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Larry Smith: On Tomorrow’s Class, Knowing Yourself, and Keeping it Simple

The Hired Guns on September 18, 2012

We sat down with Larry Smith, our coach for tomorrow’s What’s Your Story? course, to talk about work, life, and presenting it all in just six words.

What is a Six-Word Memoir®?
Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write a story in only six words. As the legend goes, he wrote: “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.” In November 2006, at the online storytelling community I founded called SMITH Magazine, we gave the six-word story a personal twist, calling it a “Six-Word Memoir.” (And partnering with a little-know company called Twitter for what was supposed to be just a one-month contest to win an iPod). The idea is as simple as it sounds: tell the story of your life in exactly six words. Those six words can be an attempt to sum up your whole life — think of it as the title of your autobiography or epitaph on your tombstone, as Mario Batali did when he wrote, “Brought it to a boil often” — or one aspect of your personal life (“According to Facebook we broke up”) or professional life (“I tell amazing stories in PowerPoint”).

How does it help professionals refine their personal brand?
The parameters of just six words help you get to the essence of who you are and what you do best. Ever notice that the higher up you get on the ladder, the shorter your emails and meetings can be? Being brief, precise and very much in tight control of your own personal story is a boon for anyone in any part of their life — from your online dating profile to your resume. Read More →

Six-word CVs, Four New Classes, and One Chance to Win.

The Hired Guns on September 14, 2012

As impossible as it may seem, summer’s already over. It’s time to put away the board shorts and flip flops and start thinking seriously about honing your professional skills. But unlike your kids, your fall schedule has something to look forward to. This fall, The Hired Guns Academy offers four distinct courses to help you take the next step in your career.

First off is What’s Your Story? Master the Art of the Elevator Pitch and Harness the Power of Short-Storytelling. On Wednesday, September 19, Larry Smith, founder of SMITH magazine and author of It All Changed in an Instant: More Six-Word Memoirs by Writers Famous & Obscure, helps you hone your “elevator pitch” and teaches you how to make it “flex” depending on the audience you’re speaking to and the stage of your career you’re in, so people remember your name and what you do best. Sign up here.

But wait – there’s more (yes, we just went there.) We want you to take a crack at crafting your own six-word CV. Make them funny, make them heart-wrenching, make them suit-and-tie serious — just make sure they sell you in just six words. Tweet them @TheHiredGuns using #6wordCV, email them to us at hired.guns.editorial@gmail.com, or just leave them in the comments below. The best six-word CV, as determined by our eminently qualified and highly vetted panel of celebrity judges, wins free admission to Larry’s September 19 class. We’ll share the best submissions on our blog, but only the best six words will win. Read More →

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

The Hired Guns on September 7, 2012

When 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 →

NPR’s #PubJobs: A Case Study in Recruiting with Twitter

The Hired Guns on March 22, 2012

Writing for MediaShift, NPR’s director of talent acquisition, Lars Schmidt, lays out a successful Twitter strategy he used to publicize and fill openings at the company.

First, he promoted the use of the hashtag #PubJobs for any jobs in public media — wherever they were. By also getting American Public Media and local public-radio and -TV stations on board, Lars not only helped fill NPR’s own openings but also helped get “great talent in the system” in general.

Since the launch of #PubJobs last June, the hashtag has appeared in over 700 tweets by 130 unique contributors. Roughly 60% of them were retweets, which Lars believes points up the “virility” and “visibility” of the campaign. And as far as ways to use social media to get the right people to keep your company in mind, it definitely beats asking applicants for their Facebook passwords ….

Twitter’s Ultra-Cheesy Recruiting Video

The Hired Guns on January 31, 2012

They wanted to make the “best/worst recruiting video of all time.” Mission accomplished?

[via TLNT]

Bullet Points: Keeping Morale High w/o Raises; Office Party Drinking, Chartified

The Hired Guns on December 16, 2011

“Don’t show ‘em the money (even if you have it).” How to boost work morale, even if a raise isn’t in the cards. [Inc.]
“How to Make the Case for Higher Pay” [NYT]
Revolution made #Egypt one of the top Twitter hashtags of 2011, and Charlie Sheen did the same for #tigerblood, which seems to still be winning. [BBC]
Sarcasm can be hard to convey in tweets, IMs, and emails. Enter the Sarcastic font, which leans left, the opposite of italic, like this:

[via The Next Web]

Grub Street asks and answers the classic question: “How Drunk Can You Get at Your Office Christmas Party?” See also our advice on Making a Lasting Impression at Your Holiday Party.
Arcade Fire’s latest video, for its song “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains)” uses Flash to let you make the creepy masked dancers be your puppets. The most fun option requires you to crank up your computer’s webcam and make increasingly frantic and embarrassing gestures, though, so maybe save it for lunch, or a really dull point at that party. [via Slate]

Bullet Points: Twitter’s New Look, and the Backlash Against Bizspeak Blather

The Hired Guns on December 9, 2011

In what’s being seen as a play to fend off Facebook and Google Plus, Twitter has given itself some new bells and whistles. An international rollout will include personal profile pages and timelines, and new ways to find tweets you might be interested in. More from the Wall Street Journal (on what it means for the company) and Lifehacker (on the changes themselves).
The CEO of the French tech firm Atos hasn’t used email since he got the position three years ago. Now he’d like to make the company’s 74,000 other employees do the same, at least for internal emails. Instead, they might use an in-house wiki and IM, along with other tools.
Dan Pallotta looks at the horrors of lousy, meaningless business expressions: “You will gain tremendous credibility, become much more productive, make those around you much more productive, and experience a great deal more joy in your working life if you look someone in the eye after hearing one of these verbal brain jammers and tell the person, “I don’t have any idea what you just said to me.” [HBR]
The plans for Apple’s supercollider-shaped headquarters include lots and lots of fruit trees, as well as gardens, a fountain, and an open-air amphitheater. [Forbes]
The Freelancers Union’s Sara Horowitz talks health insurance with the New York Times’ David Bornstein: “Many people believe that there are only two options for health care: the current, for-profit, dysfunctional, system where costs are spiraling out of control, and a single-payer system. . . I believe there is another strategy where civil society (such as nonprofits, social-purpose businesses and other institutions) create a new support system to get their basic needs met. The reality is that government is subsidizing less and less. . . it’s unrealistic to think that government will be able to fund and operate a single-payer health care system in the next three to five years.”
From Hired Gun pal, John Vorwald: Budget Travel’s newest list of the World’s Weirdest Hotels.

Bullet Points: When Twitter’s More Trouble Than It’s Worth

The Hired Guns on November 16, 2011

“[My] habit started to feel less like a rush and more like a burden. Instead of tweeting to reflect on my life, tweeting had become my life. I began to think seriously about giving it up.”
Could a company force a departing employee to hand over the personal Twitter account he used on the job? Probably not, but it’s a grey area….
A survey of 72,000 people, conducted by TNS Digital Life, found that consumers’ feelings about interacting with company brands on social networks varied widely by country. Those in developed markets, including North America and Europe, had the most “resistance to both buying and engaging with brands” on Twitter, Facebook, and the like. You can find out more tidbits from the survey in The Next Web and in the teaser video below.

Bullet Points: New York City’s Twitter-Addicted Masses

The Hired Guns on October 10, 2011

It’s not your imagination: New Yorkers really do love their Twitter. The very chatty city has more users of the microblogging service than any other city. [The Next Web]
Semi-related, perhaps: Twitter still has a ways to go to convince advertisers that it’s a good place for their message. [Business Insider]
Some bad news on the compensation front . . . . “The incomes of U.S. workers, adjusted for inflation, fell even more rapidly since the rebound began in the summer of 2009 than during the recession itself, according to a new study.” [Reuters]
And here’s a groundbreaking approach to the job interview — but be warned, results may vary:

[Via Stuff I Stole from the Internet]

Bullet Points: Monster’s LinkedIn Killer; Google Enemies; Job Interview Pitfalls

The Hired Guns on June 28, 2011

Monster starts its own job network, the Facebook app BeKnown. Now you can “manage your professional identity and your social identity in one place,” rather than through multiple sites and social networks. Yay? [Mashable]
CNET has a list of the companies that probably make up Google’s enemy list. And with company like this, it’s probably just an honor to be nominated.
Gen Y is spoiled and easily distracted. Gen X won’t stay for more than a few months (and they mope). Baby boomers, of course, are out of touch with current technology. Investing Answers has some good tips to avoid getting tarred with age-based stereotypes like these during job interviews.
Twitter launches #TfN, Twitter for Newsrooms, a website and guide to help media get even more acclimated to the microblogging site. Basic but useful. Berkeley’s J-school recently launched its own Twitter tutorial for journalists, too.
The New York Times ponders Klout and its potential weaknesses.
Would you fire the ranty Southwest pilot who complained about having to work with flight attendants who were a “continuous stream of gays and grannies and grandes”? The odd part is when he’s told that he’s transmitting his bitchy chitchat but keeps on talking …. [The HR Capitalist]

Storytelling in the Age of Data

Tom Burg on March 29, 2011

Today, as always, a big part of successful marketing is about telling stories that resonate with customers and business prospects. What’s changed is that the method for telling those stories is increasingly becoming based on data. In fact, Google recently started publishing a book (with companion website) on that very subject.

Ask yourself: where has the Internet created real value? It’s mainly been in data analysis. The technology platforms for social media, music downloads, movie streaming, ad serving, and site analytics all generate huge amounts of data. Buried inside this data are valuable business insights, if you can tease them out and package them in a way that people understand. In fact, it’s this move towards data insight and analysis that may end up saving some old-school industries. The New York Times in particular does a nice job showing how the 2011 federal budget is allocated and spent. It’s a lot easier to be shown how much money is tied up in non-discretionary spending than to be told about it, and it foretells the role our most important newspapers may play in the future. Read More →

Bullet Points: Jumping the NYT Paywall, a Slamdance Showing, and Boomers’ Blogs

The Hired Guns on March 28, 2011

Mark Cenderella, CEO, of TheLadders.com, talks about ways that Baby Boomers and others can fight against ageism when applying for a job: “Today to stay relevant with the newest generations, you have to have a blog or a Twitter account . . . . Expressing yourself and your own interests is what people can relate to whatever it is. Actually, sometimes the kookier it is the better.”

An amazing but completely impractical answer to the problem of boring business cards.

The New York Times paywall goes up today, and that means that unless you pay (and perhaps you should!), you’ll only be able to read 20 articles a month. But because the Old Gray Lady doesn’t want to leave any possible pageviews on the table, she’d decided that even after you use up your monthly 20, you’ll still be able to read any article you reached via blogs, Twitter, Facebook, or the like. Enter the Twitter account @timeswiretap, which links to every Times article published and can therefor help you vault right over this rather complicated paywall. [via Mike Allen.]

This Thursday brings a special showing of Bhopali at New York’s IFC Center. The film was a Grand Jury Prize Winner and Audience Award Winner at this year’s Slamdance, Sundance’s less-corporate cousin.

Gunsworthy

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Archive

Larry Smith: On Tomorrow’s Class, Knowing Yourself, and Keeping it Simple

Six-word CVs, Four New Classes, and One Chance to Win.

NPR’s #PubJobs: A Case Study in Recruiting with Twitter

Twitter’s Ultra-Cheesy Recruiting Video

Bullet Points: Keeping Morale High w/o Raises; Office Party Drinking, Chartified

Bullet Points: Twitter’s New Look, and the Backlash Against Bizspeak Blather

Bullet Points: When Twitter’s More Trouble Than It’s Worth

Bullet Points: New York City’s Twitter-Addicted Masses

Bullet Points: Monster’s LinkedIn Killer; Google Enemies; Job Interview Pitfalls

Storytelling in the Age of Data

Bullet Points: Jumping the NYT Paywall, a Slamdance Showing, and Boomers’ Blogs

Gunsworthy

Sara Horowitz: On Independence, the Future of Work, and Her New Book
by Ryan Galloway

Big Data in Adland: Lip Service Galore, but Little Execution
by Danny Flamberg

Three Personal Branding Tools You Should be Using Today
by Ryan Galloway

3 Convenient Illusions: The Frustrating State of Agency Innovation
by Danny Flamberg

Data Science for the Non-Scientists
by Tom Burg

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