Some trite phrases never belong on resumes today

Toni Bowers has a noteworthy column in her “Career Management” column in Tech Republic today, “10 boring phrases you should cut from your resume”, link here. That’s right, never ("ne jamais") use these phrases. They’re trite. Everyone says them. English teachers should tell high school kids not to use them. The phrases include “strong work ethic”, “team player”, and “bottom line oriented.”

Not to overlook, however, I have heard managers talk about “work habits” as well as “work ethic,” and in the 1990s I took a “Team Handbook” class at work, based on the idea of “Total Quality Management”, as opposed to “management by objectives”, which (though popular in the 1970s) had come to be seen as trite by the 90s.

Now, tips on how I,R. pro's should use social networking sites

Today, July 8, Deb Shinder of Tech Republic wrote a posting, “10 Ways to stay out of trouble when you post to social networking sites,” with basic link here, leading to a PDF file download.

Most of the recommendations now sound familiar – particularly that what others post about you or in your space can have more effect on your reputation than what you post. The main question seemed to be mixing social life with business.

Since I spent most of my I.T. career as an “individual contributor” I didn’t have to deal with this kind of mashup much, but it seems as though I was not part of the real world that people know today. I used the Internet as a self-publishing tool, and tended to network in the real world (as with a screenwriter’s group, later).

Use Twitter and Facebook "not to get laid off"! Oh, really?

While the news about layoffs continues to accumulate, the Wall Street Journal today (Monday July 6) led off with a story “Companies, Workers Tangle Over Law to Curb Layoffs,” by Ianthe Jeanne Dugan, link here. The article concerns the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, which requires 60 days notice of layoffs in certain situations where communities are heaving affected.

Then today AOL, in a column called “How Not to Get Laid Off”, Managing your career: Ariane de Bonvoisin and John Kilcullen provided a column “Identify 10 Skills You Need to Survive the Next Round of Layoffs at your Job”, link here. A lot of it was cowtowing and nose-holding and self-sacrifice around the margins, proving you can give away a little more effort than your coworkers who might have more family responsibilities. That is, lowball your coworkers. (Forget solidarity.) But it was tip #9 that got my attention: “Start Tweeting or Start Packing.”

I note this quote from the article:

“’No time for "I don't do Twitter or Facebook.’" Acquaint yourself with social networks, mobile applications, and commerce platforms to remain relevant. Let them intimidate you and you give your boss reasons to replace you with someone younger and more in the game.”

Note how you read this: It’s important to use the free-entry mechanisms, but now it’s important to brand yourself online for the work you are going to do. That certainly makes sense for younger people, coming out of college. Now, I branded myself a dozen years ago as a social activist (regarding “don’t ask don’t tell” among other things) so it’s a little late to think that Twitter could rebrand me as a mainframe programmer. Of course, my self-branding branches out. On one of my blogs, for example, I've identified "young composers" and "pianists" as categories, encouraging them to learn of each other's work. In my position, I don't think it hurts to be a 66-year-old Ryan Seacrest.

More and more, a unified web presence is becoming necessary for self-branding. Nobody understood this even five years ago.

Or is a "diverse" presence a good thing after all? Do you need to focus on narrow expertise, or do you need to diversity and move in several directions? Ten years ago, we thought the latter; we have narrowed our expectations from self-expression, as an antidote to unreliable corporate and labor paternalism, somewhat.

AOL offers "Top 10 companies hiring": Dell and Warner Brothers(!) stand out

AOL again has a job opportunities posting today, “Top 10 Companies Hiring Now”, a welcome item the day after a federal announcement of a 9.5% unemployment rate.

But there are some surprises. One is Dell, and the computer manufacturer actually has HR openings. Two more are Parsons and Siemens (the latter a German engineering company that we covered recently). Also notice Twitter (even if not yet “monetizied” – maybe "super microblogger" Ashton Kutcher has something to do with this) and T-Mobile. (Generally, telecommunications companies do have stores and kiosks in almost all malls.) But the big surprise may be Warner Brothers Entertainment.

The direct site for Warner Brothers jobs now is “Warner Brothers careers” here The site says “Picture yourself among the stars. Picture yourself here.” Watch your online reputation. The information technology jobs appear to be merged with Time Warner (which would incorporate the cable operations, as well as other studios like New Line).

I looked at their IT jobs in early 2002. There is a tendency to require a broad background in both mainframe and client server or mini platforms (Unix and AS400), and a mix of somewhat specific skills on several platforms. I recall DB2, Cobol (general IBM mainframe), and C++ (and related client server skills) and various other packages (People Soft, etc) being sought. Warner Brothers has a large, structured, professionally run information technology operation, and may be a good hunting ground for versatile professionals living in the LA area, even given the weak economy.

It’s interesting to see Warner Brothers (and Time Warner) back on the list, since the companies have undergone downsizings and consolidations, with, for example, dropping the Warner Independent Pictures and Picturehouse units. Movies, despite all the stories about studio budget battles, seem to do well during recessions. And cable companies are bound to benefit in time from (Obama’s) economic stimulus in the broadband area (although a lot of the stimulus may go to smaller companies).

For me, well, I may be trying to sell a movie script soon. That does make things interesting.

When to convert from PC to Mac? What about Boot Camp and security? What about Expression Studio?

Can someone who has “invested” heavily in Microsoft-pc based applications reasonably switch to the MacIntosh? After all, the Mac offers “boot camp” to switch to Windows XP, and offers Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and Entourage) directly for the Mac.

I checked out Expression Studio on the web and it appears that the only portion that runs directly on a Mac (without the PC emulation) is Expression Media. (See the chart on the right on the generic Wikipedia entry here for the simplest explanation; look at the sneaky way Microsoft mentions Expression Media on this system requirements page for Expression Studio, here.) For me, Expression Web (to replace Front Page) would be the most important component. I would have to switch to XP through boot camp to use it, it seems, and I don’t know how reliable that would be.

And everything I find suggests that if you work in XP mode, you should have the full Windows anti-virus and anti-spyware protection, and have the same security management issues that you have in a PC environment. That means being ready to process automatic updates, as usual. The main difference is that you will use it less. So there may be less practical exposure. But you may have some sensitivities if you have to go to the PC mode to update your own websites (as with Expression Web, to replace the older Front Page).

One of the considerations is that Microsoft offers a “whole universe” with its various incarnations of Visual Studio and various languages, but a C# enterprise or architect’s edition can essentially “do anything.” Therefore, it appeals to a business plan that demands flexibility and the ability to set up archetypes for others to use rather than just to process a certain set of transactions or self-publish a certain set of controversial materials.

So someone who, going back to 2002 or so, invested in the ability to use needs to keep efficient use of its functionality. One of my problems is that my doaskdotell.com domain is on a Windows Server platform, and I can’t be sure that I won’t need a direct modern Windows interface to use some of its more arcane features later.

Windows users feel discouraged by media hype that talks about deterioration over time, and a much bigger security target. But there is no reason why a Vista (or soon Windows 7) environment should not work smoothly if managed properly from the beginning.

There is a link that says “buy a PC now, upgrade to Windows 7 later” here.

There are, of course, many fine products which work great in the Mac world: Dreamweaver, and most of all FinalCut for movie editing (and Screenwriter). You can make a nice, flexible site by putting Dreamweaver and Wordpress together (here), and using the MySQL embedded in Wordpress (along with Wordpress categories). But it may be difficult to switch for someone who “got in bed with Microsoft” early in his publishing and “entrepreneurial” career.

Possible freelance opportunities for Ebay trade assistance advertised

I got an email from a group called “The Experts in Time” today, offering the possibility of becoming a Trade Manager Assistant for "Trans Bridge". The website that it directed me to comes from Yahoo! groups and was this or this Yahoo! address this (requires Yahoo! registration and logon). The site describes itself as an Ebat Drop Off store, and mentions that it has trading assistants that research and post the items.

The implication of the email is that people can make money at home in the United States or United Kingdom (probably other countries like Canada, Australia, etc) as assistants, in freelance mode.

I don’t know how well this works. Perhaps the idea will show up on one of the morning news shows (like Tori Johnson’s Women for Hire on Good Morning America). Certainly, this does sound like another new kind of opportunity.

If others have tried it, please feel free to comment.

Jobaphiles offers job auctions

Here’s another wrinkle: auction yourself for a job, or go to an auction to purchase contracting work. The site is called “Jobaphiles”, with link here. It appears to be in Beta Test. The site was described on NBC Washington today.

I saw jobs there varying from academic tutoring to nannies and dog walking (a long way from IT). I even saw a listing for “entry level equity traders: start your career on Wall Street”. Really? Now?

I guess a piecework auction is one way to find out “the market demand for your services.” We do seem to headed for a free market cultural revolution.

Maybe afacionados of job auctioning would enjoy the movie "The Red Violin."