Friday, November 13, 2009

Work searching technology

Okay. We’re all in this together. You’re looking for a job, a client, a project. So am I. I’m looking to make a statement to the industries I want to do work in. So are you. Let me share a few ideas of what I’ve built to help me in my consulting business and hopefully you can benefit from my legwork. If you need some assistance, I can help at a nominal cost. Shoot me an email. No promises, just some old fashion elbow grease.

The picture to the right is me at a restaurant in Waikiki Hawaii. With all of these technologies, I can be anywhere in the world and maintain a rock solid mainland presents to potential clients and employers >>>

I’ve build a nice outreach framework over the past several months. Some using systems I created many years ago and many from new offerings.



I have these technologies working to my benefit:
Each of the systems has multiple functions which I’ll explain. At a high level, the network of systems:

Blog
As a good means to get my voice out there, particularly for my contract hunt, I created a blog site. I put there, articles I wish to publish about topics and issues I want to tell the world about. If you look at it you’ll see I have posted articles on data and EMR systems. All of the text is index to Google so as people search for topics like, in this case, EMR, they’ll find my articles, and through the links and contact information on the blog, to me and my main web site. I keep all of these posting purely professional. If a prospective company Google’s my name I want them to find materials that support my candidacy, not political or social diatribes.

http://www.stevenfritz.blogspot.com/ is a good way to promote myself. Yes, you can management the viewer list. The cost is $0. Good price. They even have a monetizing feature where you can allow advertising. If a visitor clicks the link to an ad, you get paid. Over a period of time, they send you a check. Write good stuff, get good ads, get good cash!

Writing the articles is done in simple Word. You can add in pictures and you can see that I created several Visio diagrams. With or without attachments (pics, graphs, charts, jpegs), you can do this.

Fax Server
A few years back I needed a fax service that I could use without my own telephone line and fax machine. EFax fit the bill. I send and receive faxes 24/7. The neat feature is that if you send me a fax, efax converts it to a PDF (my selection) and emails it to any number of emails. One linked to my Outlook and another linked to my iphone. I always know when I get a fax. The cost is about $200 a year - $15 a month. A bit high but excellent to keep in touch. It is one more component in looking big.

www.efax.com will provide you a telephone number of your choosing. If you want an 800, it’s a bit more. It is a good professional front.

Networking
I find LinkedIn to be a good professional networking site. A must in today’s market.

I can put my resume materials here. I can link to my blog and web site. I can get and display recommendation from employers and peers. I can display links to documents I post on SlideShare.com. A good place to share downloadables of your blogs, resume, articles, and the like.

www.linkedin.com provides a great networking home where they provide you a URL you can added to your email. That link takes them to your profile page directly. It is good to find others who are from the same company or ones you are researching to go to work for.

LinkedIn recently added links to Twitter as part of their primary (optional) functionality.  I am on the fence with Tweeting.  Nothing wrong with telling your friends you just gloved a baseball at the ballpark, but it isn't any use to an employer.  Let me know what you think.  To Tweek or not to tweet.

Finally they have many hundreds of associations / groups you can affiliate yourself with. These groups are good forums to network and gain knowledge from. The cost is $0. Many companies go here when they look into who you are if you're seeking a job. Valuable and very configurable.

Conferencing
I signed up for Microsoft’s video conferencing. It is just like WebEx but has video in addition to VOIP. I can upload presentation materials and document. I can transfer control to anybody in the meeting. The invites are sent as regular email like WebEx. The cost is $14.95 a month for three seats. ($5.00 per seat per month).

www.livemeeting.com is good if you’re hosting an at home conference call. You don’t have to do the video portion if you only want presentations and voice. Good for family and small business. The recording feature allows the posting of full meeting minutes into a project archive. Nice. The invitee software is loaded automatically if they have not used the service previously. A very thin client.

Microsoft’s ShareView is a good alternative if all you need is desktop conferencing. No voice or video. The controls are very easy to understand and use. There is a document sharing platform, remote controls transfers, and a lot more. The cost is $0.

Telephony
My home internet and phone are with AT&T. I can go to channel 234 and see every call in and out, and, calls on my iphone. I use this to get specific numbers from recruiters and companies. What is crazy cool is that from the television I can highlight a phone number and ask for that number to be called. The home phone then rings indicating I need to pick it up and take control of the outbound call. What is really valuable is I can access this whole phone log from the internet. I never have to remember a phone number, when I called or was called, or tell Cindy a number because she can look it up.

My phone linked to my TV, linked to the internet via VOIP, linkable to my Outlook contact list. Cool. I have a very high speed pipe to the house which means it is fast. 18 megabit fast! All that fiber to the house can afford! The price is part of a bundle. I pay $99 a month for internet, telephone, and HD television so let’s cost it at $33 a month.

I’ve linked my voice mail to my email. When someone leaves me a message, I get a notification via email. Wow. I can even have an incoming call ring as many numbers as I want. My cell, Cindy’s cell, my home number, at the same time.

Also, I have a cell connection for my laptop. It allow me to stay connected anywhere. At the airport, in my car, at the client office, etc. without using a wireless connection. It costs $60 a month. If the time comes when you need to get on your computer when you’re on the move, you should get this product.

The alternative fallback is to use AT&T’s relationship with Starbucks. You can ride Starbucks WiFi network for free. Just use the att.net email as your entry point.

800 number
The use of 800 numbers is an optional business tools these days. The original idea was to allow customers to call you on your dime. With the advent of VOIP, cellphones with nationwide calling, and very low cost long distance calling plans at home, it may be an unrecognized benefit to your customers. You will pay the bill and in my case I pay 3.5 cents a minute. It is linked to any number you want so it will ring where you designate.

Voice mail, directed call switching ('Press three for Susan'), and a host of other features are available but I only need the 800 number to ring my office. Since I selected my number, I paid a one-time fee of $89. If you’re not picky, the fee can be as low as $39.

Web site
I purchased my web address from godaddy.com for $10.95 a year. I added to it an unlimited email box for 7 addresses. I like this because I can send and receive emails up to 3gb. Most limit at less than 3mb. They even provide a catch-all account which means I can ask someone to send an email to SLF@slfritz.com and get it by default. I can have support@slfritz.com or sales@slfritz.com or others for free. Nice to look bigger then I really am.

Forwarding is available to allow sending emails to any email(s) you want. Your company email, other personal emails, your phone, etc. Nice.

I also added http://www.slfritzconsulting.com/  linked it http://www.slfritz.com/. The second site costs $10.95 each a year. They have .net, .biz, .org, .info and others if there is some need to lock those stubs down. Pricing is good when you bundle them at the initial purchase. If you go to slfritzconsulting.com you are redirected to slfritz.com, for now. They can be separated in the future if needed.

Microsoft hosts my web site. The costs is $0. Their web site management tool set is superb. Email management, document repository (per project if desired), Web page editing and publishing. Microsoft provides 100 email addressed and 500gb of storage for no cost.  A complete package.

Filling in the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) words page is valuable for when people search for information. Put is as many action and industry words and phrases as you want to get the hits you’re looking for.

Document Repository
An add-on to the Microsoft hosting of my web site provided storage of up to 500GB of disk. That is large. I can post workspace documents that I can dictate who gets access to them. One folder for each project if I want.

I can even get to these documents from any computer at any time. Think vacation or a friends computer or some other reason to post and fetch document.

These documents are linkable to my web site. One place to store, share, and distribute half a terabyte of information. The cost is $0.

Postage
A professional look to mailing letters and resumes is the use of the www.stamps.com web site. The cost is no more than purchasing stamps at the post office only you don’t have to go to the post office. They offer a free scale for packages and letters 5 pounds or less. The software is linked to Word. As you print envelopes, it will put the return address, mailing address, and electronic postage on the envelope for you.

If you have packages to send like proposals or contracts, you can use the web site to create and print shipping labels. The scale is linked to your computer so determining postage is as easy as 1-2-3.

They do offer blank stamp and label supplies for a small cost. The cost is $17 a month. And a big bonus is that you never have to go the post office and stand in line if you don’t want to. Speaking of not going to the post office, after adding postage to several packages on stamps.com, I can put in a pick-up request to have them come to my home to get the ready-to-go materials.


Summary
  • I have 24/7 digital faxing in and out with links to my email and cell phone 
  • I have a blog to publish articles supporting my profession searchable by Google
  • I have a web site where people can download my resume, position papers, white papers, use cases, articles, all linked together with my blog and LinkedIn sites
  • I have a closed loop telephone system with home, laptop, and cell, where I can listen to voice from the internet and synced with my contacts list in Outlook
  • I have a nationwide 800 number
  • I have laptop connectivity at home, on the road, and at WiFi hotspots
  • I have on-demand postal services 24/7
  • I have a business/social network presents where I establish my professional persona, downloadables, recommendations, and professional associations and groups

Steven Fritz
http://www.slfritz.com/
steven.fritz@slfritz.com
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