Rory Cullen, Kaizen Software Developer

Over the past month, I have received two endorsement requests from connections in LinkedIn. One from a high school classmate I have not seen in over 15 years, and another from a friend who I know from non-work activities. My question is, why do they think I can endorse them? Is this their fault, or my fault? My fault for accepting them as connections in the first place, or their fault for thinking a recommendation from me is what is going to make their profile stronger?

The first I ignored completely. I have not seen the guy for years, and have no idea if he is a good employee. I think he was student body president at some point, but can I judge his performance accurately after all these years? He had, and has, great hair. Ok, good hair. All hair is good hair at my age. I did not bother letting him know why I could not endorse him, I actually figured he sent requests to every connection, hoping to bulk his profile, so I did not consider this something we needed to discuss.

The second, as is usually the case, is more complicated. This is someone I see about four times a year, so I can’t really just ignore. Thankfully, I also feel really comfortable telling him I can’t endorse him based on our lack of a professional relationship. I’m ok with that, and I suspect he will be as well. Thankfully, neither is a former co-worker who just does bad work. Those are the awkward conversations that we all need to brave enough to have, but you’re on your own there!

As an employer, would you rather read through three awesome recommendations, or see a person has 20+ recommendations and assume they are great? I guess, based on feedback on how long HR spends on résumés (10-20 seconds), maybe the numbers game is the best bet. However, what if the HR person decides to look at those recommendations? Of course, they will never read them all, but they might see a few. Maybe they only see the generic ones from your high school buddies, and they don’t see the one from the VP of your company that details how you saved the company $500,000? Probably not what you were shooting for when bulking your profile.

If you ever meet with a career counselor, they will advise you to remove anything from your résumé that does not say something important about you. Something that adds value. I think we should approach recommendations with this in mind. Average is not worth it.

Thoughts? Do you believe in quality over quantity?

Bonus Tip: If someone writes you a disappointing recommendation, ask them to fix it. If you are not comfortable with that, then just use settings to make it invisible in your LinkedIn profile.

Note: Between drafting and publishing this post, I heard from one of the guys who contacted me for a recommendation. It turns out he is being laid off this month. I still can’t write that recommendation, but I can see why he might be seeking the extra boost to his profile, and will try to help in other ways.

I had no intention of writing a follow-up piece about LinkedIn this month. No intention at all until yesterday, when I stumbled upon Charly Barry.

A few days ago, I noticed a contact on LinkedIn was part of the Fidelity Investments Alumni group. Although there are several groups with variations on this name, I figured it couldn’t hurt to join. I submitted my request to join, and a few days later, was accepted. Nothing weird so far.

Usually, when I join a new group, I check out the “members” page to see who I might know in the first few pages. LinkedIn’s default “sort” is by how you are connected, so your 1st level connections come up first, followed by 2nd level, and so on. It turns out this is a smallish group of under 400 people, and I only have a few 1st level connections in the group. I then notice an intriguing member who is a 2nd connection to me. Charly Barry. Current position: Sperm Bank Donor at 4 Your Skin. This was either a masterful piece of personal branding, or there was something wrong with this account.

I click into his account, and sure enough, he lists Fidelity Investments as his only employer for 22 years, as Vice President of Architecture no less! Ok, interesting.

Oh, he went to Bates College, good school…got his Masters…Yeah, you probably see where this is going by now.

Although I did not click through, I see the website in his profile links you to pornhub(dot)com. I am assuming that is exactly what it sounds like.

At this point, I am laughing out loud. And then it hits me: How is this guy a 2nd level connection? Doesn’t that mean that someone I am connected to is connected to him directly? How can that be? I look on the right side of the screen, and I see that three of my connections are linked to this guy!!!!! Three! And none of them are pure LIONs either (Open Networkers who connect to anyone).

Yikes

Even weirder, he seems to have written two recommendations!!!

So, as follow up to my last post, please please please think before you accept every single connection on LinkedIn. This is the best example I have ever seen to support a measured approach. In addition, if you are like me and allow fellow group members to send you messages, you might find yourself receiving unwanted solicitations, although I have never heard of this happening. Finally, if you start a Group on LinkedIn, try to keep an eye out for the spammers! It won’t reflect well on you in the end.

I have deliberately not included a link to his profile, and I will be reporting the account to LinkedIn and the group owner for removal, but I have included screen prints below for your amusement.

Note: I can’t help but think the name of this post might make this end up in a lot of spam folders!

(Click below for full size images)

I can no longer deny what has become obvious to me.  I have failed to use LinkedIn appropriately for too long, and it’s starting to make me rethink my approach.  Maybe you can learn from my mistake!

LinkedIn suggests: Accept invitations only from those who you know and trust.

This past week, I finally realized how low I’ve let my requirements drop.  I have long accepted connections from mere acquaintances.  However, this time I accepted an invitation to connect from a former co-worker who I know for a fact is NOT a good worker.  He was a nice guy, but we worked on a project together, and he exhibited some of my least favorite qualities.  He complained when asked to do work.  He would kiss up to the project leader, and then disregard her when she was gone.  He consistently did the bare minimum that was required, or even less.  This person was an awful teammate.  I kept hoping he would drop out of the project, but he never did.  Is this someone you want working for you?  Me neither.  Would I ever consider recommending this person, or offering to connect them to another contact?  No.  So why did I accept his request?

It’s an easy answer actually.  I was laid off a year ago.  Like most people in that situation, I started networking like crazy.  I met a lot of people, and many of them elected to connect with me via LinkedIn despite our lack of real connection.  I should note that I rarely reached out myself unless we had broached the topic of connecting during our own conversation.  Here I am, one year later, with 176 connections, and 3 invitations in my inbox.  How many of these are quality connections?

My connections:

The good news: My largest segment is the “Work – Good” category. Bad news, it’s only about 32% of my overall network. I think I can add some of my friends and family section, but still low. Yikes.

Although LinkedIn doesn’t offer one, I think I’ll start using the following rating system for my contacts:

Next step:  I am going to do the right thing, and drop the Weakest link.  In fact, I’ll do it before I post this!  How about everyone else?  I think I will leave them for now.  However, I will look at future connections with a more discerning eye.  If we are already linked via a Group, we do not need to be connected directly.  If you are a recruiter, I may connect since you are unlikely to ask me for a connection anyway, and may be able to help me out some day.  If I met you once, and we started building a relationship, well maybe LinkedIn will help us get to the next level.  I’m quite torn, as it’s hard to flat out reject connections, because this is an accepted way to network.

What are the alternatives?  Well, I will relay one experience.  I met a guy named Larry at a networking meeting last summer.  We had a great conversation, and I wanted to continue the conversation.  As he had no business card, I looked him up in LinkedIn and invited him to connect.  He wrote a great message back explaining why he was not comfortable with that, based on LinkedIn’s own standards, and that started a great dialogue.  We have continued that dialogue since then, and I can honestly say I know a lot more about him than about many of my contacts.  I still don’t know if he is great at his job, but I know he’s one smart dude.  My point here is that there are other ways to connect if one chooses to truly build a relationship, versus just adding another notch to your LinkedIn bedpost.  Hmmm, that got weird.

Although I do enjoy the email correspondence, it seems much more personal than LinkedIn messaging.  Email is in my personal space, whereas LinkedIn offers that extra layer of separation that many people appreciate, myself included.  Even more personal would be talking on the phone, which I honestly hate, and would consider a total intrusion.

In the end, it should be about Quality, but it’s so much easier to expand your network by Quantity instead.  It takes patience over time to truly build a strong network.  I recently started a new job.  I hope, in about 12 months, I will have proved my value and will be able to connect with many of my co-workers.  Because I work remotely with only one other person right now, that might only turn into a few connections.  However, they will be quality, the types that can be of value, so they will be worth the wait!

Some might say, “Hey, are you sure you want to put this out where your LinkedIn connections can see it?”  I say yes, because only my good connections will make the extra effort to support me by reading my blog posts.  Those weaker connections aren’t likely to see this at all.

I invite you all to analyze your own results and post them in the comments below, I’d love to see them and hear how you do your analysis.  Of course, I can’t help but wonder if my connection count will fall after this post!

Now, what to do with those three invites in my inbox?

A few months ago, when I was not working on a million projects, I volunteered to speak to one of my networking groups.  After some delays on my end, it is now slated for next week.  The topic is one of my hobbies, “Personal Branding.”  If you have been reading this blog, you know that this is one of my frequent topics.

I became involved in Personal Branding about 15 months ago when I started thinking about a career shift.  In doing my research on “the modern job search” and career techniques, I found that Branding was a common topic.  The concept of selling yourself as a brand is a relatively recent phenomenon (10+ years), but an interesting approach that appealed to me due to the leveraging of the Internet and social media.

Anyway, I incorporated much of what I learned into my own job search over the past year, and feel that it has certainly contributed to a more successful online presence.  I have some doubts about my own branding attempts, but I certainly have been consistent across my online interactions.  If nothing more, it has given me something to write about this year!

I spent the past two days putting together my materials for my talk, including building a “deck,” as my former colleagues used to say (that’s PowerPoint by the way).  Today, as I was commenting on a blog post about Branding, I had to revisit my big dilemma for my presentation.  The majority of the bloggers on Personal Branding are in Generation Y, and the lower part of Generation X.  They are under 40, tech savvy, and raised in a different world than the people I will be speaking to.  I think this is going to have a huge impact on the conversation we will have next week.

No matter where it is defined, Personal Branding is most often described as an intersection of your passion and what you do best.  It also needs to be something that has value to an organization.  Generation Y and Millennials (basically, anyone under 30) were raised by their parents to believe they can do anything they want.  Hence, they may actually be pursuing careers in areas based on passion, rather than on what might be “a good job with good benefits.”  It’s easy to write your branding statement when you are doing what you love.

“Blog about Guitar Hero” – Some dude
“Super-Tweeter about FaceBook stuff” – Cyber dude

The group I am speaking to is likely ages 35-65, unemployed or underemployed.  Solidly GenX and Boomers.  They have probably spent large portions of their careers working for a single company for 10-20 years.  They have been defined by that company’s brand.  These folks were not raised like the younger folks.  They fell (or were pushed) into those careers, or companies, where benefits were good, and prospects bright…or at least predictable.  Passion was secondary.  In fact, they are doing the same now.  If I had a nickel for every person I have heard say, “I was in finance, but I’m looking to get into healthcare,” I’d have a lot of nickels.  I have a feeling they didn’t all just become passionate about healthcare overnight.  Feel free to insert “Green jobs” in place of healthcare!  Again, they are pursuing the stable role, the safe path.

So, on Friday, I will be telling them about Personal Branding.  I will be suggesting that they focus on the intersection of their passion and what they are good at.  I will then wait for someone to say, “This is just my job, not my passion.”  I doubt I’ll hear the real truth, which may be, “I’m neither passionate nor good at my chosen career, but it’s too late to change now!”

Welcome to Personal Branding for the aged!

On a personal note, I love programming, and I’m getting better at it everyday.  I think I caught that Benjamin Button disease, because I’m getting more Millennial by the day!

Last week, I asked for your feedback on my Elevator Pitch.  I received a lot of feedback, both in the comments, and via private emails.

Most common responses:

• I looked stiff
• Didn’t smile at all (or the smile looked forced at the end)
• Tried to say too much
• Clearly reading the teleprompter, should have memorized the speech
• Didn’t seem like the person they know (“engaging and humorous”, I swear it’s a quote!)

Over 60% of Voters felt the production and content were good, while the remaining 40% felt either production or content needed work. That said, since there were only seven votes cast out of 37 viewers (59 total views of the blog post), I feel those numbers may not be statistically significant (my Six Sigma Black Belt days coming out for a visit!) Any way you slice it, I am thrilled with the feedback from so many sources. It also confirms my feelings about the video.

In my humble opinion, it was flat out awful. The awfulness was a true team effort. My eyes kept darting to the teleprompter, but then I’d been guaranteed that no one would notice. I looked like a professional athlete doing a local furniture ad. Stiff as a board, and just reading my lines. Post-production, the video was cut off too quickly at the end, resulting in a smarmy smirk instead of my genuine smile.

In addition, the text added to the top of the video did not accurately describe what I want to do.  It says “Process Improvement Specialist”, whereas I am a Software Developer.  It was like saying you are a real estate lawyer, and being labeled a realtor…or a dentist.  This was just poor marketing, top to bottom, and exactly the opposite of what I wanted.

Mistakes were made:

I stumbled into the filming of my pitch with very little forethought.  I was called the day before filming because a TV station was going to be there that day, and they did not have enough people filming pitches.  As a favor, and with the hope that I might get on TV (non cable-access), I practiced my pitch and showed up.  I admit, the TV angle was intriguing, and I hadn’t thought of the branding control issues I might face.  This was a mistake.

I have a brand.  My brand is “Kaizen Software Developer”.  Conceptually, it is meant to express both my software development focus, and my process improvement ability.  Although I talk about both in the video, I think process improvement was overemphasized as I use those words first.  I did not get across my message. Mistake #2.

I had no control over the release of the final cut.  I would have never released this video to the public, for all of the reasons given.  This isn’t 1909.  Film/Video is not a rare item nowadays, savored despite low quality.  Everyone with a camera or a phone can make a video of himself, so quality DOES matter.  This video is just not quality content that I would consider releasable.  Mistake.

I do not own the video.  For all I know, it could be sold off some day when I’m famous.  I keep a low, but focused, internet profile on purpose.  I try to maintain the highest standards across all of my public personas.  This does not meet those standards. #4.

The Pitch I used is designed for networking events, not for potential employers.  I think the speech itself is not awful, but it’s not made for this type of presentation.  I did not recognize that at the time, but it seems suddenly obvious to me.  I also tried to fit 60 seconds of material in 30 seconds.  Five.

As always, Learnings!

1. Control your brand!  Never let someone else have final cut on something in the public eye.  This is an absolute no-no.
2. Medium matters.  Things that work in person do not necessarily work on video.
3. If you make a mistake, correct it.  When Coke made the mistake of coming out with New Coke, they fixed the mistake (Coke Classic).

Final cut:

I am fixing my mistake.  I have asked them to remove the video from YouTube.  I don’t think it is representative of my best work, and I think it does not advance my interests.  In the end, that is all that matters.

If you need your fix on videos of me that are representative, please see these links to stories from earlier this spring:
NECN: http://www.necn.com/Boston/Business/2009/04/14/Job-seekers-turn-to-television/1239750266.html
WMUR: http://www.wmur.com/money/19075441/detail.html

Note: For the record, I volunteer with the NE Job Show, and do not wish to cast aspersions on the great work they are doing.  This blog is a reflection on my video only, and mostly on my own performance.  Many volunteers put time into this video, and I do not want to put their efforts down.  A camera person, technical guy entering speeches into the teleprompter, a person in the booth, two people to help with your delivery, an interviewer for a long-form segment, countless other organizers, plus post-production work.  Lots of people helped, which unfortunately makes me feel even worse about the result.  Please check out the full episodes of the NE Job Show online to see what they do.

A while back, I posted about my experience filming my elevator pitch.  Compared to many people I had watched, I felt I had a finely hewn pitch which emphasized my strengths and showed where I want to go.  About two weeks ago, the “final product” was loaded to YouTube and placed on the Blog for the New England Job Show.  I have strong feelings about this video, but I’d like to gather your reactions first.

Please take a moment to watch and rate the video using the poll buttons below.  Feel free to leave a comment on your reaction with more details as well.

>> VIDEO REMOVED, no longer on YouTube <<

I will post my own reaction in the next few days.

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I have a great opportunity coming up.  I have volunteered to speak about personal branding for one of the networking groups I meet with every week or two.  I have been researching and applying personal branding to my own job search for over a year now, and feel pretty passionate about its effectiveness, although I don’t really have too much solid feedback yet.  There is a lot to personal branding, but the basics involve coming up with a unique value proposition that people can equate to you.  In addition, it’s all about a consistent message associated with your name.  Basically, think of yourself as a brand.  I say Geico, you think gecko, and “so easy a caveman can do it”.  I say Nike, you can see the “Swoosh” symbol, maybe Tiger Woods, maybe Michael Jordan, maybe excellence because of those associations.  Branding is marketing, and all job searchers need to become marketers nowadays.

In some ways, this is an extremely difficult task, and in others, it’s quite simple.  It’s certainly the type of thing that you can ease into.  Here’s tip #1:  Use the same name whenever you need to refer to yourself.  Resume, business card, LinkedIn, Facebook.  Don’t be “Bill” in one place, and “William” in another.  People will fail to connect because you can’t be found easily.

So how does this affect me today?  Well, here in the northeast, we recently came off a beautiful weekend of temperatures in the 80s and 90s.  This usually starts me thinking about shaving my beard for the summer.  I have been a seasonal beardie for about four or five years, usually dropping the beard in May, and bringing it back in December.  I spend a lot of time outside in the winter skiing or snowshoeing, and it makes a big difference.  Usually, this is not a really important decision.  I might shave on a Friday, so I have the weekend to get a little color on my face and not seem so pale.  It’s rarely very long or unkempt, so the change is relatively minor in some ways.  However, how does this affect my personal brand?

I have met a lot of new people in the past six months.  And if they were to describe me, they might mention that I have a beard.  In fact, it might be one of the few differentiating factors in my appearance that they would use.  (Hopefully “balding” would not be a factor.)  I have been on TV twice in the past six weeks or so…with a beard.  My business cards have my picture on them…with a beard.

I think you get the point.  This is not just a personal hygiene issue; this is a branding issue.

Case in point:  I went to a networking meeting last week.  No less than three people in the room, out of 20, commented on the fact that I wasn’t wearing a tie.  As it turns out, I had successfully branded myself as a guy who wears a tie to networking meetings, even though it isn’t necessary.  I just figured I’m better off overdressed, than underdressed.  At least one of those guys I didn’t recognize at all, but he recognized me.  In some way, that is good.  At least I’m not the guy who wore shorts and crocs to the meeting, right?  Who looks more professional?  Again, it became part of my personal brand.  Too bad though, as I don’t own that many ties!

Thankfully, we’ve hit a spell of cooler weather, so my decision is put off for a few days at least.  However, soon enough, I’ll have hit the point of no return.  Once the weather is warm, and I have started to get some sun on my face, I may not be able to shave at all without going through a brief period of having a two-toned face.

I have quite a few business cards with my picture left over.  Do I save them for December?  The whole point of having your picture on your card is to make it easy for people to remember you.  Does it make any sense if you have to say, “Yeah, I shaved” every time you hand one out?  Will they make a note on the back?  “Looks like this guy, but with no beard.”  Not likely.  In fact, I’ll seem stupid for handing out a card with a picture that doesn’t really look like me at all.

Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a molehill here.  Ironically enough, I have always felt like I should shave for an interview anyway.  For some reason, it seems more professional.  My career consultant says it doesn’t matter, but who knows?  Does it make me look older?  Like I’m hiding something?  Like a guy who is balding and trying to make up for it?  These are the things I’m facing.

So many decisions to make.  I guess I’ll go brush my teeth, at least that’s an easy decision.

Just the beard...