We met Seth many years ago when he was at Yoyodyne–he hired the great and immensely knowledgeable Jerry S (with a last name that is not spellable for the average human) to run his marketing dept. Seth asked us to work on another marketing position for him and came with his laptop to show us his company. I remember asking about using non internet channels (such as direct Mail) to drive traffic to the site and Seth said, why would I pay to do that? He virtually convinced us that direct mail and testing via direct mail was dead and that it was pretty stupid to even think to use it. Okay, it was an interesting concept that I didn’t believe then and don’t believe today. I can attest to getting many catalogs and many solicitations from banks still today. Companies still use it; it still works. And did he come of with the concept for Permission Marketing or coin the term. Seems to me that the clubs and continuities and publishers have been doing some form of permission marketing for years, but not using that nifty term. Does Steve Markowitz, the internet Wunderkind of direct marketing know–was it Seth or Columbia House?

Which brings us to the real reason for this post. Average workers are going straight to the bottom; only the best and brightest will succeed and hold on to their jobs. It reminds me of a time when advertising agencies were only looking for black stallions,and when they got a herd of them together, they could all run but none could walk to get the work done. Point being that the best and brightest sometimes need to be supported by average work horses. And in an economy that is now challenging I’d say there is a place for the top and the middle. The bottom feeders get fed in a supercharged economy (before the dot com bust, where if you could walk and talk, you can get a great job). But an average worker that is a decent cog in the wheel is needed as much now as ever.

Karen Tripi Associates (and other good dm/ecommerce) recruiters get that and understand where to find and evaluate the talent.

2. Cool new make your own magazine app called Ziet. How do they monetize this?

3. How can technology help you land a job?

And more to come….

1. Should you say you were laid-off (or whatever terminology you want to use)?
I think a good rule of thumb here is that if your company will allow you to say you are still employed (ask them, many will allow this for a period of time, especially if you were a valued employee and this lay off was no fault of your own). In that case you can put to present on your resume but once you start interviewing you need to say that “the company will be downsizing soon”, “I’m going to take a package”, “the company may go out of business so I’m proactively looking”–it should be the truth. this way you can avoid getting caught in the “I don’t want to look at people who have been laid-off” pile.
I also suggest that you do not look at this as an opportunity to take some time off, have a good time. The longer you are out of work, the harder it is the find a job–and the “laid Off” discrimination will increase.

2. Not putting all your jobs on your resume and eliminating your college graduation year.

I sometimes will get a resume that starts in 1990 with a Director Level position and no graduation date. I immediately know that this person is omitting information from their resume. HR departments do not like this and many companies perform background checks–this can be construed as lying.

Here’s a perfectly acceptable way to handle this: before your 1990 Director Level job: put in a paragraph that says something like this: prior to 1990 i worked in a series of progressive positions at: blah blah, blah, blah. In other words account for the time between college and the last position but don’t go into great detail. It was a long time ago, probably not relevant–but it’s not okay to start your resume mid-stream without some acknowledgment that you worked for 15 years before that.

And for what it’s worth, I’d put my college graduation date.

And she also address the age old problem of age. Of people who won’t put graduation years on the linked in profile, or years employed. Or on their resume for that matter. There is definite age discrimination going on, but not putting the dates is not going to stop the discrimination. it will delay it until someone starts asking questions or you go in for a meeting. The hope of these applicants is that they are “youthful” enough for their actual age not to matter. Perhaps they are correct–I just don’t know.

I just had a client say that they’ll provide a bunch of info, I followed up, they never followed through. When I hire, that is the key component of my hiring principle–does this person follow through on what they say they’ll do. And if they can’t come through, do they communicate that effectively. Brilliance with no common sense doesn’t work for me.

Last week in the NYTimes Sunday Business section there was an article about about a start-up company that will do social media background checks on potential candidates for companies. They can find stuff dating back 5 years. Remember that nasty comment you made on facebook to one of your friends; remember the picture you posted showing you with the six pack; boom–not hired due to poor judgement.

Now I suppose we have to consider the age of the candidates: those in their mid-20′s would have still been in college–should they have known better?; is their college behavior indicative of who they will become and how well they’ll perform their job? If we had looked 5 years back at Anthony Weiner, would he ever have been elected? (or married for that matter)

There is something deeply disturbing about this for me. What bothers me is that we assume a mask of privacy even when we’re on-line by putting up some walls and not making everything available to everyone. Does a post in bad taste mean that it will derail someone’s career? Does everyone have to be perfect? What is acceptable enough to be hired and what is not?

I’m pretty “clean” online (maybe because I’m a boring parent…); my teenage daughter is not–neither are any of her friends. The thought of a company doing a background check on things I thought were private is not where I think our job market should be going. companies need to hire the best and the brightest–the hardest workers. Sometimes they play hard on the weekend–perhaps a manual should be put out explaining what is okay and what is not.

I’ve been thinking about this concept especially when my high schooler has asked me if she can work at McDonald’s. I think back to my own experience and my supermarket check out days. I made money, learned stuff, but it was really hard work and not at all pleasant standing on your feet for hours at end. But what if it wasn’t McDonalds, but somewhere that I find more of an except-able eatery?

I think that depending on one’s situation financially, some jobs are better than others at providing reasonable experience for the job force. Since my area is advertising, is it better to say that I was a sales associate at the GAP or better to say that I was an intern at the local library helping digitize the collection; or working at your local non-profit helping them with their website, raising money, putting them into social media, learning out to optimize a website, writing documents, etc. and maybe not getting paid or making minimal money.? The answer I believe is self-evident.

Do you best you can with the financial implications in mind.

What am I talking about? The need for the return of hard core direct marketing principles–people who understand ROI and how to run a acquisition and retention program for business. Hiring people who know how to bring in customers and then know how to keep them (and sell them more). It is no longer dm versue digital, it is how to run a marketing program regardless of the channel. The internet has become one more tool–a tool of people who know how to do direct marketing.

What has happened in the past 10 years is that direct marketing has become an old, stayed name. Direct marketers weren’t needed anymore–what was needed was how to use email to acquire and retain and how to use other digital medium (social, affiliate, etc) to do the same. But was neglected was other mediums (old school mediums) that still were effective (think drtv, radio, direct mail) in conjunction with digital uses.

And the people who knew how to do all this stuff and transfer it to another channel–direct marketers, were neglected. Now we have to go back and cultivate young talent in the founding principles and help them to understand that though sending out a direct mail package may not be cool–it sometimes works better than a digital plan (and that you will know it).