Minnesota Business, Technology And Recruiter And HR Blogs Updated

What follows is an update (37 blogs) to my blog roll. These blogs are also added to my TwinCitiesBlogs.com project.

Minnesota and US Recruiter and HR Blogs:

• Meet Cindy Elizabeth
• Fish Dogs: Career Branding for Social Animals
• HR Examiner
• Karla Porter
• Norton Folgate: The Recruiting Unblog
• The Red Recruiter
• Steve Boese's HR Technology
• HR Margo
• The Recruiting Inferno

Minnesota Technology Blogs:

• Geek Girls Guide
• Joel Dahlin
• John Vilsack
• patrickrhone
• TECHdotMN

Are You Creating Your Own Circle Of Job-Dissatisfaction?

Guest post from: Kate-Madonna Hindes of Girl Meets Geek (@girlmeetsgeek)

On a recent report that came out from The Conference Board, statistics stated  U.S. Job Satisfaction at Lowest Level in Two Decades.

The report, based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. households conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, finds only 45 percent of those surveyed say they are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61.1 percent in 1987, the first year in which the survey was conducted. (U.S. Job Satisfaction at Lowest Level in Two Decades)

Those who have knowledge of the large losses that occurred in the 80's, know that a number 61% below what happened is a shocking revelation.  What exactly are employers doing to prepare for the backlash, or emotional aspect of workers who are no longer passionately tied to their positions, or company?

Networking 101 Thoughts I Posted On Twitter

A couple of weeks ago after having attended quite a few networking and educational events I had some observations about networking (both my experience and watching others) and did a brain dump on Twitter through @MNHeadhunter

This will be a longer blog post in the future but many folks have requested what posted that day so here goes (reverse order):

Networking 101 BONUS: Dating, finding a doctor/attorney/place to live, where to shop, find a good movie. This is networking

In a reply to someone: There is no crying in baseball and no "rules" to networking. Be Nike, just do it

Networking 101: Networking is not about what you need or want. It is about how you can help others

Networking 101: Not reaching out is "fine" when you have a job you like, all the sales you need. How often is that?

Email From A 13 Year Old

Yesterday I received an email from a 13 year old boy young man that stopped me in my tracks. He is the son of a job seeker who listened to my series of presentations “Be Your Own Headhunter” about job search, LinkedIn and Social Media.

His father took my advice about doing a job search, how to network both online and in person and in a small way I was able to make an introduction through a friend of a friend on LinkedIn and that is how he got the offer and his job at the new firm.

What I did not know how to do was reply to this young man. I have been doing these types of presentations for eight years (last year using webinars was new to me). I teach people how I use these tools, what I would do if I were them and then rely on the attendees to translate to how they could do it.

There are a lot of success stories of the years and I have received the sweetest of messages but this one really got to me. In three short lines he made an impact on me and I wanted to say thank you to him.

Minnesota Start Up Culture Roundtable

The Minnesota Tech Start Up conversation continues on and thanks to Thomas Knoll (@thomasknoll) we will take it from online (Tweets, podcasts, email and blog posts) to the in person.

Thomas started the conversation Startup culture roundtable before I posted Minnesota Startup Community: The Time Has Come For Less Talk and More Walk on Minnov8. Some of what Thomas wanted to talk about has been aired in one form or another so now we are going to talk about action steps.

Thomas is getting a group of interested folks together February 5^th from 8 – 10 AM for the (click this link) MN Startup Culture Roundtable

Thomas and I had a great conversation over the weekend and I look forward to seeing him and continuing the conversation.

More Thoughts On The Minnesota Start Up Scene

I am not exactly sure how to start this and many readers of the blog may need to be caught up on this topic.

The short version of a long story is a I wrote a blog post that my friends at Minnov8 posted last Friday. It was an honest assessment of what I think about where we are as a tech community. I am a bit of an outsider but have a perspective that needed to be shared.

I was really shocked at the reaction to the post which you can find by clicking Minnesota Startup Community: The Time Has Come For Less Talk and More Walk

Lots of comments, Tweets and quite a few one on one and small group email.

A lot of people are saying, “Way to go Paul!!!”. Well, I appreciate the acknowledgement but I already knew others were thinking this too. It just happens that I was the one to say it out loud at the right time and the guys at Minnov8 trusted me enough to post it.

Paying for College

The following post is courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap:

From: Candice Arnold

A Guide for Parents and Students

College tuitions increase every year, regardless of the state of the economy. In Pittsburgh, there was even talk about a tuition tax, proposed by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, to help the city raise $16 million for its 2010 budget. According to the Pitt News, the tax was removed from consideration when the University of Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon University and health insurance provider, Highmark, stepped forward and offered to increase their charitable donations to the city in exchange for elimination of the proposed one percent tuition tax; Ravenstahl agreed.

Even without the extra strain of a tuition tax, like the one proposed in Pittsburgh, paying for college is difficult. Knowing how much money to save and how to save it are questions on the minds of many parents and potential college students. An article in the December 2009/January 2010 issue of Reader's Digest, The Best Way to Pay for College, by Lisa Goff, offered a lot of helpful hints. Financial advisors like Suzy Orman and Jean Chatzky recommend that parents start saving for college right after their children are born. Some of the ways that parents can start saving for their children's college educations are:

You Say You Are A Social Media Expert Or Guru. OK, Prove It

I swear (it seems literally and often lately) that if I see one more self professed Expert or Guru I am going to spontaneously combust. Which is to say, this would be me last Will and Testament because no doubt by the time I finish typing this I will have two new Guru followers.

So here goes... if you are such a person I hope you have a track record. You better be able to show some results.

Why? Besides the obvious your competition is now FIERCE:

Self-Proclaimed Social Media Gurus on Twitter Multiplying Like Rabbits and the above graph are from a few weeks back about the crazy number of Social Media Experts and Social Media Gurus on Twitter and the exponential growth in the use of such terms. I used to think that an expert was in the top 5% or 2% of their industry.

Wow, we are so blessed to have so many talented people amongst us. (read with sarcasm)

My 11 To Do’s For 2010

These are likely not going to be earth shattering to you and some of them were mentioned in this post What Price Would You Pay For Your Dream Job? but since I have been sharing like have been the last week some friends are asking about what 2010 is going to look like for me.

You will find that 2010 is going to be as much about my personal life as the professional. While not overdue (unless you ask my longtime friends) it is time to invest as much in the personal me as I have in the professional part over the past few years.

In no particular order:

Top 20 2009 Traffic Sources For The MN Headhunter Blog

I do not pay much “micro” attention to blog statistics but I do watch the bigger trends. Another recruiter blogger and I are sharing statistics with each other to get a sense of what each other are doing. I will share some of that (my statistics) over the coming weeks.

According to Google Analytics here “All Traffic Sources” of the 52,813 visits to the MN Headhunter Blog in 2009: