Professional Geekery

Promoting Professional Geekery #44 – Make Your Personal Page Progeeky

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(For more Promoting Professional Geekery, see this Roundup of past columns.)

If you’ve followed my writings for any time you know that having a good personal page is something I advocate very strongly (along with networking, etc.)  So, yes i’m going to emphasize it again, but for a different reason.

Kind of.

A great way to promote professional geekery is to let people see it in practice.  That’s you, the current or future progeek, by the way.  If you have a personal website, then that’s a chance to emphasizes your progeekiness in your writings, posts, identity, and more.

So why do this?

  • It shows the possibility of professional geekery – something not everyone gets.  Seeing your hobbies tied into your careers, seeing you going beyond “pro” to “progeek” shoes the possibility.  It’s something they may embrace, or understand.
  • It shows people pride in professional geekery.  They see that people can be proud of the lifestyle, and can find that pride in themselves.  They may also understand others with such pride.
  • It humanizes geeks and progeeks by showing it as part of you, a regular (more or less) human being.
  • It of course has professional and personal advantages since you’re being honest.

You’re the progeek.  Let the world see it on your web page.

Try a few things like this:

  • Emphasize this in your personal statements and content (which is pretty much what I do at https://www.stevensavage.com/).
  • Include links to your geek projects – which not only emptyasizes it but also helps people see your lifestyle and the broadness of what you do.
  • Include any specific writings and references that fit your progeekery if possible – it also means your site is a good place to put things you’re not sure where to put.
  • Don’t forget to link to interesting external resources relevant to your interests.
  • If you’re like me and like to emphasize progeekery, you can add separate sections.

You’ve got the page (or should).  Use it!

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/

 

Steve’s Job Search 2012: Job Search Boards

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As noted, in May 2012, I lost my job – and found a new one in a few weeks.  This is part of my latest findings . . .

Despite what we’re often told, Job Search Boards do work.  If you use them right.  And you have the right skillet.  And live in the right area.  Which is a way of saying “they work kind of.”

Worse, as I have harped on before, they go through cycles of being useful.  For my profession Craigslist has become less useful, but Dice.com is mores.  In short, if you use job boards, I’d keep a list of good ones and check them now and then to see if they’ve gone bad – or gotten better.

So the real question is – do the damn job search boards work, or should I do all the networking everyone tells me about.

Well for me, I sent out a good 350 resumes, got about one solid lead for every 12 I sent out, and got to 3-4 “final rounds” (one of those is sort of debatable), and one definite offer that I took (terminating the process).   Not sure how far it would have gone otherwise, but from those numbers you can get an idea of what can be done in about 2.5 weeks.

Here’s what I found.

  1. If you live in a region/megaregion that has a lot of work (say, Silicon Valley, etc.) then job boards may not only be good, they may perform better than networking for results.
  2. If you’re willing to contract, then in most large regions you’ll have a lot of job board opportunities.
  3. You better have a good resume or cover letter because you will get lost in the shuffle.
  4. This does not work for every profession, and for others it’s better.  In Silicon Valley if you’re a PM with ERP or CRM experience, you can probably name your price.

 

So how do you leverage the job boards?

  1. Keep a list of them and find which ones work.  My personal favorite was Dice.com.
  2. Find scrapers like Indeed.com that scrape information from many sites – it also helps you find other job search sites.
  3. Do not rely entirely on Scrapers – they don’t cover everything
  4. Don’t waste time on these – mechanize and streamline the process, but don’t just apply

Job boards are one tool you can use – and if you’re in the right location, it may be an excellent one.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/

Steve’s Job Search 2012: Relocation

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I have a confession to make.  In May I lost my job.

Oh, sure I wanted to tell you, loyal readers.  But I had a job search, Anime North, and frankly I had no idea what to SAY.  Also I was insanely busy just getting my normal posts done.

The good news?  I found a job about three weeks after my layoff.  I did this by applying a lot of my techniques, and I’m going to be writing it up for you folks – because I learned a lot and had a few surprises . . .

So let’s dive in, because I’ve got a lot to write about!

Regional Issues

Doing an actual full-time job search in Silicon Valley, while other people I know do full or part-time job searches elsewhere in the world let me draw a lot of contrast.  Namely, places are really, really different job-search wise.

Yes, this is a “No sh*t, Shatner” moment, yes it’s “obvious” but when you experience the contrast it’s really incredibly, painfully obvious.  It’s also apparent how I didn’t get regional differences, and how anyone can miss them.

It’s easy to assume areas are relatively similar in the Geekonomy as we gravitate towards creative-type megaregions – SF Bay, Seattle, LA, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, etc.  But as much as these regions are alike, their differences are as great as, or perhaps greater than their similarities.

This allowed me to find out a few things:

  1. Job titles can vary radically, especially from coast to coast.  This was a great shock to me, but now it makes sense.  I saw first-hand how resumes could be re-interpreted based on region, and thus job titles.
  2. The usefulness of job search boards also varies highly.  Some regions will favor job boards – and certain boards – some won’t.  For instance, I think everyone in Silicon Valley uses Dice.
  3. The value of certain experiences and certifications – and how they’re communicated – also varies highly among regions.  Certain certifications are more universal, and thus more valuable, but even then you need to communicate them right.
  4. The use of regional language and understanding is important.  My ability to discuss my commute and so forth really made a difference.
  5. Your history and how people react to it varies greatly from place to place.
  6. Attitude also varies in your search.  I’ve found Seattle, Silicon Valley, and Toronto to be less formal and more friendly, with Boston surprisingly casual.  Not so much New York.

A shining example of this was seeing how people with a writing background were treated in Silicon Valley.  Here, we’re up to our armpits in tech writers, so even very senior people with a publishing background can get assumed to be “just writers” unless it’s communicated properly.  At times, it was mind-blowing.

Another example is employment history. It’s a running joke in Silicon Valley that people with short employment histories (2 years at each place) are unremarkable.  At times I’ve even heard people talk of those staying in one spot a long time with suspicion.  Meanwhile that seems to not be the cast, say, out east.

So when doing a job search, make sure the region fits you – and make sure your strategy fits your region.  If you are leaving one region for another, make a concerted effort to adapt your strategy and expectation to that region.

– Steven Savage

Steven Savage is a Geek 2.0 writer, speaker, blogger, and job coach for professional and potentially professional geeks, fans, and otaku. He can be reached at https://www.stevensavage.com/