Advice

Geek Job Guru: Skill Spread

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What lets you do your job and carry out your career? Well you could say your position, connections, etc. But I’m talking actual productivity, and what lets you actually do things is skills.

When it comes to skills, that’s a huge part of our career. We measure them with tests. We get certifications to show we have them. We get rated on the job or by clients. We seek them out or develop them. In short, a big part of your career is the ability to do something.

So more skills is good for you because it’s good for your career. Ehancing skills is good for you because skills are good.  And so on.

Now we geeks in many ways are people with multiple careers. Sure we have what pays the bills, we also have our hobbies, and many of us have something in between. Your average highly active geek-type is probably doing two or three jobs at any time, and in many cases only one of them actually pays the bills.  Sadly for some that’s “barely” pays the bills, so enhancing what we can do is even more important.

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Geek Job Guru: The Memorable Candidate.

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We want to be the candidate that gets the job, or the contract, or the client.  We’re always wondering “what kind of person will get this.”  Is it the one with this talent or that, the one that is the most forward, the one that is the most reserved, or just the weirdest one?  Whatever it is we want to be that person, or at least think we do.

In my long experience working, coaching, and researching I’ve found there is one kind of candidate you want to be – and you, my fellow geek/otaku/fan can be it, and may have some advantages in that area.

That candidate?  That’s the memorable candidate.  Well, the well-remembered candidate, really – since you can be memorable for breaking into panicked screaming and running out of the interview.  You want to be memorable in a good way, but for the sake of theory, I’ll just refer to you as being “the memorable” candidate.

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Geek As Citizen: Helping Others Publish

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When I was at Con-Volution, enjoying a break and the ambiance of the dining area, it was a bit crowded. A charming older woman asked if she might sit at my table as the area was so densley packed, and I figured some dinner company would be delightful. I’m always glad to meet new people, and frankly her manners really impressed me.

We got to chatting, and she turned out to be a fascinating person.  Now in hher 70’s she’d let quite a life, and had considered doing a book about it; over the decades she’d had many amusing experiences and wanted to share them. As our conversation progressed, I had to agree she was right – in fact her life would have made a wonderful romantic/family comedy.

I noted that she could self-publish easily and at least get a book out there, then seek professional publication. She had not explored the world of self-publishing, so I gave her my card and mentioned if she was interested, she could email me. I would be glad to help her out, I noted, since I had been published and she clearly had many stories worth telling.

This got me thinking about we geeks helping others get published.

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