So we’ve launched our Skill Communities on BraveNewTalent. But why should you become part of this new world of skill-sharing and lifelong learning?

Charlie Duff has put together eight of the many reasons you should get on board…

1. You learn by teaching others

Have you ever noticed that once you know how to do something, if you then teach someone else, you become even more confident in your skills? It happens because teaching someone else can help seal in your knowledge of the topic and helps you know it inside out. Skills communities give you the opportunity to do just that with potentially thousands of people.

2. Raise your profile with ‘expert’ status

When you add a skill on BraveNewTalent you can also rate your level of skill on that area. If you are a professional or experienced in that area you can contribute as an expert. If you already write a blog and want to bring your content to a bigger audience this is an ideal opportunity.

3. Make your experience work for you

You have created numerous experiences in your life. Each one of these represents a chance to share one thing with someone who has never had that experience. You might think that your insider knowledge of something is only helpful to you – but I bet there are others who would love to have that knowledge too.

4. Highlight your skills to potential employers

Employers on BraveNewTalent such as Unilever, Tesco and Pinsent Masons are looking for their future talent, just as you are building your future. By posting on BraveNewTalent you can better attract their attention and start to prove that you are the best person for their next hire.

5. Attract a following

Who doesn’t want a following? You too could have your own school of fans who are learning every time you post.

6. Become a mentor

Being a mentor is special. You are helping someone develop and make a great future and career for themselves. Every successful person has had at least one mentor, if not several. And you learn a lot from mentoring others.

7. Become mentored

No mater how successful you already are, you can still benefit from mentoring. If you are just starting out, learning  from someone with more experience is often a key in your success. Following experts on BraveNewTalent can help you learn from those with more experience and set you on the right track.

8. Learn about other skills from other experts

You also have the potential to learn from others outside your field. Join a community you know nothing about and see how fast you learn. It’s great to be a beginner sometimes. Achieve your full potential – decide to be a lifelong learner.

Here’s some links to some great skill communities to get you started:

Leadership

Search Engine Optimisation

Journalism

Until next time – keep learning!

Here at BraveNewTalent, we believe everyone has something to give. Everyone could be a star at a particular thing. Some people are naturally creative. Others have great sporting ability. Some people work really hard to attain amazing achievements.

Whatever it is, we are pretty sure that your talents are unique to you. And you probably have some hidden skill you can do which no one else you know can. The problem is, when you are asked: ‘What are you good at?’, the mind sometimes goes blank. Mine does anyway. I question myself. Oh no! Am I good at anything? What do I love doing? What do other people know me for?

But then I realised. This is the wrong question. How about asking yourself: What skills could I teach to others? What can I share?

You could be the star in this area. You could be the leader here.

So this week, instead of a straightforward blog post, we are asking you to tell us: What are you good at? What skill could you share?

(And if enough of you comment, I’ll even tell you what my hidden talent is. Guesses also welcome!)

So go on… what skill will you share?

After you’ve built up a sizable network, it’s time to take it offline. Recently I’ve been out and about touring some universities to speak to students about networking online. We know that in the competitive workplace, networking can give you the edge. However if you’re new to the workplace, have few professional contacts so far and are not sure who to connect with, it can seem very daunting. Following on from my social media job-hunt sessions and taking into account the great questions and feedback I’ve heard from some extremely talented students, I’ve put together a four part series exploring networking from the basics to leveraging your contacts professionally.

The thing with all this online networking is that it does rather feed an appetite to meet in person. This is a good thing – frequently social media is described as being, in fact, anti-social, encouraging people to simply sit behind their screens rather than actually socialise.

But the more seasoned tweeters and LinkedIn lovers among us know this is simply not the case. If anything, twitter and other social networks open the doors and reveal opportunities which previously may have not have been possible, but they are not the whole relationship – indeed, we wouldn’t expect you to meet an employer on BraveNewTalent and skip the interview before being hired.

When you cement the relationships you have made online by meeting up face-to-face, you are honing your offline networking skills and it’s not hard to find opportunities for this.

1. Use your networks – see what hashtags the people you follow are using. Conference hashtags are a must for any self-respecting event these days, and even if the conference is not free to attend (still common but in decline) there is often a ‘tweet up’ (twitter meet up) for those who couldn’t make the whole thing to go to afterwards – usually in addition to or instead of a drinks reception. Other than that, in a similar way to Facebook events, some groups of contacts will start a hashtag for a meet up.
2. Join meetup.com and lanyrd. These sites are invaluable for finding events and then working out who is going from your circle so you can maximise your networking. Meetup is more casual and you will find plenty of things of interest on there – if you choose to get involved and contribute to the communities there you’ll be bound to make friends and contacts. These are all based around taking the online offline and connect with your other social networks. I’ve been using it to connect with fellow community managers.

Preparing for the event
See the guest list – perhaps on eventbrite, twtvite, or meetup.com. Investigate the people on it and see if there are any people going you don’t already know. Consider following them and adding them to your network beforehand and perhaps drop them a quick line: “I notice you are going to this event, am hoping to connect in person there but thought I’d say hi now as well!” It’s not difficult but it is effective. Believe it or not, very few people do this, especially those who aren’t in sales. You aren’t selling anything other than an opportunity to meet up and discover if there is any mutual value from the connection – from a work interest to a social connection, to a job opening. All of these have value.

At the event
The good news is that often people have name badges and are expecting to meet other people. The key thing here is to be authentic. You will build lasting relationships by being you.

Try to make sure you meet as many people as possible and never ask for something straight out. Instead, ask them questions. It’s often said that ‘So what do you do?’ is an awful opening, but in fact, it’s something you need to ask – but of course think of different ways of asking this. Why not say ‘What brings you here?’. Find out what they do, ask some questions about their business and field.

At some point they will ask you what you are doing. At this point, if you are unemployed, it may be more appropriate to explain what you have been doing recently – your studying or last position before going to to explain you are looking for opportunities, if you think this will be well received. But do know what you are looking for.

Even recruiters find it difficult if you ‘literally have no idea’ what you want to do. At least have some clues to give them, and who knows – you may get some advice, even a work experience placement or maybe you just made a friend for life.

Pro tip: have some attractive Moo cards made up with your name, number and email and give them to people as business cards.

After the event
If you really want to stand out, follow up on connections and business cards. Say hello, lovely to meet you, and remind them of what you chatted about. If you think you will have difficulty remembering, carry a pen and jot down something to follow up with personally on their card, if you manage to get one: or use a smartphone app like cardmunch (a LinkedIn application) where you can photograph their card and add notes – an ideal opportunity to jot down any follow up ideas.

You’re ready to go out and show the world your best side. Good luck!

 
Also in this series, Creating an online network to help your career:

Finding the right people online

Building and connecting with your network

Coming up soon: Asking for help: leveraging your network

So first in the series was: Finding the right people online

This is part two – Building and connecting with your network.

Once you’ve identified the kind of people you want in your network it’s time to connect and build relationships with them.

When I was at Falmouth I was actually asked by a student “What do you say to someone to ask them to connect?” It’s a good question actually, and there’s been lots of research on what ensures the most ‘connection acceptances’ – personalised invites, straightforward connect requests, name-dropping, indroductions… a lot of it comes down to personal taste and style.

For example I personally don’t mind the simple ‘I’d like to add you to my professional network’ on LinkedIn approach – I always look at someone’s profile and decide if they look interesting. I don’t mind connecting with people I haven’t met yet either. But both of those are personal decisions.

On Twitter of course you don’t need to ask permission, but if you want to be followed, make sure you have a killer bio. Or at least, one that accurately describes you and your tweeting.

Mine: Community manager at BraveNewTalent. Journalist. Triathlete. Still all about vegan cupcakes, fitness, subversive cross stitch and Eurovison – hell yeah!

This might not be ‘killer’ but it is tailored to the subjects I tweet about. It makes it really clear that I’m going to tweet a lot about recruitment type stuff, media, training, baking, plus the occasional crafty project when I’m working on one. And once a year my poor followers have to put up with some Eurovision Song Contest tweets. Well – at least they were warned!

BraveNewTalent is similar in that you can simply follow an employer – but if you want to get noticed you need to have a full profile and killer statement so they know you are right for them.

Asking to connect

On any platform, when you ask to connect with someone, you are asking them to take you in to their own personal community. A lot of people, including many recruiters, are ‘open’ to connecting with people they haven’t met yet, so it is always worth asking- politely. There’s no need to write an essay but it doesn’t take much time to say – ‘Hi, I’m interested in your work and would like to connect with you’ – or even ‘I’m a new graduate trying to carve out a career in marketing and hoped you’d agree to connect with me as we have some similar interests. Thanks for your time’. Or something like that which you feel comfortable with. Most importantly, don’t be scared to ask.

Building relationships

It’s a good idea to reach out to say hello to new contacts. Maybe explain who you are and wish them a good day. However, it’s well accepted to add people and then watch from a distance for a while before joining in or starting a conversation.

If you are new to some of the social platforms you’ll be able to use the tools properly in the way they were intended. For example, when you add people on Twitter , place them into lists. That way you’ll know why you follow people and be able to point others in your direction.

Twitter: keep it simple

A word about auto-following and auto-DMs. Just say no, kids. Auto-follow will inevitably get you following lots of accounts based around ‘adult activities’ usually in connection to Britney Spears whose appeal seems not to have dimmed over the years. Due to the relatively new ‘activity stream’ on Twitter, your followers will also know that you have followed these accounts and will likely ridicule you for it.

The same goes for auto direct messaging when someone follows you. It seems polite to send a message automatically saying hello, and ‘look forward to tweeting with you’ but unfortunately these services got done to death a few years back and they are seen as insincere. So, save yourself the hassle and don’t bother.

Do bother putting up a picture, making your account open (i.e. not locked down) and writing a bio.

When it comes to keeping in touch and building relationships make sure you are active and engaging on all the social networks. Try to have more conversations – reply to people rather than just broadcast as much as possible. Follow hashtags (and see a good list to start with here) and take part in discussions. You’ll soon find yourself saying hello to people daily and gradually friendships and valuable connections will be built.

Occasional hello

My old CEO does a sort of quarterly round robin by email with all his news. I really like this idea and keep meaning to do it myself. From my own networking I know that he is well-liked and more importantly, well-remembered. His emails are always a friendly update on what’s going on, but you don’t have to be a CEO to do this – obviously people probably don’t want the nitty-gritty of your ingrowing toenail, but if you can keep people updated on your progress and make it light and relatively short, you’ll have a winner for keeping in touch.

Cement offline

I’m often saying: make the connection online and then cement the relationship offline. Join in tweet ups, meetups (meetup.com) and other events where you’ll be able to meet your contacts face to face. I’ve been camping, drinking and surfing with people I originally met on twitter. So give networking a shot – it could be the start of a beautiful friendship!

Also in this series, Creating an online network to help your career:

 Finding the right people online

Coming up soon:

Part three: Taking the online network offline (next week)

Negotiating events

Asking for help: leveraging your network

Recently I’ve been out and about touring some universities to speak to students about networking online. We know that in the competitive workplace, networking can give you the edge. However if you’re new to the workplace, have few professional contacts so far and are not sure who to connect with, it can seem very daunting.

Following on from my social media job-hunt sessions and taking into account the great questions and feedback I’ve heard from some extremely talented students, I’ve put together a five-part series exploring networking from the basics to leveraging your contacts professionally.

The first part of this, to introduce the series is this: Finding the right people online

Social networking is fun to do with friends, but did you know that your friends are the best place to start building a professional network? Assuming you have already built some form of network on Facebook, you can use it to reach more people on other networks.

For example, your Facebook friends are a great place to start when it comes to LinkedIn. LinkedIn can be tricky as if you have no connections, or only one connection, you will be automatically flagged as a potential spammer when you attempt to join groups – which is a shame as belonging to groups can give you access to some very helpful, engaged people who may be both willing and able to help you find a position.

So on LinkedIn, put out some connect requests to a few people you already know and get over that ‘one connection hump’ as I refer to it. Go back later and start searching for groups in your fields of interest, contribute and participate in discussions, and add the people you interact with.

Similarly, on BraveNewTalent, as well as being able to invite friends to join you on the platform from Facebook, you can get a good insight into how helpful your current friends network is with your infographics. For example, mine give me some interesting information about the sectors I already have friends in.

Knowing people inside industries not only may help you get into a company in that sector, but your contacts can help you decide if it’s the right career path for you. Here on BraveNewTalent we try to utilise experts to give an idea of what it’s really like to work inside a company.

Twitter is also a great place to kick-start relationships online and as you can follow anyone, all you need to do is use search to find the type of people you would like to connect with.

My story started a bit like this. At university one of our lecturers told us about Twitter (in a very ‘It’ll never take off’ kind of a way: I wonder how he feels about that now?) so I thought I’d check it out. I didn’t really get it but once I was thinking about broadening my network I revisited it and followed lots of people I found with ‘journalist’ in their bio. I connected, early on, with reporters for major newspapers, influential bloggers and experienced writers. I joined in with their conversations and when I was looking for work experience I received a lot of help from Twitter. I’m now using it to learn from other community managers as well as keep up with everything and everyone.

So to sum up: finding the right people

1. Start with your friends, family and others you know well
2. Use the BraveNewTalent infographics to discover industries and companies you are already connected to
3. Connect with people with similar interests, industries and groups as you on LinkedIn
4. Search Twitter and follow people in your field

Next week I’ll be taking you through building your network including approaching people to connect and the best ways getting to know your new contacts.

See you then!

Cheerio for now

Charlie Duff

Your Community Manager

The series: Creating an online network to help your career

Part one: Finding the right people online

Part two: Building and connecting with your network (next week)

Part three: Taking the online network offline

Negotiating events

Asking for help: leveraging your network

You applied for the graduate programmes and now you are waiting with bated breath for the results. How many interviews will you get? What happens next? What kind of questions will they ask? Nervous yet? We are pleased to bring you some top tips from a graduate recruiter who works for Unilever.

Hi everyone

I work within the Graduate Recruitment team and look after the selection process from the application through to the assessment centre. This is my first attempt at blogging and I’m hoping to give you some helpful hints about how to tackle the trickier parts of the application process.

Something that seems to stump people is answering competency based questions – The ‘Tell me about a time’ type questions that ask you to describe how you behaved in certain situations. The main aim is to see whether you are able to give examples of the behaviours that Unilever calls its Standards of Leadership – which are really just the traits we want all employees of the company to demonstrate.

My top tips are as follows:

1. Have a good look at the Unilever Standards of Leadership on the website and think of examples of times you have displayed the behaviours described. When you are asked a question – think about which Standard of Leadership the question is centred around and answer with that in mind.

2. The examples you use do not have to be work related – if your best example is from an extra- curricular or even a personal situation then use that! It’s all about how well the example reflects the behaviour that is being assessed.

3. Respond to all parts of the question. If the question has sub or probing questions – make sure you respond to all the elements asked.

4. Structure your response clearly using the STAR method:

Describe:

-the Situation

-the Task

-the specific Action taken

-what happened as a Result
5. Take your time – during the telephone interview if you need some time to think of a great example then take it! Tell the interviewer you will need a couple of minutes to think about your answer. They will understand.
Wishing you all the best of luck! To find out more,  join the Unilever Talent Community on BraveNewTalent.

This week I’d like to share with you some amazing, talented youngsters who are today’s, and tomorrow’s, technical geniuses and it shows how if you realise you are good at something, you can achieve a lot, whatever your age.

Our first amazing individual, Thomas Suarez, gave a TED talk not so long ago (and if you are not familiar with TED talks, you should be). Anyway, last year he designed, built and released an iPhone app and put it up on the Apple  app store for download. Big deal, huh? Well – what if I told you he is now in 6^th grade (or year six as we call it in the UK). He did that – last year. He taught himself from the guides Apple publishes to help developers (which shows how well written they are) and he shares his story in this video:

TEDxManhattanBeach – Thomas Suarez – iPhone Application Developer… and 6th Grader

The second person, also a technical whizz, is UK-based Jordan Hatch who has just taken a job in the UK government. There’s currently a UK government beta project underway called gov.uk which aims to make the UK’s government digital services – notorious for being expensive, overly complicated and hard to navigate – a whole load better and to bring everything into one place. The government is building an in-house team, not outsourcing this, and Jordan has an incredible story. He is currently 17 and recently left school to be able to devote his whole time to web development – and promptly got snapped up by the gov.uk team to turn his brilliant mind to making their project happen. He got into open data projects through Young Rewired State, and has also written a very eloquent blog post about his journey so far, which is well worth a read.

These two talented people highlight something we think is very cool here at BraveNewTalent. These guys have both taken a different path, following their interests, developing their skills and going against the established educational norms to achieve great things. It also raises the question: how should we educate the next generation? We are facing a huge challenge here. Our CEO, Lucian Tarnowski has recently returned from India, where they are struggling to train teachers fast enough to cope with the educational demand. The numbers are staggering; in traditional terms India needs 400,000 more teachers, and it’s just not possible. New technology is the only way we will be able to meet this demand (so it’s good to see we have some talent in this field!)

Jordan and Thomas have bright futures, and if you are reading this, it’s extremely likely you do too – you’re already thinking about your career, talents and skills. That’s the start. Who knows where your skills will lead you next?

Have a great week.

Cheerio for now;

Charlie

Your Community Manager

We see a lot of crazy job seeker stories, from mega-bucks marketing to eBay auctions. But does it work, and should you do it?

As recession and unemployment rates continue to hit the headlines, we increasingly see stories in the media focused on how people ‘go the extra mile’ to find a job. My heart goes out daily when I see the stories, particularly in the American local press, striving to deliver practical advice to people living in high unemployment areas.  I’m seeing a lot of really good initiatives and good work. Today this UK based story caught my eye – along with the Huffington Post. This guy, Josh Butler, placed himself on eBay in hopes of getting a job. He’s decided against going to university, which is fine – but in a world where grads are doing entry level roles he’s understandably been struggling to find a way to stand out from the crowd. He sat down with his mum and devised the plan to ‘sell’ himself on eBay for £16, 000 per annum.

Did it work for Josh? We’re not sure yet, but reports suggest he’s had some doors opened and conversations started with top employers like John Lewis. The reports said he described it as advertising yourself – which is exactly what your BraveNewTalent profile does (and the good news is, the auction is always open).

We all enjoy these stories, and I often share them on BraveNewTalent, Facebook and Twitter, and it can start to feel that just having a well-crafted CV, good experience and some great skills isn’t enough. But it’s vital to remember you don’t have to have a professionally designed infographic CV or pay for a billboard poster to get a job – despite the headlines. Bear in mind that the number one thing these campaigns do for people is open doors. And you can do that yourself by being active on BraveNewTalent. We give you direct access to great companies so you can make it happen.
Two other ways jobseekers have tried to get hired

The innovative CV
Marketeers often find crazy campaigns work because when they plan their own marketing campaign, it’s almost like work experience – and it often generates media coverage for the agency who hires them, which is incredibly valuable real estate. Zef Narkiewicz is a recent example. His Zeefax, retro-style online CV was great fun and demonstrated his skills in a very employable way, and now he works for an agency dealing with household names.

The expensive marketing campaign
This guy spent a lot of time and money on this cringeworthy (in my opinion) campaign. Did it work? Not that I can tell – although from what I can see he’s working for a great agency, so there is a happy ending for this job seeker too.

Until next time

Cheers

Charlie

Community Manager for BraveNewTalent

I saw an interesting blog last week which made me think about this topic. It was a guy who had a really great job at a newspaper but was laid off. His advice was that you should always be on the look out. It’s easy to get into this mindset if, for example, you are a freelancer, always looking for the next gig – but if you are in paid employment it’s easy to get your head down and focus only on your role in the company, and not think about your career as a whole.

But it’s my mission to get you thinking about why you should be thinking about your career. This doesn’t involve making huge five or ten year plans (although, of course, you can if you want and this works for many people) – it’s more about being more aware of how things can change for you, your company and how spending a little time considering your skills, building a network and being open to opportunities will improve your life.

I put it to you that it will, in these ways:

Less stress: if you can make yourself feel a little more secure by taking control of your career, if anything happens you’ll be better prepared.

A better worker: You might think doing this makes you less loyal. In fact, will actually be a better worker because you will have a better sense of security. Instead of doing the minimum, you’ll be able to really make a difference because you won’t be so afraid of upsetting people. Often, if you’re not upsetting someone, you’re not doing your job right (although that doesn’t give you licence to be disruptive for the hell of it).

A more mature outlook: It’s often said, if you want to get ahead in your career, you need to start acting like at least the position above you. And believe it or not, even if those executives seem wedded to the company, they have lives and families and mortgages to support and they know that having an exit strategy, a back up plan and one eye on their career at all times is what they need to stay relevant and in control.

But I’m going to give you the easy way of starting out thinking like this. And of course, this is what BraveNewTalent exists to do – help you in your career.

1. Know your skills

   Spend a little time working out what skills you have. What helps you do a great job? What are you good at compared to your peers? Why would someone employ you? Perhaps you are great at delgating, or have great organisational skills. Or do you have shorthand, silver service, or can speak French? Maybe you bake great bread. All of these could be useful skills and you should put them all in your Skills section.

2. Look at what companies are active on BraveNewTalent
   Search by sector for the companies active in your field and consider joining their talent communities to find out more about them.
3. What’s your next move?
   Work out where you think your skills could take you next. It doesn’t have to be a vacancy, but maybe it’s your line manager’s job, or a different role altogether. Think creatively and see the Career paths pages to see where your skills could steer you in the future.

If you already know all of this, great – but what have you done this week for your career? Don’t neglect your skills – keep them updated online on your BraveNewTalent account and reach out to companies to start learning about where your skills could land you next!

Until next time…

Cheers

Charlie

Community Manager for BraveNewTalent