Job search needs to be thought of as a personal, very aimed marketing operation where you are the product. Your resume is an advertisement. Your extended network of colleagues is your source for job information.

So where does the net fit in? At AA-Careers, we just posted a job on a popular job board and got 650 applications in a week. For a single opening. That’s increased job hunting competition.

Had a strong candidate contacted us before we placed the ad, they could have gotten the position before getting all that competition. How? By finding someone at our office who became aware of the job prior to posting. Everyone was aware of the job for at least 9 days before it was posted. Who in your network might know of a job that’s coming available soon?

Be sure to check your cover letter and resume carefully! When we did an analysis of the 650 resumes, we found a large number of errors. 63% of the applicants were easily taken out with a speedy triage process. How? The same way any manager would. By passing over resumes where the objective didn’t match our job. By rejecting candidates whose cover letters gave us reasons not to employ them, like "I know I’m overqualified but I really need a job". By eliminating candidates whose documents that didn’t open properly. And by rejecting prospects who didn’t trouble to spell check their cover letter and/or resume.

So the great news is that job boards give you a feel of what companies are hiring, and for what kinds of positions. But once those positions are posted, the competition is intense. You can still compete, if you have a well written resume, designed to appeal directly and clearly to the recruiter. And if you have practiced interviewing – so you don’t stumble at a critical point.

Another issue to be aware of is how easily you can be investigated on the internet. As we Googled several job hunters, we ran into some Facebook comments that were in questionable taste. Nothing larcenous, but enough to sway our thoughts about who to employ.

AA-Careers provides a broad set of services for Bay Area job seekers, providing our clients a personal career consultant, a managed job hunting campaign, modern tools like a personal website, video, highly targeted resume, and much more. Let us know if we can help you.

Be careful out there, and good hunting!

Voice over talent encompasses all areas of voice over work. Anything you can imagine from training videos, animation and radio spots requires voice over training. Whether you have a distinctive voice that stands out, or if you are an actor with an average sounding voice that has a knack for accents and inflections, the proper voice over training can provide lucrative opportunities and help further your acting career. Anyone interested in becoming an actor or becoming involved in the entertainment industry should consider receiving voice over training. A career in voiceover work may be simpler to begin than you can think.

Case in point, the voice over training program offered by EdgeStudio.com is divided into four phases: Getting Started, Get a Demo, Get Customers and the Profesional phase. EdgeStudio.com also offers “ala carte” voice over training methods available for those who simply would like to brush up on specific areas such as speech patterns. Perhaps most impressive, any students choosing to begin their voice over careers with EdgeStudio.com are treated to an all-inclusive experience featuring career guidance, candid assessments of their work and personal voice over coaching. With training available in this innovative medium, students are prepared for real-world experiences as tele-training takes advantage of technological connectivity to provide top-notch voice over training to anyone regardless of where they live.

The 88 Wood Street iconic building has an annual income of over £12.6 million across its 17 floors, which house companies like Bryan Cave, Mitsubishi, National Australia Bank, Hewlett Packard and Collins Stewart Ltd. The total area is about 247,000 sq ft. Most of these leases are long term, with an average duration of ten years more to run. In addition, Rockspring will be taking over Bayern LB’s debt facility of around £91 million.

The second acquisition, that of 40, Grosvenor Place is located in the central London district of Victoria and has six floors of office space. These are occupied by companies such as Bluecrest, Capital International LEK Consulting and EDF Energy, to name a few. This property currently has a total annual income of about £12 million, which will be split with the other partner, the Grosvenor London Office Fund (click here for desk space London info).

Rockspring announced that it has made both acquisitions under a new investment mandate for the National Pension Service of Korea.

In today’s highly charged business atmosphere, overcoming communication barriers is necessary – in particular early on in the sales process. Don’t forget that customers are won or lost at the top of the sales funnel. Therefore it is imperative that your communication tools such as your color brochures do their job in the initial stages of the sales process.

This procedure can be achieved by developing a good communication strategy. Here are three tools of an efficient sales and marketing communication strategy:

1. Personalize it. The business is not just about making money. It is also about building relationships. Relationships are significant for customers. Customers are willing to splurge more just because they have a long standing trustworthy relationship with a specific business. Your brochure printing therefore yearn strive to enhance relationships. Color brochures, for example, can acquaint the company in a very private approach.

2. Customize communication for both industry and position. A manufacturing industry would have a different concern with a service oriented company. It is vital to make each individual understand that you identify their unique needs, consequently, can focus on their precise problems.

3. Use best discipline to separate your sales pitch from the competition. To ensure that your customers or clients do not overlook you, use timely reminders. Send out your brochures to an event in advance. That way you call the attention of prospective customers even before he comes to the event- not when they are already talking to your competitors.

Ultimately, the basis to successful business communication is producing a message that your audience wants to hear through brochure printing . Your audience is interested to know how you would respond to their needs in a timely, reliable and professional manner.

The movie could have been a disaster. It had the potential to fall into all of the stereotypes we have come to expect from black and white comedies, “Bringing Down the House” and “Miss Congeniality 2″ being two of the worst offenders in recent memory. Admittedly there is a little of that here: Kutcher’s character is goaded into telling black jokes at dinner with Theresa’s family that includes her racially intolerant grandfather, and Mac’s character lies about his daughter’s boyfriend to an employee, describing him instead as a black man named Jamal who lives in Atlanta, plays basketball and went to Howard University. Aside from these examples, “Guess Who” manages to rise above the obvious racial pitfalls and is a movie that’s fairly funny, a little enlightening and surprisingly endearing.

The flip side of the movie’s attempt not to fall into racial stereotypes is that it goes a little too far in the opposite direction. Kutcher’s character is the kid from the broken home, with the single mother and dad who left when he was two. Percy is the upper class snob with a love of NASCAR. I know the movie was trying to make a point that all black people aren’t impoverished or from broken homes and all white people aren’t racist suburban snobs, but sometimes the movie felt like they didn’t even believe what they were trying to sell themselves. It felt as if they were yelling “Hey look, no really look, black people can be wealthy, successful and like sports other then basketball and football,” at the top of their lungs.

Other then that, “Guess Who” isn’t a bad way to spend two hours of your life. There is little chemistry between Kutcher and Saladana but Bernie Mac and Kutcher light up the screen, and display some of the best on-screen chemistry going, especially for two people who aren’t romantically involved. Scenes where they are playing in-door football and getting drunk are priceless, and a sequence where they have to face a house full of angry women to get their significant others to come back home is funny, sweet and very believable.

All in all “Guess Who” is worth your six dollars. It won’t get nominated for an Oscar or be at the forefront in enhancing race relations but it is not a bad way to spend an afternoon. You get enough laughs to keep you interested, and it’s a movie that appeals to both sexes, so you can take a date and everyone will be pleased.

(C) 2005 Tamika Johnson

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Those embers can leap into flame when business, non-
profit or association managers use public relations to
alter individual perception among their target publics,
leading to changed behaviors and helping to achieve
their managerial objectives.

In the process, things can really blaze when managers
take steps to persuade their key external folks to their
way of thinking, then move them to take actions that
allow that manager’s department, group, division or
subsidiary to succeed.

The kindling for your new fire is the reality that people
act on their own perception of the facts before them,
which leads to predictable behaviors about which
something can be done. When we create, change or
reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and
moving-to-desired-action the very people whose
behaviors affect the organization the most, the public
relations mission is accomplished.

Let’s assume you are such a manager and that you will
keep in mind that your PR effort must demand more
than special events, brochures and press releases if
you are to achieve the quality public relations results
you’re counting on.

And lots of good things CAN happen. Capital givers or
specifying sources beginning to look your way;
customers starting to make repeat purchases;
membership applications on the rise; fresh proposals
for strategic alliances and joint ventures; politicians
and legislators starting to view you as a key member
of the business, non-profit or association communities;
welcome bounces in show room visits; prospects
starting to do business with you; and community leaders
beginning to seek you out.

Because your public relations professionals are already
in the perception and behavior business, they can be of
real use for your new opinion monitoring project. But
be certain that the PR staff really accepts why it’s SO
important to know how your most important outside
audiences perceive your operations, products or services.
And make sure they believe that perceptions almost
always result in behaviors that can help or hurt your
operation.

Sit down and review with them your plans for
monitoring and gathering perceptions by questioning
members of your most important outside audiences.
Questions along these lines: how much do you know
about our organization? Have you had prior contact
with us and were you pleased with the interchange?
Are you familiar with our services or products and
employees? Have you experienced problems with
our people or procedures?

When you study the benefits of the program, you
may conclude it’s a no-brainer as you measure
the cost benefit of using those PR folks of yours in
that monitoring capacity against the cost of using
professional survey firms to do the opinion gathering
work. But, whether it’s your people or a survey firm
asking the questions, the objective remains the same:
identify untruths, false assumptions, unfounded rumors,
inaccuracies, misconceptions and any other negative
perception that might translate into hurtful behaviors.

It’s time to establish a goal calling for action on
the most serious problem areas you uncovered
during your key audience perception monitoring.
Will it be to straighten out that dangerous
misconception? Correct that gross inaccuracy? Or,
stop that potentially painful rumor cold?

Naturally, setting your PR goal requires an equally
specific strategy that tells you how to get there.
There are just three strategic options available to
you when it comes to doing something about
perception and opinion. Change existing perception,
create perception where there may be none, or
reinforce it. The wrong strategy pick will taste like
onion gravy on your deep dish apple pie, so be sure
your new strategy fits well with your new public
relations goal. You wouldn’t want to select “change”
when the facts dictate a strategy of reinforcement.

Now comes the hard work. You must prepare a
persuasive message that will help move your key
audience to your way of thinking. It must be a
carefully-written message targeted directly at your
key external audience. Your very best writer will
be needed because s/he must produce really
corrective language. Words that are not merely
compelling, persuasive and believable, but clear
and factual if they are to shift perception/opinion
towards your point of view and lead to the
behaviors you have in mind.

At last you come to the fun part of the program.
Selecting the communications tactics most likely
to carry your message to the attention of your
target audience. There are many available. From
speeches, facility tours, emails and brochures to
consumer briefings, media interviews, newsletters,
personal meetings and many others. But be certain
that the tactics you pick are known to reach folks
just like your audience members.

How you communicate is a concern since the
credibility of any message is fragile and always up
for grabs. Which is why you may wish to unveil your
corrective message before smaller meetings and
presentations rather than using higher-profile news
releases.

You and your PR team will inevitably view any
suggestions about progress reports as an alert to
begin a second perception monitoring session
with members of your external audience. You’ll
want to use many of the same questions used in
the benchmark session. But now, you will be on
strict alert for signs that the bad news perception
is being altered in your direction.

The fact that you can always speed things up by
adding more communications tactics as well as
increasing their frequencies, will be a source of
comfort for you should program momentum slow.

The fastest way for managers to light a fire under
their public relations efforts is to persuade those
key external audiences of theirs to his or her way
of thinking, thus moving those publics to take
actions that allow the managers’ business,
non-profit or association to succeed.

Please feel free to publish this article and resource box
in your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website.
A copy would be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net.
Word count is 1085 including guidelines and resource box.
Robert A. Kelly © 2005.

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks to business, non-profit and
association managers about using the fundamental premise of public
relations to achieve their operating objectives. He has been DPR,
Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR,
Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communi-
cations, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press
secretary, The White House. He holds a bachelor of science degree
from Columbia University, major in public relations.
mailto:bobkelly@TNI.net Visit:http://www.prcommentary.com

Charlotte Mason, a British educator whose life spanned the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first quarter of the twentieth century, fervently advocated the use of literature in children’s education. Often referred to as the founder of home schooling, Mason pioneered a liberal arts approach to children’s education. In contrast to the rigid memorization required of students during her time, Mason’s educational theories embraced the concept of instilling a love of learning in children and exposing them to a wide variety of subjects.

Today, many parents use the Charlotte
Mason method as a home school resource. Several of Mason’s key concepts relate to reading in the home learning environment. The first is the avoidance of what she termed “twaddle,” or books that today could be called “junk food for the mind.” You’re probably familiar with the type, such as chapter books based on TV shows that use overly simplistic sentences and rely on illustrations, rather than words, to engage a child. Instead, the Mason method opts for children’s literature that is
well written and captivates the child’s imagination with words.

Another of Mason’s key concepts that relates to reading is that of “whole books.” She advocated that a child read a book in its entirety, rather than simply reading book excerpts. Any parent of a child educated in the public school system knows that language arts textbooks are typically anthologies of book excerpts. Mason felt that a work should be read as it was written, as opposed to reading only a portion of the complete book.

Narration is a third concept advocated by Mason.
In contrast to rote memorization and recitation, or testing that focuses on what a child doesn’t know, Mason felt that children should have the opportunity to explain what they do know. After reading a book, for example, a child could talk about what he or she learned, could write about the book in a journal, or could paint or sculpt a depiction of what he or she learned.

Charlotte Mason’s teaching methods are easy and inexpensive to integrate into home education. Developing an
effective reading program for home learning – by avoiding “twaddle,” by reading the whole book, and by incorporating narration as a measure of comprehension – is an integral component to the Mason method. Utilizing children’s book reviews will help in this effort, as will broadening the
reading experience by incorporating related individual and family activities.

Brent Sitton is the founder of
DiscoveryJourney.com, with tools available to home school parents, including
Children’s
Book Reviews. Our child book
reviews identify character traits and contain 5 related fun and educational activities.

While this isn’t a bad thing and nobody is condemning him for his intentions, a better objective might be “improving service”, or “broadening the market”. Either of these or more money in your pocket would appeal to most business owners, because the bottom line is simple, more jingle.

Improving service, broadening the market, and bringing in more business consistently are common results of a solid business marketing plan with high numbers of contact within the client market of the business. It’s all a numbers game, is probably an understatement.

Proposing a miraculous solution for this issue requires thought and planning, and is definitely a can do project. Just follow the steps:

* Know your product. Have an identifiable and recognizable name for your product; know what it does, how it can be used, and specifically how it will help the client.

* Know your market. Have a specific description of who will purchase and use your product. Know your clientele and have a good plan for communicating with them personally.

* Know how to promote your product/service to your client.

* Be willing to go the extra mile to promote your business or product.

The purpose of business is to make money. If that is not your intent, your business probably won’t make any money, and it’s NOT a viable tax shelter either.

Put your marketing skills into effect, by pursuing your client with thoughtful well planned market directed advertising. Bring in the people and your business will be profitable.

Copyright © 2005 – Jan Verhoeff

Effectively market your business with client directed advertising that brings in the people. Make every advertising dollar count by knowing your product and your market. For more information in this area of business marketing and planning, ask one or our consultants at: http://makemoremoneyon.tripod.com