Professional Geekery

Promoting Professional Geekery #48 – Use Your Progeeky Viewpoint On Geeky Events

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

Geek events are great for careers – they let you attend career events, network, etc.  You know I’m a big backer of going progeek at conventions and more.  I kind of write about it obsessively.

But there’s also a way to help people who do the events to make it pay off for their career no matter what they do.

That may sound odd – after all running a Hetalia game contest or a panel on the history of Star Trek may not sound that professional.  But it’s really all in perspective – you can help people see the professional potential in what they do.

See, running a con, running a fannish event, running a club, takes a lot of skills and abilities.  A lot of events are like businesses, or seminars, or other supposedly “professional” things.  The experiences of doing them could be valuable to careers – as long as people know how to leverage them and portray them to clients and employers.

That’s where you come in with this professionally geeky potential – helping people see the opportunities.

See you, the progeek, can look at these events and help people realize how to use them.  It just takes a little perspective, training your eye to see the opportunities out there.  For instance:

  • If people work together at a well-run con, they should act as references for each other.  It’s literally like working together.
  • People who do specific geeky events should put their skills on their resumes (and note their hobbies in more details).
  • Geeks who publish various progeeky/geeky things should put them on their resumes, LinkedIn profiles, use samples, etc.

You can probably think of many more opportunities right now just looking at that list.  For that matter, you can probably think of a few friends who should be sprucing up their resumes right about now.

This is because you have the experience to see the professional, and thus progeeky potential in people.  So start taking that unique viewpoint into fannish groups, cons, gaming teams, and more.  Start looking for the professional potential – and helping people realize it.

It’s all around you.  Trust me, I know . . .

– 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 #47 – Keep A Recruiter List

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(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/

Steve’s Job Search 2012: Networking

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In my latest job search?  Yeah I did networking.

Yeah, I always emphasize networking.  What did I find out about networking in my latest job search?

Well, yes, it works.  You knew that.  Most of us know that.  I found that it works pretty well – I had several interviews due to networking, and all of them due to people reaching out to me due to past contacts.  As my job search geared up, I got lots of people helping my apply for jobs at their companies (though my results came so quick I had to let them down quick as well).

What did I do?  I took a weekend and wrote everyone I knew and told them my situation.  That took hours.  It was also worth it.

My advice:

  1. Be open about it. Tell them your situation, what you’re looking for, and where you’re looking for it.
  2. If you don’t know what you want or what you’re looking for, hold off until you do – it’ll just confuse things.
  3. Track and follow up with every person who replies, and review your conversations.
  4. When you do get a job, let people know (even if its a LinkedIn post or something).
  5. Find people who can refer you and see if they’ll refer others – after all, they may have some leads for friends of yours.

Networking’s effectiveness is, much like the use of job boards, also bounded by geographic area and connections.

There is also one, big, huge, enormous factor in Networking that I realized while doing my search, something I knew unconsciously, but now I *get* it:

The skills you develop in networking, the attitude of trying to connect, is just as important as any connections that you make.  When you interview, you’re networking, when you handle a rejection you’re networking.  You’re networking throughout the job search even if you don’t realize it.

That networking ability connects you with recruiters and interviewers.  That networking ability lets you turn a failure into a future interview.  That ability simply lets you connect.

That makes a huge difference.  I could see in my interviews that sheer connecting got me results.

So when you’re in an interview?  You’re still networking.  Remember that.

– 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/