Promoting Professional Geekery

Promoting Professional Geekery #47 – Keep A Recruiter List

by

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

“But wait,” you say, “Steve you constantly talk about having a recruiter list.  How can this be new to this series?”

And I can respond “Shut up, that’s why.”  But in reality because there are specific recruiting list issues you want to follow if you’re specializing your focus on promoting particular career goals.  Goals like, say, using your geekiness on the job.

So for those of you who haven’t heard me go on (or like to hear me go on) I always encourage people to keep a list of recruiters to hand out to people on a job search.  You can of course flesh it out in your own job searches, and have a handy list to give out fast.

This is great for promoting professional geekery.

There’s the obvious solution, of course: you can help people out fast on the job search.  But there’s another reason as well.

You get to know these recruiters, know who works, and know how they interact with people like you.  You can make sure they’re right for the present and future progeeks you know – you can even keep sub-lists or let people know what recruiters truly fit “them.”

It may take a little extra effort to tweak – especially depending on your own career and experiences.  But it’s a good way to help people out.

Also you can encourage others to do this and start sharing lists.  Maybe your artist friend has an art list, your friend in gaming has a gaming list . . .

– 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/

Promoting Professional Geekery #46 – Find Your Coaching Specialty

by

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

So you want to help people out in their careers – from a progeeky point of view – you can always coach them.  After all, people are glad to have someone provide their expertise to help them out in their careers – and even more so when it’s a fellow geek.

Of course, what good can you do as a coach?  I mean where do you start?

It’s simple, you figure out two things.

1) What you should coach on.

Are you an expert at the job search (like I mentioned earlier)?  Good with resumes?  Excellent at finding career paths for people?  There’s clearly something you’re good at – and like to coach on.

So find it.

Look you probably can’t coach on everything, and even if you could, you’d be better at some things than others.  So find your specialty.

Also, you don’t always want to coach on some things.  Maybe you’re awesome at cover letters but hate discussing them.  Fine, find something else so your attempts to help people don’t drive you nuts.

You can always branch out later if you’re underestimating yourself.

2) How you communicate best with people you’re coaching

So you know what you’re coaching on – but how do you communicate it best?  What are your personal, technical, and methodological preferences?

Perhaps you’re good at one-on-one.  Maybe you like to help in groups.  Maybe you work best by email.  You may have physical, locational, or financial limits or advantages to use.

So find how you can communicate with people best, and find a way to use your coaching skills via that method – or methods.

Really, that’s it.  Just find what you’re good at, how you communicate it, and go for it.  We’ve got enough progeeks and potential progeeks out there that need career help, and what you do will make a difference.

Hey you may even want to do it via blogging, which sounds kind of familiar . . .

– 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/

Promoting Professional Geekery #45: Write About Progeeks And Progeekery

by

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

So you want to promote professional geekiness, to inspire, to help.  You’d like to write about it.  The only thing is you don’t have anything to write about.

You’re not a resume expert, you’re not a coach, you’re not really good at the whole advice thing.  Not everyone can do it, of course, but you know for sure that you really, are really BAD at this, or at least don’t know where to start.

Or perhaps you just don’t have enough experience to be the expert.  You’re a new progeek, an up-and-comer, or something similar.  So what can you do?

You can write about us.

Not advise, not guide, write about us.  You don’t advise or help progeeks (since you’re not sure you’re capable of it).  What you do is help show what we do and who we are.

You can:

  1. Interview people who are progeeks (Hey, i suggested that you be interviewed, so turn the tables).
  2. Analyze and write about trends in jobs and progeekery.
  3. Profile who industries or career subgroups (it might even be a book).

You get the idea.  With a bit of effort, it’s easy to help people be progeeks and improve their progeekery by giving them information and making them more visible.  If you’re not a coach, you can be a reporter and analyst.

Best of all?  In time, you’ll start getting the knowledge and skills and experience that may let you go deeper and start coaching and advising . . .

– 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/