Week 14- Analysis of Chapters 11, 12, and Pink Pages of "What Color is Your Parachute"

Chapters 11 and 12 in What Color is Your Parachute deal with choosing or changing your career, and starting your own business. The pink pages give tools to help: find your direction in life, deal with your feelings, and choosing a career counselor if you decide that is the best option. These two chapters show steps to choose or change a career and how to go about that. Also it outlines what must be accomplished in order to start a business for yourself. The pink pages are end tools that sum up what the book is about. These pages give references to places to go to get help if you are looking for outside help finding a job or getting advice.

Chapter 11 is about the 5 ways to choose or change your career. The five ways are: the internet, test, using the flower exercise, changing a career in two steps, and finding out what the job market will need. The first three steps are how to choose a career, the last two steps are how to change your career. When looking to choose a career the first way is to use the internet. The internet is a great tool to look for an array of jobs that interest you or that you think could be a good fit. The next way is tests. These tests are more like assessments in order to see what potential fields would best suit you, so that when you look for a job, you know where to start looking. All of these assessments are unique and offer advice in a different way. Another tip to think about is keeping an open mind to the results, don't go in with a predetermined outcome that you want. Finally, be sure to take multiple assessments since not all will be the same. This way you can get a wide array of potential ways to go. Finally, when looking to choose a career, you can also use the flower exercise. This tool is extremely useful when looking at what you personally are looking for in a job. This will show you what fields you should be hunting in so that you can find the job that suits you the best. The next two steps show how to change your career. When looking at your current credentials, you have to evaluate what skills you have and how you can take these skills and transfer them to another job. You have to change your job and your field. In order to do this the best, being able to claim prior experience will help you be able to change. The final way to change your career is to find out what the job market will need. Doing research to see what are hot jobs on the current market will help you see if what you want to do is a job that is in high demand. Doing continuous research will help you see when your job is a hot job and that is when you should move to change.

Chapter 12 is about how to start your own business. This chapter starts off with a few different case studies of if starting a business is as hard as people think. The three case studies show that in order to thrive, a few things were noticed. None of the people in the cases had a lot of money to start, they all did extensive research to make sure their business would work, and none of them went down a traditional route to start. After the case studies, the book outlines that to start, a person needs to write down ideas, skills, passions, and if anyone will pay you to do the things you have written. After that you need to read and research. Try to find any businesses that do what you want to do and see how they started. Finding examples can be helpful when looking for a way to start. Finally, exploring: what the business requires to run successfully, what skills you have, and the skills you do not have and need to find people that do. Doing this will allow you to cover all the areas that your business will need in order to run successfully.

The pink pages are essentially tools to help sum up the main points of the book. The first main part is finding out what your mission is in life. This means finding out what you believe in and are passionate about and finding a career that suits your beliefs. The way to find your mission is outlined by evaluating yourself outside and in. Knowing what you are at your core is essential to finding your mission. After this evaluation, seeing where you fit in to the job market will allow you to see what type of jobs you should be interested in. The next main part of the Pink Pages is dealing with your feelings outside of work. This just tells you ways to relax yourself so that you are not stressed or angry out of work. Things such as catching up on sleep, exercising, talking to family or friends, or even finding a way to vent your anger are all things that will keep you in balance so you can do your best work. The last part of the Pink Pages is choosing a career counselor if you desire. This section gives a list of all the career counseling places around the United States. If you feel like going to one of these places will help you find your dream job, there is the list to find the closest one to you.

These chapters and parts finish up the book What Color is Your Parachute. This book is the ultimate tool in order to find yourself and to find the type of jobs that would best suit you. Now, jobs are seen as something to be done just to be done. This book breaks that mold and pushes people to pursue jobs that they actually care about and want to do.

Week 13- Analysis of Chapters 9 & 10 of "What Color Is Your Parachute"

These two chapters in What Color is Your Parachute are about choosing a job that suits your individual strengths, weaknesses, and passions and dealing with any handicaps or weaknesses that you may have. Chapter nine is about how to choose a job that suit you as an individual. This means that instead of just looking for a job just for the sake of getting a job, but keep hunting for a job that is tailored to you as an individual. To do this there are a few guidelines and helpful tips that need to be looked at in order to optimize the amount of jobs that are available. Chapter ten is all about dealing with personal handicaps and weaknesses. When the book talks about handicaps, it does not exclusively mean physical or mental handicaps. These can be anything, such as: not graduating high school or college, you think you are too fat or too thin, you have never held a consistent job, you you are too shy or even if you have a prison record. All of these things need to be recognized so that you can get over them, and you potential employer can see that you have overcame these handicaps.

Chapter nine starts off with talking about five steps to take when looking for a job that suits you. These five steps are: finding out what careers you flower (from the previous chapters) points to, trying on some of these jobs before deciding to pursue one, finding out which organizations have jobs that suit you, finding names of particular places that interest you, and thoroughly researching the particular place before approaching them. The first step shows how to analyze your flower that you made from the previous chapters and see where there are either overlaps in your flower, or if you have knowledge in a specific field. All of these things can be used to see in what direction you should start to look. The second step is trying on a job before deciding what to pursue. This means that you should look at all options that your flower points to in order to see the whole spectrum of potential jobs. The book gives an example of trying on dresses before buying one, you look at all the options before the final decision. The third chapter is about finding what organizations in general have jobs that match your wants. This step takes research to see exactly what your options could be. You might find out that there are places that match your criteria that are non-profits. This shouldn't dissuade you from trying it out. There are many places that could potentially match what you are looking for. The next step is finding particular places near you that are potential options. You will be going from a broad spectrum of places that fit your flower to a very narrow list of places when you start to be specific. The book starts with an example that goes from: finding a place that hires welders, to a place that hires welders in the San Jose area, to a place that hires welders in the San Jose area with less than 50 employees, to a place that hires welders in the San Jose area with less than 50 employees that makes wheels. This shows that it goes from a large grouping to a very select group. But finding the few companies in this smaller group makes for more of a connection. The final step talks about doing extensive research about the particular place where you are going to approach. You will want to know just about everything you can find about the particular company. This shows that you have an interest and want to come in and help. It shows that you are looking for more than a job, you want to find a job that you are passionate about.

Chapter ten starts with an entire list of potential handicaps or weaknesses that could be applicable to anyone. After that the book states that you as a job hunter cannot generalize about employers. This means that just because you have certain handicaps and have been turned down from a job doesn't mean that another employer will think the same way. Every employer is different and will look at you in a different way. The next thing the book talks about is that every person has a handicap. Everyone has a weakness that they must come to terms with. After a few pages of self evaluation to see what each individual thinks are handicaps, the book goes on to talk about potential employer prejudices. Some of these prejudices include: you being out of work too long, racial, religious, or sexual stereotypes, being  a returning veteran, being an ex-offender, or former mental or psychiatric patients. Even with these handicaps the book divulges how to beat these handicaps. The last thing the book addresses is beating shyness. Being able to mask your shyness or nervousness is a major way to be able to break this handicap.

These two chapters discussed  show very different, but yet still important areas where people can better themselves in order to start going in a direction that will end with them in a job. Knowing what you want to do and what types of jobs match what you want to do will ultimately help you find a job that makes you excited to go to work. Also knowing what your weaknesses are helps you see what you need to do in order to break your handicaps and go get a job that you want.

Week 12- Analysis of Chapters 5-8 in "What Color Is Your Parachute"

This week is a continuation of analyzing What Color Is Your Parachute and this week chapters five through eight will be discussed. Last week spoke about the importance of realizing that the job hunting ways have changed and that people need to adapt to these changes in order to have a better chance to get a job. This week however speaks about things such as salary negotiation, what to do when job hunting is not working, and two chapters that are a self inventory about each individual reader's strengths and weaknesses. These chapters help the reader see where they might need to improve specific skills in order to seem more appealing or apt for a job.

Chapter five starts out in dealing with how to successfully negotiate a fair salary. By successful, it means being able to get a fair wage, not pull more money from the company. When applying for a job, never bring up wages or salary until the interviewer has said that they want to hire you. This way you don't come off as cocky or arrogant. But occasionally interviewers will ask questions about wages and salary, and this chapter outlines responses that help with dealing with these questions. Some responses vary from general ranges of a fair wage to bringing up that discussing salary is premature. Another big tip is to never be the first one to bring up salary, again it makes you come off as arrogant and just in it for the money. Also researching a typical salary in the field makes it easier to answer questions about salaries if they arise. Knowing an average number will help you know if they are trying to low-ball you or if they see potential in you and are willing to pay more than average. These are all for when you are interviewing for the job. But after knowing that the company wants you, learning how to negotiate a salary however allows you to see how much a company will pay to get you. This shows you the interest level that they see in you. If they are willing to pay an arm and a leg for you, then they have a very high interest in you. A final tip is to get all agreements about salary written or typed and signed. Sometimes people forget what they say and it just isn't fair. Getting agreements in writing clears any type of problem there could be.

Being able to negotiate a fair wage is important, but what happens when job hunting just isn't working? This book has three rules and they all are: Never Give Up. There are plenty of jobs out there, you just have to know where and how to look for them. It also give two types of approaches to how to find a job, the traditional and the parachute methods. The traditional way is looking for jobs online or offline, seeing if any look interesting to you, then putting a resume together, and going in for an interview hoping to get the job. The parachute approach is much different. First you must look at yourself and see what your gifts are, what you love to do, and then seeing what types of jobs fit your gifts and loves. Then after doing this self evaluation, look for any organization or company that fits you. After finding one, go there in person, not a resume sent there, but in person and if you can get a bridge person, someone who knows you and someone for the company. LinkedIn is a great tool to help find bridge people. This approach makes the hunt more about you liking what you would be doing instead of just finding a job to do.

As stated earlier, the parachute approach needs a self evaluation in order to see what gifts you have and what you love. This can be hard to do especially if you don't know how to start a self evaluation. Luckily, chapters seven and eight are all about self evaluation and self inventory. Chapter seven lays out an outline of things you can do in order to start your self inventory. It also says that you must be critical and truthful about yourself in order for this to work. Being truthful helps you see what you can bring to the table and what you are passionate about, which will help you see what you want to do with your life. This tells you how you should be thinking when you are evaluating yourself. Chapter eight however, has open charts and other figures that were discussed in chapter seven, but now they are blank and are meant for the reader to fill out. Throughout the final chapter of this analysis, there are more than 15 charts and figures that give a complete evaluation of what you are, and what you want from a job. It shows your gifts and how you can use those gifts in a job. This chapter is meant for the reader to see who they are as a person and what they need to look for in a job, so when the right one comes, they know for sure that it is the job for them.

This week's chapters relied heavily on self inspection and seeing what you like and should look for when seeking a job. Knowing what your preferences are and how to use them for your advantage helps overall when looking for a job.

Week 11- First Chapters of "What Color is Your Parachute 2017"

Within the next few blog posts, I will be discussing and analyzing the book What Color Is Your Parachute by Richard Bolles and how it helps with the current job market and how to maximize your potential when it comes to things such as resumes, job hunting and interviews, and other helpful real world career tips. The first chapter starts off with a description of how this current job market and realm is changing and how we need to react and change in order to compete for jobs. The second chapter revolves around how Google is used as another tool that interviewers use in order to learn more about you. Chapter three is somewhat contradictory to the first chapter in saying that the job hunt has not changed since 2008, but in chapter one he talks about how the specifics of job hunting have changed, but in chapter three he starts talking about job hunting as a whole and how it as a science has not changed. In the final chapter for this week, chapter four gives a list of sixteen interviewing tips.

In chapter one Bolles starts off by talking about how the job market is changing and how we as potential job hunters need to adapt to these changes. He outlines these changes in seven broad headings that are as follows: employers changed, job hunters didn't; the length of the average job hunt has increased;the length of time the average job lasts has decreased; the way jobs are done is changing; job hunting is becoming more repetitive for more people; job hunting has moved more towards online, and job hunters and employers are speaking two different languages. His first point shows how the way people looked for jobs ten years back isn't going to work today. In order to optimize job hunting success. Also it shows that we look for jobs the same ways, but when employers need people, they change their ways of looking for people based on if they are in good times or if they are in bad times. The next point gives data that from 2008, there has been about a 20% increase in people that are unemployed and looking for jobs for more than a year. The third point shows the data about how the time on a job is decreasing. For different age groups there were upwards of 30% of people that have jobs that last less than a year. These numbers of decreasing time on the jobs has increased drastically, and the projections show that by 2020 about 40% of the US workforce will be part-time workers. The fourth point is that how jobs are being done is changing. This is prevalent due to the increase in technology. More and more things are being done by machines and computers which means that there are going to be less and less people needed to do the jobs. The fifth point is about how job hunting is becoming a repetitive task for most people. This is similar to point three since more people are out of work for longer periods, they job hunt on a regular basis. Another point is how job hunting is moving online. This is true since there are plenty of different job searching websites that offer people an array of available jobs in one easy to navigate website. The final point is how employers speak in such a way that the job hunters aren't able to understand completely what the employer wants. In order to stand out, the job hunters need to be accustomed to the talk of the trade and be able to communicate with the employer well.

The second chapter talks about how Google is being used in order to get more information about potential employees. A simple Google search can offer more than enough information about any person. And now with the clouded technology and an increase in social media, employers can see just about anything that a potential employee puts online. So this is saying that people have to be more careful about what they do and say online because one stupid or irresponsible action could cause for one person to be looked over even if they are extremely qualified for the position. But Google can also be used to help your odds of getting a job. Using tools such as LinkedIn and other forms of social media, you can showcase what your skills are and how you can be a huge help to any company. Looking professional and having superior writing skills make any profile look exponentially better, so taking time into making any type of social media page that shows up on Google can be the difference between getting a job and still having to hunt for one.

Chapter three details how job hunting in general is a science had that aspect of it hasn't changed and probably won't change. Earlier in chapter one, Bolles spoke about how specific things about job hunting have changed and how the hunters need to adjust. But this chapter talks about the general idea of job hunting and how it hasn't changed. The essence of job hunting will never really change due to the fact that people will always be looking for jobs and employers will always be looking for people to hire.

The final chapter of this discussion gives sixteen interviewing tips and hints on how to prepare and excel in interviews for jobs. What was shown throughout this chapter were general tips such as prepare for every interview, average times that each person should talk, and other helpful tips that will ultimately help and interviewee nail any interview. One of the more helpful tips that I took from this section was the one that states that small non-verbal things that can kill an interview. Things ranging from appearance, nervousness or lack of self confidence, to your personal values. All of these things can kill an interview if not diligently done.

These first four chapters really helped lay a groundwork into how the current job market is changing and how we need to adapt to it in order to help our chances of getting a job. If we as job hunters can see these adaptations and make necessary adjustments we can get our foot in the door to our dream job. These tips and helpful hints give an insight to help people get ahead in life.

Week 10- Six Predictions About Digital Marketing

The world of Digital Marketing is always growing and always changing. In order to keep up with the latest trends and forms of communication on social media, marketers need to be able to understand social media and be able to forecast how it will change next. This post is about six predictions about the Digital Marketing world. The six predictions are: Less articles and more interactive content, creating and distributing content through a group not personally, paying for ads in order to be seen, using influencer marketing, not counting on Google as main website for traffic, and multiple channel communication with customers.

With how people want news on the go and quick, there is less and less time for lengthy articles and ads. What may happen is there might be more things such as short quizzes and surveys that people can create to get people looking due to the quick and simple nature of the interactive material. This could happen since people don't like to be held up in things for more than five minutes usually and the interactive material makes it so that the audience is constantly doing something and engaged so they can retain what they see.

The next prediction is that personally creating and distributing your content will no longer be effective. More and more marketers are using third party groups to help aid in the creation and distribution of ads. Working with these groups helps marketers stay in the game when it comes to other marketing firms trying to compete with them. These groups also do a majority of the "dirty" work, so when a marketing firm hires these groups, they are collaborating to get the most amount of work done.

A third prediction is that most ads are being paid for now on free platforms of social media. Sure, using social media as a way to get your name, product, and ads out in the digital world is useful. But the companies that can afford to pay for ad space, which is most of the big marketing firms, are able to reach a greater number of people since they pay for ad space. It is hard to compete with that when you are a smaller group and you don't have the funds to pay for spaces. But most places now are moving towards paying due to the fact that if they don't then they are just getting further and further behind the competition.

Another prediction is that influencer marketing is being more of a requirement. Influencer marketing is partnering with other non-competing leaders in your space and using them to help spread your message. It is hiring an outside group that isn't in competition with you in order to influence others to look at your group or ad. This is very useful especially if the group that you partner with is well known. This way with the help of their social media, your message can reach a greater number of people.

A fifth prediction is that Google will not be a main website for traffic. Google is very useful, but like everything, it changes. And when Google goes through its internal changes to their programming and other things, it will essentially cut your traffic. Also due to the number of groups that have paid for ad spacing withing your area are all competing for the top paid ad spot and this will end up costing you more and more money to keep the same ad space.

The final prediction is that groups will personalize conversations with customers across multiple channels. This means that the group will have a lot of customers that will be trying to reach out to them and communicate with them. What might happen is that marketers will now have more personal conversations with each client in order to create a better connection and build trust between marketer and client.

These predictions are pretty sound and most likely will happen. Seeing this ahead of time and starting to see how you and your group will handle these changes is key and will help with your group being the most to-date group in the market.

Week 9- Current State of Social Media

Social media is a large part of everyday life not only in America, but all over the world. It is becoming more and more of a norm for people to be enveloped by social media. Throughout the world, there is an array of information and graphs to show exactly how much time and effort people put into social media. After looking through the data, some of the numbers are shocking to say the least. Not only the quantity of people that are using social media, but also the amount of time that people are spending on these different forms is ridiculous. 

Out of all of the continents in the world, Asia racks up the total number of people that use social media by a landslide. Asia totals around 1.2 billion people that are active social media users. This means that 1.2 billion people are at least on one form of social media. Europe comes in a far second with around 400 million active users. North America has around 213 million users. These numbers are staggering, and the numbers show that of all of the different forms of social media, Facebook is the most popular out of all of the different forms. Studies show that around 1.6 billion people are active users of Facebook. The next biggest form of social media is WhatsApp with just about 1 billion active users. But these forms of social media aren't only used for leisure, but businesses also use them to promote their products. 

Businesses also use social media both to help connect to other businesses and consumers. The top four platforms for business to business marketing are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. Above 80% of businesses use the first three forms of social media to connect with other businesses. But when it comes to business to consumer marketing Facebook and Twitter are the only big players in terms of percentages of businesses that use them to market. Due to what form of social media Facebook and Twitter are, it is easier for a business to market through them, since they easily connect businesses to consumers very rapidly and make communication between the two simple. 

Finally, the amount of time that marketers spend using social media is staggering. 34% of marketers say that they spend one to five hours a week dedicated to social media marketing. 24% say that they spend six to ten hours weekly. The third biggest bracket is 21% spending eleven to twenty hours weekly. These numbers show that there is a growing importance of social media marketing. 

Marketers realize that this isn't a trend that will go away, but a lifestyle that needs to be adapted to in order to stay on top of certain markets. With the advances in technology and growing importance of electronics and on the go lifestyles, social media marketing is here to stay. For more information about the current state of Social Media Marketing, use the following link to see all of the information available. 

http://www.marketingprofs.com/chirp/2016/30655/the-state-of-social-media-marketing-infographic 

Week 8- Marketing Adapting to Digital Age

In today's day in age, technological advances have allowed for some great things. These advances have especially helped in the marketing world. Digital Marketing is now becoming one of the more preferable and utilized ways of marketing. Now everyone is on their phones, tablets, laptops, and other electronics, which makes the old way of marketing through channels such as magazines and TV commercials almost futile. Marketers have seen this trend and have taken notice. Within the last 5-10 years, marketing has gone from the old ways to the new digital way.

According to a very well experienced marketer, Geoff Ramsey, what used to work just simply won't work now. He said that back from the 80's to the 2000's an ad or a commercial could reach about 50% or more of a certain target audience. Now that is all but useless due to the fact that everyone is on their electronic devices and really pay no attention to ads in magazines or on TV. This shift isn't easy for the Digital Marketers though. Ramsey went on to say that it is very difficult to reach your target audience with only a few channels. It will take numerous channels just to make sure that people see your ad. But seeing how people are always glued to their electronics, it is easier to transition from the old style of ads, to the electronic and app-based ads that will pop up during the use of a certain app.

Ramsey goes on through his interview to say that there is more need for specialists to help mold an ad into something that is good for people that use certain devices, or use different forms of channels. There is a lot more ambiguity compared to that of a magazine ad that has a clear cut buyer and target audience.  What is happening now is that there is a lot of market fragments that come up due to the numerous digital and electronic channels, and what eMarketers need to do is study and analyze what groups and types of people are looking at certain channels and how to best market to these people. There is a lot more that goes into Digital and Electronic Marketing than what people think. People just see annoying commercials that pop up during their time playing an app, but actually it is a culmination of different studies and analyses that are used to best market a certain product or service to the people using those apps.

In today's world, there are a lot of new and exciting advances in technology and people are learning to use these advances to market to people better. What needs to be known, is that due to the capacity to what these electronics can do, there is a large fragmentation in how marketers reach out to people now. It is not as cut and dry as it used to be, there is a lot more studies that go into making an electronic ad. And to read the rest of this eMarketing interview, use the link below to see the rest.

 http://www.emarketer.com/Article/eMarketers-Geoff-Ramsey-on-Marketings-Adaptation-Digital-Age/1013913