Three Personal Branding Tools You Should be Using Today

on April 24, 2013

Gunsworthy5

No, this isn’t another article about how Facebook or Twitter should play a part in your job search. This is a piece about three cool little apps that you might not know about, but should. If you’re in the job search or just building a personal brand, these three tools can get you a lot of very attractive mileage without a lot of effort.

Vizify is a great personal branding tool that allows you to create an infographic-style bio. Vizify aggregates your content from other social platform and delivers it to visitors in an engaging, side-scrolling graphic presentation with call-outs about work, interests, and general interests. What’s new here isn’t the content that Vizify displays, but the display itself. It’s clean and intuitive, and — perhaps best of all — it updates automatically. Unlike LinkedIn, you won’t develop fatigue from constantly updating the blasted thing manually. If you’re looking for a quick one-stop location to give recruiters and hiring managers, Vizify is a fun and useful alternative to LinkedIn’s dry and purely informational content.    Read More →

Gunsworthy5
Comment

Social Doesn’t Stand Alone: Q&A with Pivot’s Mike Edelhart

on October 9, 2012

Gunsworthy3

Pivot 2012 is fast approaching. So fast, in fact, that there’s less than a week left to register for the premier conference for those working at the intersection of Social and commerce. It’s going to be a hotbed of innovative ideas and prescient glimpses of the future. It’s also a great opportunity to rub elbows with all those decision makers and visionaries that you read about in Fast Company. That’s why we jumped at the chance to sit down with Pivot President Mike Edelhart to talk about the conference, the future of Social, and the changing face of business.    Read More →

Gunsworthy3
Comment

What We’re Reading: A Google VP Steps Out, A New Take on Job Vacancies, and #CoffeeMugMurder

on September 28, 2012

Gunsworthy3

Happy Friday, Guns. Here’s a look back at the week that was:

Gunsworthy3
Comment

What the NFL Referee Debacle Can Teach Us About Salary Negotiation

on September 27, 2012

Gunsworthy4

via Gawker.com

The first three weeks of the 2012 NFL Season brought lots of excitement, with rookie Robert Griffin III tossing bombs, the Arizona Cardinals starting 3-0, and receiver Calvin Johnson already hauling in 9 touchdowns.

But none of that compares to the largest underlying theme of the season: the dismal job performance of replacement NFL referees, some of whom were fired from the Lingerie Football League (yes, that’s a thing and no, we’re not linking to it) for incompetence. The replacements botched call after call on national TV while the league negotiated a new contract for their regular full-time officials.

As the league finally reaches an agreement to end the embarrassment, what can we learn from their negotiation?    Read More →

Gunsworthy4
Comment

The Results of Our #6wordCV Contest Are In…

on September 18, 2012

Gunsworthy2

In case you missed it, The Guns launched a search for the best #6wordCV yesterday. We got a lot of really great submissions — some serious, some not so serious — from our Twitter network. It was a tough call, but Larry Smith, inventor of the Six-Word Memoir Project and the brilliant mind behind tomorrow’s What’s Your Story? class, has spoken.

Congratulations, @vdlr. Your #6wordCV took first prize:

  • “Digital storyteller igniting innovation, strategy, analytics.”

In Larry’s own words, “the specificity of it, as well as the art of what person can do for their clients” was the clincher. In addition to having something to lord over all her friends for eternity, she also wins free admission to Larry’s class tomorrow night.    Read More →

Gunsworthy2
Comment

THG in the News: AOL Jobs Quotes Our Outlook for a Sunny September

on September 7, 2012

Gunsworthy3

The Hired Guns in the NewsWhen The Guns tweet, the web listens. Just this morning, AOL Jobs quoted The Hired Guns’ optimistic outlook for September hiring:

Unemployed workers looking for more evidence of a pickup in hiring this month might take some inspiration from The Hired Guns, a New York City-based employment agency focused on the high tech and creative fields.

Via Twitter on Friday, the firm said that it expects hiring in September “will be strong based on the brisk biz we’ve been seeing.”    Read More →

Gunsworthy3
Comment

Write Well: The Gray Lady’s Guide to Getting Your Point Across

on August 2, 2012

Gunsworthy5

In the Times‘ Sunday Book Review, novelist Colson Whitehead provides a great refresher (or primer, depending on where your writing chops sit) on the art of good writing. Mercifully, Whitehead eschews the treacly mysticism present in so many “how tos” for writers. He doesn’t advocate drawing a bath and reading Foucault by candlelight in order to find your muse. Instead, he provides good, actionable advice for writers at all levels. His notes are purely practical and great for the working or aspiring blogger. If you find yourself awash in great ideas but unable to translate them into words, Whitehead’s advice should help you considerably.    Read More →

Gunsworthy5
Comment

Take a Hike: Job-Search Advice For Recent Grads

on June 25, 2012

Gunsworthy4

I remember it like it was yesterday, heading back to my college dorm with my friend Ed after taking our last final exam in our senior year. He looked at me and said, “Did you ever think this day would come? I mean, it’s the last day of school. Ever.”

I started to think about it, and he continued, “I mean, when we were little kids or in high school, you were always excited about the last day of school and summer starting, but in the back of your mind, you knew you’d be right back in school again in a few months. But this is it. Now we have to get actual jobs. We’re never going to have a last day of school again. Ever.”

So with that depressing scenario, my recent college graduates, what should you do now?

   Read More →

Gunsworthy4
Comment

THG @SXSW: Helping Cancer Patients Connect with Each Other

on March 6, 2012

Gunsworthy6

In the days leading up to SXSW Interactive, we’ve been looking at the Hired Guns and Hired Guns pals who will be there. Up today: social-media innovator and “wannabe entrepreneur” Brandon Lee:

Social Networking: Giving Cancer Patients a Voice
Monday, March 12, 3:30
Presenter: Brandon Lee

Your Twesume
(your resume in 140 characters or less):
I’m a wannabe entrepreneur and I like to get my hands into everything. I studied journalism and web and graphic design at TCNJ. I am a black belt in tae kwon do and a drummer.

Why did you want to speak at SXSW?
I wanted to speak at SXSW to see how the bright and creative minds reacted to my nonprofit. I also know that SXSW is a very popular venue so I wanted to speak about social networking for cancer patients to as many people as possible. Cancer in general is a topic which is extremely important to me and has changed my life.    Read More →

Gunsworthy6
Comment

Help Wanted: Why You Can’t Replace Your Resume with Social Media (At Least Not Yet)

on January 30, 2012

Gunsworthy11

Last fall, Fred Wilson’s venture capital firm, Union Square Ventures, had an investment analyst position it needed to fill. But instead of asking for resumes or cover letters, it instead requested “links that will help us get to know you… anything from a Twitter account to a blog or Tumblr to a project you hacked together — whatever represents you best.”

It also wanted two short videos, submitted through the website of a startup called Take the Interview — the videos, done instead of screening anyone by phone, were to answer two questions: “Why are you interested in the analyst role at Union Square Ventures?” and “Which web or mobile services most inspire you?”

No cover letter. No resume. But a video?! Is this the start of a trend? Maybe, but don’t ditch your resume and start panicking quite yet.    Read More →

Gunsworthy11
Comment

Sree Sreenivasan on What Social Media Weekend 2012 Has in Store

on January 24, 2012

Gunsworthy3

In advance of Social Media Weekend (starting this Friday!), we asked its founder, Sree Sreenivasan, and the journalist Patricia Kitchen what events and speakers are especially worth looking forward to. If you haven’t bought your tickets yet, day passes for Saturday and Sunday are still available.

The Hired Guns: It seems as if you could throw a rock in any direction and hit a social media conference. Why come to yours? In other words, who’s it for? Am I here to manage my personal brand or the brand of my company? Or both?    Read More →

Gunsworthy3
Comment

Bullet Points: The Question Every Interviewer Should Be Able to Answer

on September 29, 2011

Gunsworthy2
Gunsworthy2
Comment

Bullet Points: Nice Guys Finish Last; Social Recruiting Blossoms; Is Middle Management Going Out of Style?

on August 15, 2011

Gunsworthy3
  • “[Agreeable] workers earn significantly lower incomes than less agreeable ones,” writes Rachel Emma Silverman in the Wall Street Journal. The gap, which is larger for men, is discussed in a paper presented at this year’s meeting of the Academy of Management.
  • Professor Lynda Gratton’s book The Shift predicts the end of middle management. But the Economist marshals some facts and decides that “there are still reasons to believe that theirs is not a wholly useless profession“: “it could be argued that the demise of the middle manager correlates all too suspiciously with the rise in the cult of the CEO.”
  • Recruiters’ love for social media isn’t going away: it’s just too good at finding those appealing “passive candidates.” [Baltimore Sun]
  • NPR looks at the companies who will guarantee you a certain number of Twitter followers—for a price.
  • The advice is for those in finance, but we think it’s got a much broader application. “Stop doing dumb stuff,” says Steve Player. “Much of this ‘dumb stuff’ masquerades as standard finance processes,” but stopping it is the “only way you can find the time for doing critical things that can add value.”
    • Gunsworthy3
    Comment

    Bullet Points: Social Media Blahs; the Dangers of Pretty; Patent Trolling

    on August 12, 2011

    Gunsworthy5
  • It’s hard to be pretty. Despite what you might think, being attractive might actually hurt you when you’re being interviewed by someone of the same sex, says a psychological study cited in Business Insider.
  • Andy Baio looks at the “Twitter clone” Heello, which is evolving into a looking-glass version of real social media. For instance, the fake Heello version of CNN Breaking News REALLY LOVES CAPITALS, and its “Mark Zuckerberg” asks “Did this many people have birthdays before Facebook?” and “What’s your Facebook account so that I can ban you?”
  • In related news, some overly plugged-in people are getting a little fed up with all this social media nonsense. [NYT]
  • NPR looks at so-called “patent trolls,” whose business model isn’t looking so slick these day, in light of a recent hefty court fine.
  • M. Kenneth Oshman, a founder of one of the earliest Silicon Valley startups and a major influence behind the work hard/play hard culture that’s still part of the Valley today, has passed away at age 71.
  • Cheesy music. Glacial loading times. No menus (or at least no prices), but lots of big photos of flowers and the chef. It’s hardly news that most restaurant websites are awful. Over at Slate, Farhad Manjoo gets to the bottom of why they’re so bad, and why they’re unlikely to improve anytime soon.
    • Gunsworthy5
    Comment

    Bullet Points: The Downside of Low Turnover; Making Your Company Resilient; the Point of Social Media Experts

    on August 9, 2011

    Gunsworthy5
    Gunsworthy5
    Comment

    Bullet Points: Office Propaganda; Hiring Social Media Savvy; Actually Fun Corporate Retreats

    on July 26, 2011

    Gunsworthy5
    Gunsworthy5
    Comment

    Bullet Points: LinkedIn Goes on Defense, and Who Owns All Your Online Job Contacts Anyway?

    on July 8, 2011

    Gunsworthy3
    Gunsworthy3
    Comment

    Bullet Points: “Social Media Backlash” Edition

    on May 26, 2011

    Gunsworthy4
    • “I will never hire a ‘social media expert,’” writes Peter Shankman in a much commented-on post that’s been tearing up the Twitter charts in the past few days. “Social media, by itself, will not help you,” writes the social media entrepreneur.
    • Social media strategist Alan Wolk writes a column defending those gurus, whoever they are.
    • Ricky Engelberg, Nike’s Global Digital Innovation Director calls the “Like” button the most valuable thing on the Internet. A billion cat videos beg to differ.
    • If allowing people to Like your products and therefore lead others to them is valuable, it isn’t yet that valuable in the mundane make-some-bucks way. As Peter Yared at VentureBeat puts it, “Most products have too short a shelf life to accumulate many Likes. In addition, very few people are clicking Like on a product since it is broadcast to all of their friends, and instead are using the ‘email to a friend’ feature so they can ask a select set of people if they like an item. Email is really making Facebook miserable when it comes to e-commerce.”
    • If people avoid Liking companies’ products, it might also be because they’re not really that into what companies have on offer. According to a recent study by IBM, companies mostly think people want to be friends with their brands, but what they really want is a good deal: “… a majority of consumers say the top reasons they interact with companies via social sites are to receive discounts and make purchases, but companies rank those as the least likely reasons customers will follow them.”
    • All that social media probably is taking up valuable time that could otherwise be spent at the proverbial watercooler or perhaps even working–as PC World puts it, Social networks distract at work. Seriously.

      [Image: Stallio/flickr]

    Gunsworthy4
    Comment

    Bullet Points: TwitPic Wants to License Photos; Intern Flubs; Great Job Ads

    on May 24, 2011

    Gunsworthy2
    • Popular photo site TwitPic has an expansive user agreement that gives it and “affiliated sites” the right to use or distribute content that people have uploaded. Now TwitPic has signed up a photo agency to do just that.
    • The Vault has 6 ways to make your internship count; taking a darker view, eFinancialCareers gives you a “full list of the fatal errors” that investment-banking interns make. A lot of the mistakes would apply to any competitive, high-pressure internship…
    • Poynter recently held a live chat about the ways that LinkIn can be used both for reporting and for looking for a job in the first place–they are highly related skills, after all. Here’s the transcript.
    • If you really want to make sure you get the most out of the financial investment that you (or someone close to you) may be making in college, then petroleum engineering and pharmaceutical science are the majors to go for. [WSJ]
    • Writing a job description must be hard: there are so many vague or otherwise less-than-great examples out there. Erica Swallow of Mashable has some tips on writing a description that will bring in the best candidates possible.
    Gunsworthy2
    Comment

    Bullet Points: 2/3 of Workers Want to Leave; Small Biz “Likes” Social Media

    on May 4, 2011

    Gunsworthy4
    • The employees are restless. A Deloitte survey of folks working at big companies found that 2/3 of them want a new job. As Forbes reports, “while Baby Boomers (age 48-65) were unhappiest with their employers, members of Generation X (age 32-47) were the most likely to be seriously looking.”
    • What’s the best way to go about getting an assistant? When Jason Fried and his boutique software company 37signals were ready to place an ad, they decided to focus on actions rather than “a boring list of skills.” Instead, the want ad had “a list of 26 things that this person would have done in a week had he or she been working here.” [Inc.]
    • The design blog Demilked turns its eye on some of the funniest and most creative fitness ads.
    • “Don’t Measure Success by Follower Counts” and other tips for small businesses still getting used to social media and what it can and can’t do for them.
    • Although it sounds as if it could be turned into an Onion article itself, it’s true: “content marketers” of all stripes can learn a lot about how the faux news provider creates its stories. Hint: lots of ideas, headlines, and stories get axed.
    Gunsworthy4
    Comment

    Social Media Remorse–It’s Preventable!

    on April 18, 2011

    Gunsworthy7

    Today we welcome to The Hired Gun blog family Daryl Lang, who blogs about copywriting at Breaking Copy and whose day job is as senior copywriter at Shutterstock. His monthly column, Think First Then Type, will cover tips and techniques to help you use language more effectively at work–after all, even the best and brightest ideas won’t catch on if you can’t get them understood.

    Social media can be a real love-fest. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have opened new channels to reach people we care about, both personally and professionally. But you can kill the good vibes when you spark an ugly online fight or post a status update that accidentally offends someone. Call it social media remorse. Symptoms include pangs of regret, profuse sweating, and a knot in the pit of your stomach.

    Luckily, it’s within your power to avoid social network-induced stress (Twulcers?). Just slow down and think about what you write. Here are a few more tips to prevent social media remorse.

    1. Be your best self. Let people hear your voice when they read your posts. Share what you love and what you know best. Use short words and breezy sentences. When your personality and expertise shine through, people connect with you in a positive way.    Read More →

    Gunsworthy7
    Comment

    Where the Money’s At: Why Facebook’s Valuation Looks More Realistic Every Day

    on April 14, 2011

    Gunsworthy14

    We hear a lot these days about Internet behemoths like Google, Apple and Microsoft–along with that relative up-and-comer Facebook. The first three companies I mention are worth $186B, $305B and $219B, respectively–they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

    But I think lots of people have grossly underestimated Facebook. There’s lots of confusion about a $70B valuation for a company involved in a pretty squishy line of work–”social media.” But people are missing the bigger picture. Facebook has 600 million users, and that figure is growing. People who predict its demise perhaps continue to think of it as just status updates. But it’s a lot more than that, and it doesn’t hurt Facebook’s market share that millennials are happy to concede privacy for ubiquity; indeed, many find the very idea of privacy quaint.

    Facebook sits on, I think, a far more valuable data set than the giants–it has a wealth of information about people, information that by and large is contributed voluntarily. Let’s agree that, on its surface, Facebook is as easy a company to mock as it is to admire. Many think that Facebook has taken advantage of unsustainable trends, and like Myspace before it, it’s destined to fall to earth. But that’s a mistake born of thinking of Facebook simply as a way for friends to chat with friends.    Read More →

    Gunsworthy14
    Comment

    Bullet Points: Get LinkedIn on Your Side

    on March 23, 2011

    Gunsworthy3
    Gunsworthy3
    Comment

    Bullet Points: Social-Media Pitfalls, Horrible Resumes, and Long-Haul Careers

    on March 17, 2011

    Gunsworthy2

    Gunsworthy2
    Comment

    Welcome to Our New Site and Blog

    on March 8, 2011

    Gunsworthy7

    Dearest Guns,

    Thank you for your patience. We’ve ripped off the Band-Aid and are finally proud to show off our big new beautiful site. We couldn’t have done it without you.

    What’s behind all the change? The drive to build a new kind of experience came out of having a whole lot of pent-up ideas about the future of work — we needed to bust them out. And we were feeling a little confined–we wanted to have a two-way conversation with you guys, and our last site wasn’t set up for that.

    Enter: the idea of getting our own blog on. Thrilling, terrifying, the right thing. We teach a class on it, for God’s sake. But suddenly we had a case of the jitters. Our big concern, the one many companies have, is can we sustain it? Nothing is more annoying than a corporate blog where the content doesn’t change. And so while we were waiting out the worst recession since the depression, like all of you, we decided to get to test out some of our ideas on Twitter. Doing so helped us build our confidence (thank you, Biz Stone). We learned what you guys cared about and what you didn’t. And the exercise itself helped us to discover career content everywhere — in pop culture, in the economy, in the tales you lived to tell from the job-hunting front lines. Of course, not everything can be said in 140 characters, which is why after 18 months of active tweeting we’re ready for the next step. Hopefully you will be too.

    You’ll see a few big changes on the site:     Read More →

    Gunsworthy7
    Comment

    Product Management, User Experience, Information Architecture, Interaction Design, Usability Testing

    Project Management, Program Management, Production, Content Production

    Animation, Art Direction, Creative Direction, Corporate Identity, Flash Design/Dev, Graphic Design, Web Design

    Content Strategy, Editorial, Copywriting, Copy Editing, Research, Blog Outreach

    Brand Management, Business Development, Sales, Product Marketing, Event/Conference Planning, Promotions, Marcomms, Corporate Comms, Direct Marketing, E-Marketing, Public Relations, Market Research

    Account Management, Account/Brand Planning, Media Strategy, Communications Planning, Media Planning/Buying, Social Media, Search (SEM, SEO), Web Metrics & Analytics

    Web Development, Front End Development

    [no subcategories]

    close

    We're sorry, we could not retrieve the gun you were looking for. Please close this window and try again.

    Thanks for your interest in our talent! We'll be in touch soon.

    An error occurred and we weren't able submit your request. Please try again.

    close

    We have but one over-arching rule for comments: Do not add to the chaos of the universe.

    • This blog is devoted to developing a point of view around the Future of Work through the lens of the digital creative class. It offers some of the best career writing out there to help you get ahead as well as some brand new bloggers livin' the dream and tellin' it like it is. We encourage you to use the comments to drive conversations to the next level, bounce ideas off our bloggers, challenge them, and engage in dialogue with your fellow readers.
    • Disagreement is fine. If one of our bloggers gets your goat, say so, but elevate the conversation. Substantiate. Strive to teach. Your words might actually change someone's opinion. Don't just rant.
    • Sign your name. Anonymity makes you a wimp.
    • If you're just commenting to get your handle out there, please be clever about it. Or witty. We'll delete unimaginative self-promotion.
    • We'll also likely delete comments that are vulgar, inadvertently or maliciously off-topic, spammy, creepy or sloppy.
    close