Today’s post will be short and sweet. Chapter 22 of Proverbs starts with this great verse:

A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches,
and favor is better than silver or gold. (Prov 22:1, NRSV)

Allow me to bring this into the 21^st century and talk about domain names. I love to coach my Web clients in proper domain name strategies. Most of the time my recommendations are appreciated. Sometimes they fall on deaf ears.

Just recently I had a client, I’ll call her “Pam Valley,” advise me that she was no longer interested in her domain name, “PamValley.com.” I was incredulous. I still am, for that matter. The first thing I advise my new clients is to see if any form of their name is available as a domain name. If YourFullName.com is still available, snatch it up immediately, even if you don’t see an immediate use for it. I guarantee you will down the line.

What amazes me is that this woman actually already had her personal domain name, and now she simply wants me to let it expire. “The customer is always right.” That is what I shall do. But for you, dear reader, be sure you renew the domain names you want to keep. And if YourFullName.com is available, register it immediately. I am a domain registrar, so I can help, and my specialty is personal service—that is, with a live human being, me. Call or email (or leave your comment below), and I’ll get back to you.

I’m sorry, but the 7^th chapter of Proverbs simply does not speak to me, with its continuing admonitions against consorting with adulteresses. Of course, my alert readers have already recognized that this exercise of blogging about the 31 chapters of Proverbs in the 31 days of August has less to do with Proverbs than it has simply to do with the self-discipline of my becoming a more regular blogger.

With that, allow me the flexibility to write today about a topic near and dear to my heart …

The Importance of Registering Your Own Domain Name

I am a domain registrar. I am a GoDaddy. I became a domain registrar simply because I am a consumer of such services myself, with two or three dozen domain names of my own. Years ago I recognized that, since I consume such services, perhaps my clients would benefit from them as well. (I became a Web hosting provider for similar reasons.)

A domain name stakes your claim on the Internet. It is a way to brand yourself—to promote yourself—to advertise yourself. Brand recognition is key; ask any “Mad man” on Madison Avenue.

Given that, why would anyone want to brand AOL or Hotmail or Comcast or Verizon or Yahoo or even Google (Gmail)?

What am I talking about? Here’s a challenge for you. If you’re like me, you’ve accumulated a stack of business cards from networking events you’ve attended. Flip through them and look at people’s email addresses. How many of them are SoAndSo@aol.com? How about MyFabulousCompany@gmail.com? What further baffles me is that many of those business cards also show a legitimate Web address of MyFabulousCompany.com. Why in heaven’s name don’t they use their domain name in their email address, as in joe@MyFabulousCompany.com?

There are so many reasons to avoid generic or ISP-based email addresses. The most obvious is the incredible hassle that ensues when you change your Internet service provider (ISP) next week. In my own case, in the eleven years that I have lived in New Hampshire, my ISP-based email address has gone from xxx@attbi.com to xxx@comcast.net to xxx@verizon.net to xxx@myfairpoint.net to yyy@comcast.net. Note that in that same time frame, I started with Comcast, switched to Verizon, and switched back to Comcast. My printing bill would have been enormous, except that my email addresses all along have been carl@cejco.com for business purposes and carl@carleric.com for personal purposes. Thank God that I knew enough about domain names to register cejco.com and carleric.com while they were still available.

Even more important than the hassle of having to print up new business cards, let’s face it: fuzzybunnyslippers222@aol.com does not convey quite the same professional image as me@myfabulouscompany.com.

Case in point. I met “Pat” at a networking event several years ago. He was the featured presenter, and he gave a great presentation. Afterwards I went up to him, thanked him for the excellent information I got, and asked for his business card. To my surprise, I read PatWatever1234@aol.com. AOL is notorious for its overeager spam filters, so I was surprised to see a professional actually using an AOL address on his business card. (Sadly, he has probably lost half of the emails sent to him over the years. I know this from my own experience of emailing people with AOL addresses and learning after the fact that they never received my messages.)

As a domain registrar, I did a search and found that PatWhatever.com was taken by a Realtor in Colorado, but PatWhatever.net was available. (Yes, I’m changing the name to protect the innocent.) I convinced Pat to register PatWhatever.net.

A few months later, I noticed that PatWhatever.com was not renewed. When it came available, I snatched it up, knowing that Pat would thank me. To my surprise, he really didn’t care.

When it came time to renew, I let PatWhatever.net expire, and Pat paid me to renew PatWhatever.com. Still, he did nothing with his domain name, and I noticed that he still used PatWhatever1234@aol.com on his business cards. Sigh.

Just last month, it came time to renew yet again. I sent out my usual reminder notice, and the response I got back was that he was no longer interested in his domain name and I should simply let it expire.

I was dumbfounded.

Pat Whatever was not interested in owning PatWhatever.com.

As I write this, I am still in disbelief.

If YourName.com is still available, register it immediately, whether through me or through another registrar. Even if you don’t see yourself using it immediately, you will want to use it in the future, at which time you’ll thank me for my advice.

Here is a strategy that works quite well:

• Register MyFabulousCompany.com for your website.
• Register a shorter variation, such as FabCo.co for email purposes. (The .co top-level domain just recently became available … at a premium price. I charge $30 per year, as opposed to $11 per year for .com/.net/.org.)
• Register MyFirstLastName.com for your blog.

From a Web hosting standpoint, you can host both MyFabulousCompany.com and MyFirstLastName.com on the same hosting account. I can help you set this up; just ask.

Most Web hosting providers also include POP3 email as a free service (I certainly do), so there’s really no excuse to continue to use AOL or Hotmail or Gmail or Yahoo or Comcast or Verizon for your email address. Again, contact me and I’ll be happy to advise you in accordance with your needs.

Just don’t let someone else grab MyFirstLastName.com out from under you, should you be lucky enough to see that it is still available.

I adopted Azeem Azeez’s White as Milk WordPress theme shortly after I discovered K. Cooper Ray’s enjoyable and informative blog Social Primer. (See my post from April 15, 2009.) Ironically, he switched themes not long thereafter. But the simplicity of White As Milk suited me for a good long time (see screen capture below).

Meanwhile, I have been learning that WordPress is so much more than just a blogging platform. With the right framework in place, it can be a whole content management system (CMS). DIYthemes’ Thesis theme seems especially suited to this. It is well documented and has been favorably received in the industry. So I recently purchased the Developer’s Option.

Right “out of the box” it gave my blog an entirely new look. Compare the before (above) with the after (below).

I shall be tinkering with the site in the days and weeks ahead. Indeed, I already have, as you’ll see by comparing the above image with the actual site you’re on.

My new Web clients will benefit from my license to the Thesis theme, and I shall be redesigning all of my own sites in the coming months.

So far I am quite impressed. Stay tuned. As I learn the ins and outs of Thesis, I am sure to share them with my readers.

Who hates to write? I’m beginning to think that fewer and fewer people enjoy writing these days. Face it, we all take shortcuts: in electronic communications, you is often shortened to u, are becomes r, and so forth.

Am I the only one who finds this irritating? Doesn’t anyone write in full sentences any more?

Lest I get sidetracked early on, the purpose of this post is to inspire you to find your inner author. There is great power in the written word.

As you know, one of the hats I wear is website developer. I am currently leaning heavily towards recommending WordPress as a content management system or CMS. Consequently, most of the sites I am developing these days are driven by WordPress. I tend to attract Web clients who don’t want to have to rely on an outside webmaster to make minor changes to their sites. With the Thesis theme that I recommend, this is especially easy to do.

Yet these same clients often balk at the idea of posting periodic blog updates, themselves. “You want me to write? I hate writing!” From a purely technological standpoint, I strongly encourage such clients to overcome their dislike of writing. I say technological, because search engines love blogs! Search engines are always searching for fresh content to index, and what better way to bring their focus back to your website with each new blog post?

Many of us underestimate our writing skills. I have a dear friend who loves storytelling, always has a great joke to share, and often has a message that many could benefit from hearing. As a gift a year or so ago, I set him up with his own blog, including registering his full name as his domain name. Sadly, he has yet to write his first post.

If you really dislike the physical aspect of writing (whether with pen or keyboard), how about purchasing an inexpensive digital voice recorder—or discovering the DVR features already built in to your smart phone—and simply recording yourself? You could then hire someone else to transcribe (and, ideally, edit) your message.

Regardless, I am convinced that every one of us has a message worth sharing with the world. I’ve always said I want to leave this planet a better place for my having been here. To the extent that I can inspire others to do the same, I shall achieve that goal.

Back to the power of the word. I have attended many conferences over the years. At one a few years back, one of the presenters made the claim that public speaking is the highest paid profession in the world. I was intrigued—so intrigued, in fact, that I ended up purchasing his public speaking seminar. What I learned were techniques to persuade the audience from the front of the room to run to the back of the room and part with their money to purchase my products. The only problem was that I had no products to sell.

What I realized in all of this, though, is that it is not public speaking that is the highest paid profession in the world, but sales. Public speaking simply emphasizes the power of using words to persuade. George Foreman said it best:

I learned something early in life. If you sell, you’ll never starve. In any other profession, you can find yourself out on the street saying, “They don’t want me anymore.” But if you can sell, you will never go hungry.

The sad thing in all of this is that I had already experienced the power of the word ten years earlier. In 1996 I took a lot of time out of my consulting business to learn the ins and outs of IBM’s database DB2 and its companion language SQL. From this I wrote The SQL Series of Courses. Those courses still earn me royalties to this day! I learned the power of producing a product once and getting paid again and again for it—i.e., the power of leverage. Yes, 1996 was a difficult year financially, but boy the payoff has been sweet!

Fortunately for me, I love to write. I have always been a good letter-writer. I’m sure this was due in part to growing up in a Coast Guard family and moving around a lot. I’d make close friends in one place only to have to leave them a few years later. But letters allowed me to maintain close friendships over the miles and over the years. To this day I correspond with friends from elementary school.

So what do you do if you don’t love to write? Resign yourself to a life without harnessing the power of the word? Hardly. I’ve already mentioned one technique you could use: record your voice and have someone else transcribe and edit your words. But if you think about it, why not just leave your voice recorded? Podcasts are becoming more and more popular. You could conduct teleseminars and webcasts. Streaming video is easy to add to a website. There are many examples right here in my own blog.

Just recently I learned an interesting fact. Who do you think makes more money: Singers or songwriters and lyricists? Actors or playwrights and screenwriters? Yes, there are some very highly paid performers, but in general it is the writers who make more money. They get royalties every time their song is played on the radio … and they tend to write many songs for multiple performers. It gets even better when a song they wrote gets re-recorded by additional performers.

We all have a message to share. I am finding that mine is a combination of demystifying technology® for my Web clients and demystifying prosperity™ for my fellow network marketers. What is your message? I strongly urge you to find your voice and experience the power of the word, written and otherwise.

“What business are we all in?”

I asked this question at the beginning of a presentation I gave recently at one of the networking groups I attend. To my delight, the answer I was looking for came back right away: “Sales.” I asked a follow-up question, “What product are we all selling?” The reply: “Ourselves.”

We are all in the business of selling ourselves. We had just finished going around the circle introducing ourselves and our businesses. There was a Realtor®, a mortgage professional, a solar panel installer, a woman who transfers 8mm movies and VHS cassettes to longer-lasting DVD’s—in short, there was a wonderful variety of professions and services present. In fact, some of us were wearing multiple hats, myself included, as I led with my network marketing business and was now promoting my website design business.

And yet, the one product we all had in common was ourselves. We were all promoting ourselves. After all, why would I go with one real estate professional over another? Simple. I would go with the real estate professional that I had the strongest connection with, the one I had gotten to know best and to trust.

Know, Like, and Trust

Face-to-face networking is a great way to build these trusting relationships. But what if one is building a business nationwide or even worldwide? And even if one’s business is purely local, how does one get found by those who are in need of those services?

The simple answer is to be sure you have a website. In my own website design business, I often explain to people that a good referral for me is someone who has paid for a large ad in the Yellow Pages. Seriously, who reads the Yellow Pages any more? Sure, there’s yellowpages.com, but I think it is much more common simply to use a search engine to find whatever you’re looking for. I know that’s what I do, and I continue to be dismayed by how often I don’t find a website for whatever establishment I happen to be looking for.

Clearly, the world needs my services!

Not All Websites Are Equal

So will any old website do? Can I have my son or daughter slap something up for me? Can I pay a local college student to build my website as part of a class project? The short answer is yes. Of course, you’ll get what you pay for, often either a templated site that looks amateurish or a flashy site with little substance.

What I specialize in is websites that get results. Search engine algorithms are constantly changing, yet certain principles have remained the same since the beginning. It is these principles that I adhere to, as well as my favorite principle, KISS.

It really is quite simple. People type keywords into their search engines, and the search engines serve up websites they think have relevant content. So all you really have to do is determine what keywords people are searching on when they are looking for you or for your type of business, and then be sure that your website uses those keywords throughout. Translation: Have a keyword-rich website filled with relevant text.

Still, it is ultimately a human being that will see the website once it is served up, so making it visually appealing is also key. Personally, I have some graphic design skills, but I prefer to partner with graphic designers for whom that is their passion. Together we make for a winning team. They can design a website to be visually appealing, then I can program it to be found by search engines and make it effective.

Does Everyone Need a Website?

As we went around the circle introducing ourselves, there were a few people who were employees of larger corporations. Certainly their employers have corporate websites, and they may (or may not) have their own personal page on that website. Perhaps this sort of professional does not need a personal website. And yet, if you think about it, they are still in the business of selling themselves. It certainly couldn’t hurt to have their own individual Web presence.

I think we can all agree, however, that a Web presence is absolutely crucial to the success of small business owners or people operating a business out of their homes.

Free or Low-Cost Options

A custom-designed website can cost many thousands of dollars initially, as well as ongoing updates to keep it fresh and current—that is, relevant. Not all small businesses or home-based businesses have that sort of a budget. The good news is that there are companion strategies that cost little or no money, and even those with full-fledged websites should consider the following:

• Social media—The four sites I recommend starting with are Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube.
  • Facebook is great for reconnecting with family and friends, but you can also set up a fan page for your business. You can then market to the people who sign up as your fans. (How best to market to them without being obnoxious will be the subject of another post.)
  • LinkedIn is great for job seekers, but it is also an excellent place to “hang out your shingle” and promote your services.
  • Twitter is useful for sending out blasts (called tweets) to promote your business.
  • YouTube is often overlooked, but savvy marketers recognize the importance of video, and YouTube as a search engine is really second only to Google.
  • MySpace is a fifth option to consider. It used to be the most popular but has since been eclipsed by the others. Nonetheless, it remains an important medium for performing artists.
• Blogs—Short for “Web logs,” blogs (like this one) are online diaries where you can express yourself for your readers’ and subscribers’ enjoyment. If you think about it, what better way could there be for one to brand oneself? Blogs can be either free or low-cost:
  • Free sites, such as wordpress.com and blogger.com, allow you to set up your own page on their site. For instance, I have a free blog at carleric.wordpress.com. I never use it, as I set it up merely to teach myself how to set up a free blog site. Also, some free sites may be filled with ads, and ultimately you are promoting them as much as you are promoting yourself. But you can’t beat the price.
  • A better option is to host a WordPress blog on your own website. This is fully explained at wordpress.org. Most Web hosts (myself included) provide WordPress as an option. If your hosting provider uses cPanel (most do), look for Fantastico; WordPress can be found in there. The cost of this option is simply the cost of Web hosting. If you already have a website, there may be no additional cost, if you install it yourself.

With or without a website, you will definitely want to enhance your Web presence. The Web is clearly the vehicle for 21^st century business.

The Services I Offer

Contact me with your questions about any of the following services. I am glad to help in whatever way I can.

• Custom-designed websites—Prices start at $995, call for a free estimate. If you shop around, you’ll see that most website designers charge at least a couple grand. I wanted an entry-level price point below a thousand dollars, because I want you to have a website and I don’t want cost to be a limiting factor.
• WordPress-powered websites—In addition to being a blogging platform, WordPress can be used as a content management system. New design “themes” are being produced daily, many for free. You’ll have less control over the look and feel of your website while maintaining complete control over its content. Two price points are available:
  • Two-page WordPress site (typically Blog and Home), set up and initialized for $99. I’ll show you how to use the administration pages to maintain your website yourself.
  • Six-page WordPress site, set up and initialized for $495. I have some small-business clients that prefer this option to a $995 custom site.
• Website design services—I charge $80 an hour for à la carte pricing. This may be your most cost-effective option if you already have a website fully designed, along with all of its graphics. The more of your own or someone else’s time you use, the less of my time you’ll have to pay for.

There really is no reason why you can’t have a website of your own. Get started today and watch your business take off.

It has been over a month since I last posted to my blog, and I feel I owe my regular readers a bit of an explanation. I have been fully ensconced in my job search, and it has gone anything but smoothly.

This is the first time in my life that doors have not automatically opened for me, and it is extremely disconcerting. Prior to my current job search, the last time I updated my résumé was way back in 1995, and that was a mere formality as I had already been offered the job in question.

Time and again seemingly ideal positions have come up, and when I submit my credentials I get the standard reply that others more qualified are in consideration. It’s hard to believe that there are so many others out there with my unique collection of skills, but evidently there are. Either that or my résumé is absolutely not presenting me accurately.

Last month I attended a Career Relaunch Forum at Seton Hall University in South Orange, N.J. I drove down the day before to stay with my friend Nick in Passaic. The next morning I got up, took my shower, and had plenty of time to get to the event a half hour early, but when I went to open Nick’s apartment door, the handle would not work. I jiggled the handle and turned the latch for several minutes, all to no avail. I had no choice but to wake up Nick and enlist his help to get out of his apartment.

He had no more luck with his lock than I did. So he called a couple of his neighbors that had keys to his apartment, and one of them came up. We yelled back and forth through the door, but she was not able to unlock the door from the outside, either. Then Nick suggested to me, “You could always use the fire escape.”

My heart leapt up into my throat as I considered the implications of his words. I contemplated whether this was a sign that I shouldn’t attend the Forum. Just as quickly as I thought this, though, I realized that I didn’t want to have driven five hours for nothing. I decided that this was merely a speed bump on the road to my new career, and so I proceeded with the plan at hand.

Dressed in my suit and carrying a mug of coffee and my portfolio and newspaper, I opened his dining room window and crawled out onto the fire escape. I could feel my heart pounding as I looked down the 30 or so feet to the ground. Gingerly I descended the two staircases to get to the bottom level of the fire escape. From there I had to lower a ladder to make it the rest of the way to the ground.

At that point it occurred to me that there was no way I could carry everything I had brought and hold onto the ladder. So I tossed the newspaper and portfolio to the ground, determining that I could carry my coffee cup. (I have my priorities, after all.)

Now my heart was really pounding, because the ladder was absolutely vertical—no reasonable angle whatsoever. Rung by rung I descended, holding on (with one hand) for dear life. I finally reached the pavement below, my heart still pounding wildly. I shoved the ladder back up, picked up my belongings, and got in my car, hands shaking on the steering wheel, and I just sat there. After a few minutes I determined that I was able to drive, so I headed for South Orange. I arrived with no time to spare, but at least I made it.

The Career Relaunch Forum was good, and I made some connections there. (Sadly, in the month since then, none of then has panned out … but I didn’t know that at the time.) After it was over, I drove back to Nick’s place. The locksmith had been able to free him from his prison and installed a new (fully functioning) lock. Both of us decided to celebrate our respective victories by going into New York that evening for drinks and dinner.

We took the train into the city and were then on foot, going from place to place. At one point we were walking down Cornelia Street in the Village, chatting and not paying much attention to our surroundings. The next thing I knew, Nick had tripped and was falling … in super slow motion! His foot got caught on, of all things, a speed bump in the road. He completely lost his balance, and down he went, with me watching helplessly. Once time resumed to normal speed, I checked with him to be sure nothing was broken. He had scraped his elbow, but other than that and a bruised ego, he was all right. We had good laughs the rest of the evening.

This was a perfect metaphor for my job search: yet another speed bump, and this a literal one. One day at a time—that’s the only way I can live these days.

My frustration with the whole job-search process has continued, so much so that this past week I decided to stop looking. That’s right. I have pretty much given up on finding traditional employment. Certainly I will consider any offers that come along, and I plan to keep my résumé on CareerBuilder, Monster, and other popular sites. But I am done banging my head against a wall. Funny thing, the phone has started ringing with headhunters pursuing me. It’s amazing how we often find what we’re looking for once we stop looking so hard. Wish me luck.

So I’ll let them find me. I am a highly qualified professional, and any organization would benefit tremendously by hiring me. That is not narcissism, it is simply the truth.

Meanwhile, I have decided to capitalize on skills that I already possess in websites and Internet marketing. I have several opt-in pages on the ’Net, and I am polling my subscribers to learn what they would like to receive from me: training videos, downloadable PDF’s, physical products, whatever. I’m partnering with other Internet marketers, so stay tuned. As I develop the niches I’m marketing to, I’ll let all of you know.

One way or another, my skills and talents will pay off. My goal is and always has been to leave this world a better place for my having been here. Let me know how I can help you.

Whenever I find an interesting video, I like passing it on to my readers. There have been several YouTube videos in the Did You Know series, and I’m sure there will be many more. Enjoy this one.

My favorite remains Did You Know 3.0, mostly for the throbbing music. But all of these videos (you can search for more of them in YouTube) provide plentiful food for thought in this rapidly changing world we live in.

This is the text of my third speech at Ad Libs Toastmasters Club. By the end of the speech, you will know five things you can do today—while still employed—to facilitate your next job search.

—◊♦◊—◊♦◊—◊♦◊—

Gone are the days of lifelong employment with a pension and a gold watch upon retirement. My grandfather and my father both enjoyed lifetime careers; I certainly have not.

This speech came about due to my own current job search. In my last speech, titled “The Accidental Professional,” I explained how my career has developed over the years due to a series of fortuitous accidents—doors of opportunity opening up for me. For the first time in my life, I am having extreme difficulty finding my next job. Sadly, as we all know, I am far from alone.

I actually had to dust off my résumé, which I hadn’t used since 1995. Not only did I have to update it with 14 years’ worth of career developments, I had to change its language and tone, which was appropriate for 1995 but not for 2009.

So with that, allow me to offer you five steps you can take while still employed to facilitate your next job search.

Step 1. Keep your résumé current. Because I had let so much time pass since last updating my résumé, my memory of projects I worked on and responsibilities I had was quite dim. Consequently, it appears that I did very little, especially since 2001 when I was let go of my last outside employment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Under the aegis of my own corporation, I have kept current with database technology, specifically DB2 and MySQL. I have branched out into Web services—Web hosting, domain registration, and website design. I have gotten involved with network marketing, which brings with it a whole slew of side benefits in the personal development arena. And I have studied investing, mostly stocks and commodities but also some real estate.

My hope was that these latter pursuits would by now have brought in enough income to pay all the bills, but I have not been so fortunate. Hence my current job search. But I would be in the job market even if money were no issue. Having worked alone for the past eight years, I yearn for the camaraderie of the corporate world.

Back to the point at hand. When I brought out my résumé to update it, I had no idea how long a process this would be. Several résumé workshops and networking events later, I think it is finally beginning to work with the automated keyword sniffers that companies are using these days. So I encourage you to keep your résumé current on an ongoing basis. Keep a log of your various projects and assignments, including keywords that future employers will be searching for.

Step 2. Set up and actively use a LinkedIn account. LinkedIn hasn’t been around the whole time I’ve been underemployed, but I was invited to connect with a friend on LinkedIn years ago, and it’s only been this year that I’ve become a power user.

LinkedIn is your online professional résumé. Keeping it current will help you keep your offline résumé current. Join LinkedIn groups that might be helpful—certainly professional groups (I’ve joined several DB2‑, database‑, and mainframe-related groups) but also alumni groups. Keep in mind, though, that LinkedIn is for professional networking; leave the social and cultural and political associations for Facebook. Which leads me to my third recommendation:

Step 3. Clean up your Facebook account. A prospective employer is going to google your name and see what comes up. I encourage you to do the same. Just because you’ve only listed your LinkedIn profile on your résumé doesn’t mean he or she won’t find your Facebook page or, for that matter, MySpace, YouTube, blogs, and what have you. Clean up references to you that might cause an employer to bypass you for someone else.

Step 4. Get recommendations from current colleagues. Have them write you recommendations on your LinkedIn account. I learned this step only because it has been so hard ten, fifteen, twenty years later to get recommendations from colleagues that used to think quite highly of my work. I’ve gotten some, just not all that I would have liked.

Step 5. Keep current within your industry. I have a friend who is a PeopleSoft developer, and she is having a terrible time finding a new job, because her former employer kept her using an out-of-date version of PeopleSoft. Participate in LinkedIn group discussions. Purchase and read technical books. Take adult-ed classes at night. Do whatever it takes to hone your skills.

—◊♦◊—◊♦◊—◊♦◊—

I hope this has been helpful. I’ve given you five concrete steps you can take to make your next job search much easier. If you are employed, thank your lucky stars—even if you dislike your current job. It’s a whole lot better than not having a job, especially in this market. And don’t think your current job will last forever. I made that mistake once; I’ll never make it again.

Lately I’ve been a-singin’ the Job Search Blues.

As my regular readers know, I am in the market to get back into IT. The bulk of my technical background is in IBM’s database, called DB2. I’ve been working with DB2 since 1987. Prior to that I was a mainframe programmer/analyst and consultant, with copious experience in COBOL and CICS that I have been able to draw on to this day. (For those of you whose eyes just glazed over reading all of this alphabet soup, buckle your seatbelts. It gets worse. But stick with me; the overall story is worth it and may still apply to you.)

Now, I haven’t been in a job search since 1995, and at that time my résumé was a mere formality, since the company that hired me had a business relationship with my former employer. Everyone knew and respected me, so the transition was a breeze.

In 2001 I was downsized, but since I was pursuing other income avenues I felt no compelling need to get back into another IT position right away.

Little did I know that I would actually miss the day-to-day challenges, the water-cooler camaraderie, and the satisfaction of a job well done. So earlier this year I dusted off my résumé and started pounding the virtual pavement. (Did I pick a great time to look for a job, or what?)

Instead of being a breeze, my current job search has been incredibly frustrating. I have no doubt that my skills and expertise would be a great asset to any potential employer. The jobs I am applying for are all great fits. Were the economic reality different than it is today, I am certain that I would have been hired months ago.

But the rules have changed, and I can’t blame everything on the economy. Evidently, no human being reads résumés any more. Instead, they all go through a keyword extractor, and if you don’t happen to use exactly the right combination of keywords, your résumé doesn’t get chosen for further consideration … this time perhaps by an actual human being.

Case in point. I applied at one company for a position ideally suited to my technical background: “Mainframe DB2 Domain Technologist.” I mean, really, could a job title more perfectly describe my background? Having submitted my résumé online for various other positions with this particular company—and gotten nowhere—I opted to apply for this “perfect” position through a friend of mine who actually works there. I emailed him my résumé and he forwarded it on through the appropriate channels.

Later that morning I received an email from him indicating that there was some concern that I did not in fact possess enough mainframe background for the position. I was astonished. I wrote back emphasizing that it was precisely because of the mainframe requirements that this particular position was a perfect fit for me. He passed that back on. I have heard nothing, and it has been several weeks.

So here is what I think happened in this age of keyword-sniffing software. But first some terminology background. DB2 has been around on the mainframe since the 1980’s. (Remember, I started in 1987—that was Version 1.2.) Then IBM developed a version for its PC operating system OS/2. Since OS/2 never caught on commercially, IBM decided in the mid-1990’s to open it up to Windows. It was at that time that I started learning DB2 on these lower-end platforms, which IBM began calling DB2 UDB. UDB stood for Universal Database, their moniker for that version of DB2 that supported advanced features such as user-defined distinct types, user-defined functions, and large objects. (Again, my apologies to my glazed-eyed friends. Please bear with me.)

Well, the term UDB began to supplant DB2, meaning DB2 that runs on Linux, UNIX, and Windows, as opposed to DB2 that runs on the mainframe. This, despite the fact that mainframe DB2 became DB2 UDB once it also started supporting user-defined distinct types, user-defined functions, and large objects. In other words, the term UDB was being misused and misunderstood. That is why now in Version 9 on all platforms, IBM has stopped using the term UDB entirely.

In my résumé and in my cover letter, I used the term UDB correctly, meaning as IBM used it. To me it included mainframe DB2. Sadly for me, to most hiring departments it only indicates the Linux/UNIX/Windows (LUW) platforms of DB2. Hence the keyword sniffer’s concern that I did not have enough mainframe experience.

How frustrating is that.

The saddest thing about the current state of affairs is that most companies must be bypassing exceptional talent due to poorly programmed keyword-sniffing software, not to mention nontechnical eyes perusing technical résumés. In their favor, the current economic reality is leading to a lot of applicants for the same position, so even discarding some highly qualified talent, there remain a lot of applicants to choose from.

As I said, didn’t I pick a great time to look for a job!

Anyway, wish me luck, everyone. Whoever ends up hiring me is sure to be very pleasantly surprised. That’s not arrogance. That’s simply the reality of thirty years of experience in this industry.

To be sure, I’ll keep you posted.

This is the text of a speech I gave earlier this week at my Toastmasters club. I spoke from an outline, and I did not have my digital voice recorder with me, so this is not verbatim. However, I believe I captured the gist of what I said.

I just recently joined Toastmasters, although it had been first recommended to me probably 25 years ago. Although I am very comfortable speaking in front of an audience, I have already learned so much. I wonder what took me so long to join? Don’t you make the same mistake I made. Find a Toastmasters club near you and join!

Meanwhile, I hope you enjoy my speech.

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My professional life has been a series of fortuitous accidents. I received an M.B.A. in International Management, so it’s only natural that my first job out of college would be in … information technology? Actually, we called it data processing back then.

When I graduated from college in 1978, the Northeast was in the middle of a recession, and I was unable to find a job. My brother was working for Boeing in Seattle at the time, and he said they were hiring. He invited me to come out there and look for work. So I bought myself a one-way plane ticket on United and started my first post-college adventure. Within a week I had a job. I had the one quality they were looking for: I was breathing.

The first thing Boeing had me do was attend five weeks of bootcamp to get up to speed in the computer technologies they were using. I distinctly remember thinking to myself as I observed the instructors at the front of the classroom, I could do that. In fact, I would enjoy teaching technical subjects. Nevertheless, when the five weeks were up, I was a programmer/analyst, and I went from contract to contract and ultimately company to company over the next nine years.

One of my contracts was a 16-month gig teaching computer technologies to a group of Saudi Arabians. That was when I realized that I had both an aptitude and a desire for teaching. When I saw a teaching job in the classified ads, I applied and got it. So in 1987 my career officially switched to technical training, which I still do to a certain extent to this day.

In 1989 I accepted a job offer with Platinum Technology and moved to Illinois. Of all the jobs I’ve had over the years, this was my dream job. Sadly, after six years’ time, it had become The Job From Hell due to regime changes and policy changes. It was so bad that I ultimately had to quit. I formed my own corporation and then contracted myself back to Platinum.

This contract lasted a year, at the end of which time I had formed a new business relationship with a company in New Jersey, and they had a lot of work for me. At the same time, I was dissatisfied with the quality of their courseware, so I wrote my own series of SQL courses. I spent the bulk of 1996 writing my courses and working a reduced workload, but I then discovered the joys of royalty income. To this day I earn royalty checks on the courses I wrote back in 1996. I like this idea, I thought to myself: work once, get paid multiple times. It was my first experience of true residual income.

From 1999 to 2001 I was directly employed by this same New Jersey company, then they downsized me. I had a chunk of change to live on, so I was in no hurry to find a new job. Instead, I looked into investments as a source of income. I studied stock investing, commodities, and real estate. I bought a CD series from Robert Allen, a famous real estate investor, titled “Multiple Streams of Income.” He spoke mostly about various ways to earn money with real estate, but his last CD in the series dealt entirely with network marketing as another source of income to pursue.

Immediately the defenses went up. I had had a bad experience with multilevel marketing some twenty-odd years before, so it took someone with Robert Allen’s reputation for me even to take a look. But I liked what he had to say. He explained what network marketing was all about, and then he outlined how to evaluate a network marketing opportunity.

I was intrigued, but I didn’t know where to begin to find a network marketing company for me. Lo and behold, at the very end he said, “And if you’d like to learn about the one network marketing opportunity I endorse, call this 800 number and we’ll send you out an info packet.” I thought to myself, What do I have to lose? So I called the number, found out the company was USANA Health Sciences, got the info packet a few days later, liked what I read, and at the end of a week’s time I had signed up at the highest level.

I am fond of saying that I got into network marketing through real estate … and then watching people’s quizzical looks on their faces.

So you see, my professional life has been a series of fortuitous accidents. I originally got into information technology because it was the only industry hiring at the time. Then I got into technical training when I discovered that I had a knack for it. Then I got into network marketing via real estate investing. Even as I seek employment back in information technology, I plan to stay with USANA for life. The products are exceptional, and I am proud to be associated with such an ethical company. I now see why USANA is the one company Robert Allen endorses.

Thank God for accidents.