Career Marketplace Blog

In this article from The Daily Muse, Jenny Foss writes, Unemployed? The Right (and Wrong) Way to Brand Yourself.

Read an excerpt of Foss’ article below. Read Full Article

I recently came in contact with a former technology executive turned job seeker. He was navigating a lengthy, frustrating job hunt, and not surprisingly, he was mad, depressed, and growing somewhat panicked.

I knew this about him before we’d even talked, because he’d been all over a couple of the LinkedIn Groups I follow, lambasting the world for not realizing how amazing he is.

But interestingly, when I actually talked to him—for as loud as he was coming across via social media—he didn’t seem at all confident in what he had to offer. He wasn’t clear on his target market. And he certainly wasn’t going out of his way to earn favor with the influential technology players in his city.

Instead, the unemployed job seeker was branding himself, all over the Internet, as a difficult, indignant guy who hated recruiters and hiring managers.

That’d be a prime example of how not to brand yourself when you’re unemployed.

So what does the other end of the spectrum look like? As terrifying as it may be when you’re out of work, this is no time to run for the hills or come undone. Instead, consider these key strategies to help you brand yourself well.

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In this article from The Daily Muse, Anne Niederkorn describes, Getting Back Together: Interviewing at a Company You Used to Work For.

Read an excerpt of Niederkorn’s article below. Read Full Article

Over time, your career path can take some pretty unexpected twists and turns. Like—when you suddenly find yourself trying to rejoin a company or team you once left behind.

If you’re lucky, you were approached by your old boss or co-workers—and they really want you back. But maybe you realized that you made a mistake by leaving in the first place; or, after spending time elsewhere for a few years, you see a great new opportunity available. No matter what the reason, though, that first step back to reconnecting with your former company is one that needs to be handled carefully.

So, how do you make the initial connection and interview a little less awkward and a lot more productive? In order to get some useful tips, I talked to a few professionals who were once in your very same shoes. And while their “return stories” were all a little different, their suggestions hit on some similar themes.

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In this article from Lifehacker, Alan Henry explains how, FaceWash Makes Sure Your Facebook Profile is Clean and Interview-Ready.

Read an excerpt of Henry’s article below. Read Full Article

If the prospect of going back over years of Facebook posts to determine whether some of them should be hidden or photos untagged is daunting, webapp FaceWash can help. The service scans your posts, timeline, and tagged photos to make sure nothing incriminating is going on, and warns you if it finds anything.

Read On to find out how it works

In this article for the Huffington Post, Carolyn Thompson explains how colleges are helping students clean up for their Social Media image prior to their job search.

Read an excerpt of Thompson’s article, Google Yourself: Colleges Help Students Scrub Online Footprints, below. Read Full Article

Samantha Grossman wasn’t always thrilled with the impression that emerged when people Googled her name.

“It wasn’t anything too horrible,” she said. “I just have a common name. There would be pictures, college partying pictures, that weren’t of me, things I wouldn’t want associated with me.”

So before she graduated from Syracuse University last spring, the school provided her with a tool that allowed her to put her best Web foot forward. Now when people Google her, they go straight to a positive image – professional photo, cum laude degree and credentials – that she credits with helping her land a digital advertising job in New York.

“I wanted to make sure people would find the actual me and not these other people,” she said.

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In this article from U.S. News & World Reports On Careers blog, Miram Salpeter describes how to “Make Your Body Language Work for You During an Interview”.

Read an excerpt of Weiler Reynolds’ article below. Read Full Article

You’ve been practicing what to say at an interview, but have you considered what signals your body language is sending? Research suggests up to 93 percent of communication isn’t transmitted via our words, but is broadcast through our actions and attitude.

Patti Wood, author of SNAP: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma, suggests the following tips to help you wow your interviewer:

In this article from LiveCareer, find out How to Evaluate Good and Bad Career Advice

Read an excerpt from this article below.

We’ve discussed before how using your dating skills can help you find a job. But career advice is like romantic advice in some other ways as well. We often need it, sometimes we ask for it and everyone seems to love giving it whether they’ve been asked or not. Without it, we would face an uncharted world alone and we’d be constantly reinventing wheels and working to solve problems that we could easily overcome if we just tuned into the wisdom and life experience of those around us.

But sometimes advice can lead us astray, and sometimes it’s delivered by people who don’t have our best interests in mind. Here at LiveCareer, we’ve seen and heard plenty of both good and bad advice. Here’s what we’ve learned.

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In this clip from the classic comedy series, Seinfeld, George quits his job and wonders what he should do next.

Seinfeld – George Costanza ponders about potential jobs

In this video from Adam Smith College, Gordon Ramsay tells his career story and gives helpful advice on how to become a successful chef.

Career Advice: Gordon Ramsay

In this article from LiveCareer, learn How to Ask for a Raise.

Tips from this article include:

• Do your research
• Time your message appropriately
• Have a plan in the event of a no answer 

Read full article 

In this article for The Wall Street Journal’s, Financing Your Future, Andrea Coombes  reports Where the Jobs Are for Older Workers.

Read an excerpt from Coombes’ article below. Read Full Article

Growing numbers of older adults are finding a nice surprise in the workplace: a “Welcome” sign.

The number of workers age 55 and up grew by 3.5 million from September 2009 to September 2012. That represents the lion’s share of the gain of 4.2 million for all workers 16 and older, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Two factors help explain the trend.

Read on