professional geekery

Promoting Professional Geekery #28: Help With The Job Search

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Quickly, who reading this is good at the job search?  You know resumes, cover letters, networking?  OK, at least decent?  How about “my job search abilities aren’t as bad as most people I know?”

OK if you fit into any one of these three categories, you’ve got a way to do what we do here – promote the Professional Geek ideal.  In fact, you’ve got a way that’s very valuable, but you may not see it.

A good job search is a skillet.  In fact, it’s a very unique skillet because a lot of people don’t have it.

Ever met people who are good at what they do, but don’t have a job?  Ever met someone who is good at getting work but just never seemed that qualified?  That’s your proof right there that the job search is it’s own, unique skillet.

If you’ve got the job search skills, in fact if you’re just about average, you can help out your fellow geeks by helping them get better at the job search.  Teach them how to do better resumes, to interview, to do cover letters, etc.  Even if you’re only good at one part of the job search, share the knowledge you do have.

There’s also many ways to do it.  You can write up a blog post, do a video, speak at a con, act as a personal counsellor, etc.  Done right, your job search skills can be immortalized for many others – in fact I keep technique write-ups I send to people.

This helps promote professional geekery in one of the most important ways – helping people actually do what they like for a living by teaching them how to find work.  It makes the dream real.

So often the ability to find a job is the only real difference between people making their dreams cone true and not.  It’s a sadly neglected, ill-taught skillet overall, made worse by changing times.  You, those who are good enough to enlighten others, can teach the skills that help dreams come true.

So, take an honest assessment of your job search abilities, and see if you should start being an advisor, reach out to friends, do panels, etc.  You can make a huge difference to current and future progeeks, and make their dreams a reality.

That will light the way for others.

– Steven Savage

Promoting Professional Geekery #27: Do A VLog

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Writing, blogging, etc.  All are ways to get out the word for professional geeks – that you can turn geek into a career (or at least geek out your current one).  Of course not everyone responds to the written word.  Some respond to diagrams, others to writing, others to speech, yet others to baked goods.

Since I’m not sure anyone has invited a way to communicate the fan-to-pro message via donuts, let’s see if you can help out your fellows by going beyond the usual blog or web page and go visual.

Try a video Blog, or vLog in the usual condensed internet vernacular.

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Promoting Professional Geekery #25: Reviews

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We want to have a world with more fan-to-pro types, more professional geeks, more happy people doing what they like for money within certain legal and ethical boundaries.  Indeed we spend a lot of time trying to improve ourselves professionally to live our dream jobs.

One thing you can do to keep the dream alive is to make sure people get their hands on the right books and resources and that means reviews and more.  In short, all those books and websites you use, you should review so people know about them (or avoid them).

There's a lot of great books out there, a lot of tools, a lot of websites.  If a person wanted to start their dream career what they need is out there now.  It's just concealed by ignorance, a huge amount of choice, and everything else on the internet (basically porn, cats with captions, and ponies).

You are the person that can cut through through the dross, through the confusion, through the LOLCats, and make a difference.  You can set people on the right path.

You do it by reviewing and promoting things that are worth it.

  • If you do any blog whatsoever on your career, make it a point to review good resources on it in lengthy, excruciating detail.  Let me be clear – if you do a career blog, reviews are virtually necessary.
  • Put reviews at amazon.com and other websites.  In fact it can often be the same review as above.
  • If it's a resource that's on Yelp, review it there.
  • If you do a review on a blog or website, tell the author so they know.  It helps the improve, promote, and you may make a new contact, friend, or grateful sycophant.  If your review is bad, well, then use your own discretion.

But what to review?  I mean do you review everything?  Maybe, but for some of us we'd never stop reviewing.  So here's my advice so your reviews target the right resources for progeeks.

Review the very good.  If something is exceptionally awesome, make sure it gets a good review, make sure you tell the author, etc.  Let people know of the best.  This is also helpful if it's a hidden gem.

Review the popular job resources. If something is amazingly popular, and if you're really into reviewing things, then make sure you review it.  It doesn't matter if it's good or bad, you want people to know.

Review the horrible.  If something turns out to be bad, disappointing, and should be avoided, then it's worth a review in order to warn people away.  Yes, you'll want to be civil and mature, but it's worth it as a warning.

What's not in here is the mediocre.  Good reviewing of resources tends to gloss over the unremarkable because it's neither worth promoting or warning off, nor known enough to be of your concern.  Don't feel you have to review every book or website – unless you're into that kind of thing.

Promote Professional Geekery by helping people live their dreams – with the right tools.

Also, if you want some books to recommend, well . . .

– Steven Savage