Hopkinton Networking Group - Fri - 4/20/12

Hello Everyone,

The agenda for this Friday's Hopkinton Networkers Group (HNG) meeting will be featured by our speaker, Stuart Paap . The facilitator for this week will be Sandra Cipriani. We will devote the first hour, from 10 to 11 AM to the following agenda: Welcome, Landings, Announcements, New Member Intros, and Needs & Leads. Please arrive early, so we can make every effort to start on time. In the second hour, Stuart will talk about "Self-Marketing with Public Speaking."

Self-Marketing with Public Speaking
Whether your goal is to discover new business opportunities, tell people about your company, or learn how to master a powerful networking skill, self-marketing with public speaking can be extremely valuable – if done correctly.

In this talk, you will learn why you need more than an online presence and marketing material to make an impact in front of others. You will learn how to market yourself in front of others in a way that can bring you new opportunities.

About Stuart Paap:
Stuart Paap has worked professionally as a public speaker for over a decade, and regularly speaks at universities, conferences and professional organizations.

Schedule for HNG Meetings:

May 4, 2012 Suzanne Gray & Jack Speranza "Self Employment Options for those in Career Transitions"
May 18, 2012 Joellyn Schwerdlin "Network Your Way Into the Hidden Job Market"
June 1, 2012 Anne Crawford "Elevator Speech: How to Get to the Next Level"

General Information:

The networking group meets in Hopkinton, at St. John the Evangelist Church parish hall. The meeting occurs, from 10 to 12 noon, and will meet the first and third Friday of the month. The parish hall has a capacity for 250 people and there is plenty of parking spaces in the parking lot and on the street. Around the perimeter of the parish hall are rooms to allow us to have focused network groups or for any other purpose we need. We chose the first and third Friday to allow everyone to attend the Acton Networking Group or any other networking group, if they wanted, on the Friday we do not meet.

We will maintain our close affiliation with Acton Networkers by using the same list-server to share information between the groups. Any e-mails specific to the Hopkinton Networking Group (HNG) will be indicated in the subject line either by "Hopkinton Networking Group" or "HNG"; this way anyone attending these meetings will know the e-mail is intended for them.

We will follow the following agenda items:
* Welcome
* Landings (with doughnuts)
* Announcements
* New member introductions
* Needs and Leads
* Speaker(s), Workshop, or Focus Group
* Cleanup

For those new members who give their introductions, this is what we would like to know:
* Name
* Skills and Value Statement
* Where have you been?
* Where are you going?
* Your title
* Your target companies
* Geography of search
* Name and e-mail address

If anyone wants to join our team, please let one of us know; we could always use the extra help and input for ideas.

Directions:
Take Rt. 495 North/South and get off Exit 21A. Go through three traffic lights. Colella's Supermarket is on the right at the third traffic light. The first street after the third traffic light is Church Street, take a right turn. The church is on the right. Go around to the left of the parking lot and go into the side entrance of the parish hall.

Depending upon where you live, perhaps you may want to use Mapquest for a more direct route. The address of the church is:
St. John the Evangelist
20 Church Street
Hopkinton, MA 01748

Regards,
Hopkinton Networkers Group (HNG) Coordinators:
Sandra Cipriani sandraopps@...
Gil Krispien g.krispien@...
Barbara McKee barb6635@...
Vincent Rocheleau vrocheleau@...
Ralph Sabatino ralphsabatino@...
Salpi Sarafian ssarafian@...
Mark Sullivan msullivan.email@...

How recruiters look at your resume

Sent to you by Steve Sherlock via Google Reader:

How recruiters look at your resume

via FlowingData by Nathan Yau on 4/11/12

In a study by TheLadders (of n equals 30), recruiters looked at resumes and make some judgments. During evaluations, eye tracking software was employed, and they found that the recruiters spent about six seconds on a resume looking for six main things: name, current company and title, previous company and title, previous position start and end dates, current position start and end dates, and education. After that, it was a crapshoot.

Beyond these six data points, recruiters did little more than scan for keywords to match the open position, which amounted to a very cursory "pattern matching" activity. Because decisions were based mostly on the six pieces of data listed above, an individual resume's detail and explanatory copy became filler and had little to no impact on the initial decision making. In fact, the study's eye tracking technology shows that recruiters spent about 6 seconds on their initial "fit/no fit" decision.

If I ever have to submit a resume, I'm just going to put those six things as bullets and then the rest will all be keywords in small, light print. It'll be like job search SEO.
Update: I've been told that TheLadder's reputation might be less than savory, and a quick search shows some in agreement, so it might be wise to sidestep the service. Instead, go with my awesome six-bullet advice and you're gold.
[via @alexlundry]

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