and technology in the past 12 months.

100 Years Ago: The Amazing Technology of 1910 Heather Whipps from Live Science

One full century ago, the new technologies that had people talking were considered just as groundbreaking. Electricity led the charge of developments that were changing the way people lived every day, with transportation and chemistry not far behind.

The telephone was another hot new commodity in 1910, with millions of American homes already connected by manual switchboard.

50 years ago from The People History

In the Bedroom

• Boeing 707 Jet Airliner comes into service cutting 8 hrs from transatlantic Flight
• USSR Luna 2 crashes onto the Moon as the first man-made object and Luna 3 sends back first photos of the far side of Earth’s Moon
• Average Cost of new house $12,400.00 | Average Yearly Wages $5,010.00  | Cost of a gallon of Gas 25 cents

As I was reading Gini Dietrich’s post: Building your Online Presence around Mobile Payments, I was thinking about this:

If you’ve ever used your phone at Starbucks in Target to pay for your purchase, you’ll understand where this is going. But, instead of it being tied to a Starbucks card, your phone will actually talk to your bank account.

In the bathroom

How’s that for amazing? Almost mind-blogging. Go read the rest of Gini’s post to get into the conversation about the good or bad of mobile payments from your phone and a host of other interesting thoughts.

Changing Technology

We are changing our world so fast. The photos in this post are my thermostat for my furnace. I’m thinking 100 years ago even furnaces were a new technology.

When I upgraded my furnace this year, I was telling Jim Hurtis that the location for the thermostat wasn’t ideal. It was on a wall that gets full afternoon sun, opposite the wood burning fireplace, and the other side of the wall is my oven. I was only thinking we should find a new location. Jim’s solution was this moving thermostat. It goes where you are. If the oven is on, it goes in a room that isn’t near the oven.

Here’s the catch, I have to be willing to try something new. Whether it is paying with my phone at Starbucks or moving my thermostat, none of these innovations help me if I am afraid to try them.

Career Marketing & Technology

If you are looking to make a career change or you have lost your job and need a new one, you need to see what new technologies will help you move forward toward your goals.

As I write, I realize that the audience I need to reach is not even using online tools for the most part. Most job seekers know about online job boards but not the rest of the resources, like using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or blogging to help learn and connect.

If you’re reading this and know someone who is jobless or wanting to change careers, you help point them to new resources.

100 years ago, someone had to turn on the first switch and show others how much brighter it made the room.

Photo by Pink Sherbet Photography

I was talking to my colleague, Dawn Bugni last night on Twitter and I was telling her that I was editing and rewriting some of my older blog posts. She was laughing at me because I already have a large amount of new content and now I am going backwards.

This blog is now two years old. Posts I loved when I hit publish can use a face-lift. I’ve changed graphic strategies, using Flickr photos tied to the content of the post.

Then there’s the actual post content. When I reread it, I often find myself cutting paragraphs or words, editing, or rewriting to clarify and tighten the writing.

You know what? I do the same thing with resumes I wrote a few years back. I edit, rewrite, change the formatting, tighten the focus on the value proposition and accomplishments.

Resumes and job search marketing strategies have changed dramatically in the last few years. To think that you don’t need to re-evaluate your marketing materials (resume, cover letters, references… LinkedIn profile, Executive Bio, Project Profile, and more) may mean the difference in whether you are the one offered the job.

Have you taken a close look at that aging resume? Perhaps you need to give it a face-lift!