Networking for jobs.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I mention to look into my Notes section for Professional Services and the corresponding Member Services blog Area Light Professional for some information about what I'd like to do.

Among the projects I have in mind is setting up a job board feature complimented by area Light Member Services. I just set up the Area Light Wiki and think this is the tool to do it. Now all I need are some professionals to work with me to set it up. Check out the related discussion group Holonic Organization where I get into using the Wiki in conjunction with Area Light on Ning. Refer to the sub-tab below "Main" here for "Collective" to get to the wiki.

I've kicked off that project with a discussion of how to index what we put on. One initial category is "Professional". How we use it remains to be determined. I want to see some professionals show me what they can do. This should serve to demonstrate their professional knowledge, skills, and abilities for all to see as if they worked for Area Light as a transparent organization. Plus, I know I cannot do this alone. The job board may need to reference by location so we'll need to work out how to cross reference the professional and geographic categories. I can offer some possibility to build a new page for the job boards and include as a tab or sub-tab, though i think we'll necessarily need to link to corresponding pages on the wiki.

Hope we can stir up some interest in this project. i'm certainly looking for work myself and this can be outsourcing online, project based, or even regular employment. The features on Area Light I want to work on will serve my interests as well as other professionals. If we can show some intelligent initiative and teamwork, then I think we may be able to leverage ourselves to accomplish more than we could based on the resources that are currently out there and better than we could if working on these goals separately. Force- multiplication people. Show your ability for teamwork by accomplishing some results that speak for themselves. That should help to shed some light on your respective professional abilities and improve your chances of getting a job.

There's plenty more where this comes from. I'm developing a protocol for presenting Area Light and the professional services available to employers who might network with us. In an organizational perspective, it serves our interests to attract more people and businesses to the site- whatever exposure we create for ourselves is then multiplied in value. So I will be making this protocol available to other professionals who are out there looking to get their foots in doors like I am. Rather than just presenting a resume that probably doesn't even get read, we're going to be offering services for free that include networking with professionals.

In my town most people get jobs through networking anyway. Paid job boards like Monster and Career Builder don't get much attention. There are some smaller proprietary job sites that sell add space and such. I know most employers don't find those of much utility or cost-benefit either. You've got free boards like Craig's List- they do charge advertising in the bigger cities- in the free areas the postings are crowded by scams and other home-based business offers. A real nuissance is all the posts that end up sending you an autoresponder to require you to apply through some upstart employment website.

Area Light is going to be different and better. I'm going to see to it the professionals here are treated with courtesy, respect, personalized attention, and free services. There's also something to be said of marketing professionals who are currently employed. A dynamic of the modern business environment suggests to me professionals are going to be best served to continuously apply and market themselves. Even if you are satisfied in your position, you can still possibly pick up side work on outsourced projects and such.

I'd like to attract professionals here to help support an open source learning environment. This group is more specific to the project itself. We could set up a group for HR professionals to talk shop for example. Could be a great resource for employers too. We're underutilizing the forums feature right now. On another network i use I've seen this used with astronomical traffic and interaction. Every topic that comes to mind is posted and responded to by interested parties. Some threads just keep getting activity and I think we could focus some of our professional activities into forums with the same type of successs.

O.K. then. Let's get to work!

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

Quick note:

In my business class today, the instructor was covering HR. He was presenting the issues from his experience with the conventions of employment and from the perspective of the employer. I'm all too familiar with these as you will learn if you look into my professional qualifications and background. However, I disagreed. I think in the modern business environment, more businesses are going to have to compete for the best professionals and will start needing to look at the employees as customers. Right now, when you go around to a lot of established businesses, they are likely to feed you through a nitpicking application screening process or reject your resume on the basis of EOE technicalities that have nothing to do with attracting and recruiting the best employees. It's atypical for most employers, even today, to view professionals who view themselves as the best- especially when they are young and haven't had the years of experience such as my profile- as premadonna's or wannabe superstars. Yet, I say, what's the matter with ambition for immediate results and who wants to have all those bad habits and ingrained assumptions that cause people to accept the status quo anyway? At least for the type of position I want to fill, I'm a perfect fit. The company I want to work for is going to be looking for me and rolling the red carpet out for me. They're not going to block me off with fine print technicalities to try to catch discrepancies between my application and resume. I'm no pawn who tries to cheat my employers nor simply goes through the motions. I go for results and I take risks both on the job and in my career. If you want to nitpick then I suppose I wouldn't fit the bill and I'm fairly certain I wouldn't want to work for you anyway. If you want the best, then I think you don't want to be turning resumes away for the adminsitrative burden and keeping them on file for some duration with consideration to positions that may become available. I don't have the time to keep my eyes open for opportunities as they arise wherever they might be. When I make my rounds and look into a company- and I offer my resume- then you should take it then or risk losing the potential asset value I'm offering when you need it. From my "conventional" experience, I'd say it makes sense to do this anyway. What do you do when you need to replace or fill a new position to fit your needs when you need it? Better to have a pool of candidates, Even better to stay in touch once in a while to let me know you are still thinking about using me and treating me as the customer instead of closing the doors as if I were an unwanted solicitation. The real competitive companies are going to be out there looking for talent any way and anywhere they can find it. They are going to come to me here. So part of what I jsut may need to do is develop this network into a professional resource for employers to train them how to do this- and offer my services to facilitate that. I know this sounds laughable to most experienced professionals. I suggest looking into Building Wealth by Lester C. Thurow. As a modern professional, I take pride on knowing what I'm talking about even if it is so cutting-edge most businesses aren't even thinking about it yet. Everything I am seeing is supporting the transformation to a new professional competition where businesses need to get more proactive and compete for the best. So that is precisely what I am working on here.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I was talking to a classmate this weekend who was let go because his job was so slow. Now you see all these major companies letting people go and this tells me the professional capital out there is probably extraordinarily talented. Some of these people are probably playing with the idea of going into business on their own. Others may be interested in networking for jobs or perhaps outsourcing some of what they can do during the interim between jobs. Now would be the best time to be advertising what we are going to be working on and I could sure use some professional help. I'm seriously considering getting the word out there on Craig's List. At a minimum, I think it would be great to be in The Loop as far as what's going on out there in the employment sector and just discussing some of our backgrounds and intentions could potentially lead to some enterprise opportunities.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

This morning I took another look at Craig's List and Linkedin jobs for my area. Nothing stood out to me too much as a solid fitting opportunity. Right now, unemployment is so high that employers are being overloaded by applications. I think the shotgun approach to job advertisement and application is quickly going to become obsolete. Obviously, with internet technology, there is a lot that can be done to save time and money. However, if you are looking for someone like me, and thinking of the prospective employee as a customer, then you are going to want to be smarter in your recruiting. Perhaps this implies a smarter use of technology "and" people.

When I get into the professional mode, I sometimes think about my work here on Area Light. Maybe it's time to fire back up the project. On one hand, the Area Light social networking community might support professionals in presenting themselves through discussions and demonstrations of skills applied for the benefit of this network and members. I also have the model of job boards and the such I've been researching and developing. I'm still thinking about how to integrate forums for this. Plus, I have Area Light Professional Services and a rather unique idea of wiki indexing skills.

As far as tying this into geographic specifications, I have assumed a social network called Chicoplace. For my local community, it may be better to promote a community specific site. The "place" tag I think is portable to other locations and maybe we can brand this out. "Place" sounds good for placing people into jobs. The platform is suitable for networking. However, you have sites like Linkedin that may do somewhat of a better job. I just think something may be missing between other levels of personal and organizational that could potentially bring local businesses and people together outside of job networking- and then be lead in to discussions of employment. Area Light may be presented as a site management service based out of Chico; but primarily online and specializing in online social networking.

Even the local Chamber of Commerce has started a free web-based job board. However, it is so underutilized. A couple weeks ago they had somewhat of a media teamup with local news stations to promote the idea. Not much action coming out of that though. They should probably think it through more. My thoughts on this are there is a service element missing. If I were to apply as "the customer" then I'd hope to have the red carpet treatment and actually deal with a person. Recruiters seem a little too interested in making their own money rather than really serving the needs of people and employers. Yet, offering the personal service and treating every applicant as a valued customer is time consuming and maybe not cost- effective. However, I think the opportunity is still there..

I know many employers take on the HR recruiting aspect themselves and this sometimes significantly impacts operations. There is a savings in time and money to be accounted for by outsourcing this through something like a social network. I think, with the service that can be applied to the process, a better value for their dollar might be the selling point to those who are accustomed with toughing through the process.

I have to think this out some more. Nascent Dynamics ( ) will offer personal, professional, and organizational consulting services for the modern business. If I am to market to my local geographic community, some combination of Area Light and Chicoplace may be just the tools I need.

Best,

Anthony Reardon
Nascent Dynamics ( ) Modern Business for the Modern Environment