It might sound like a dating site, but it’s not. RealMatch.com puts the hiring power back into the hands of the employer. Gosh, I love the internet!
If you’ve ever dealt with (or considered doing business with) a placement firm or online hiring website, you know how costly it can be. There’s a fee to place your opening or there’s a fee if you hire someone or there’s a fee for the fee. It’s nuts.
So it was coolio when I found out about RealMatch.com.
The deal is employers can post a job for free (nationwide or regional) and allow RealMatch’s “matching technology” to line up potential hires that are a good fit for the available position.
Employers can view the qualifications of applicants . . . for free. You read that right–for F-R-double-E!
Once an employer sees an applicant he or she wants to contact/interview, at that point the employer pays a minimal fee–like a paltry $40 to review three resumes. Schweet!
Gone are the days where employers have to follow a pay-per-post model. RealMatch.com is a stronger and better alternative to Monster.com. And once it becomes even more popular, it’ll be the clear solution for SMBs. Be an early adopter.
I’ve been meaning to share this information with you for some time now . . . oh, where does the time go?
Anyway, I was reading through the recent (OK, I know it’s from October!) Downtown Women’s Club “Online Networking: How Social is Your Media?” survey, and its results show that “businesswomen in all generations now prefer e-mail (82 percent) to the telephone (64 percent) when it comes to networking.”
I can honestly say I must agree. I see telephone calls as a bit of an intrusion, and I usually only pick up the phone when I’m totally “over” e-mail (which lasts about an hour or so) or if I feel that it would be quicker to communicate what I have to say by voice mail or speaking directly to the person.
People are doing exactly as Faith Popcorn predicted. We’re cocooning. We’re sitting at our desks, behind our computers and not answering our phones–at least, most of the time, I am–and I know I’m not alone.
I know that I mostly connect colleagues that I think need to meet one another–and they connect me to people they feel I need to meet–via e-mail. None of that calling back and forth stuff.
I recently had a very painful conversation with a businesswoman whom I respect immensely. She has a stellar track record, and I have watched her career skyrocket. I’ve always wanted to meet her. What made it so painful? The person who introduced us insisted that we talk on the phone.
Wrong move. I knew it was wrong when I agreed. It’s not that I didn’t want to meet her. Heck, no! I just think we should have built up our rapport a bit via e-mail first, and then we probably would have increased our chances of having a fabulous conversation–when it was time.
You can listen to all the pundits who say that e-mail is dead, but do so at your own peril.
That’s the title of a “fireside chat-ish” teleseminar that famed author and nationally recognized entrepreneur expert Barry Moltz and I will be having on Tuesday, Dec. 9 @ 11 a.m. EST.
Join us as we discuss how confidence, resiliency and failure can lead to social media success.
Using social media the right way is simple, but it’s not easy. It requires time, energy and an intricate knowledge of the appropriate resources. It’s the perfect inexpensive resource to use in a recession.
Learn how to use social media to help build your business at my complimentary teleseminar on Dec. 9. Your 10-second registration is here.
A snazzy employee incentive consulting firm, Snowfly Inc., has the answer to Dilbert’s dreams. They’ve “legalized” playing games on company time–and you might just get a promotion in the process. The games look a tad juvenile, but that’s the whole point, right? My word, I’m in the wrong business!
Here’s how it works:
A web-based software program designed by Snowfly allows your employees (with your approval, of course) to earn playing time on games online during work hours–with the goal of raising productivity and morale in their day. Winnings from game play are immediately posted to a Visa debit “game card,” which every player has.
The flagship product, Capstone (Bourne Identity, anyone? Whoops that’s TREADstone . . .), provides random point-yielding games and real-time results to maximize an employer’s ROI. Games can be played from any browser with internet access, desktop, a kiosk in the break room, lunchroom or from home.
Surprisingly, employees lose very little work time. Keep in mind, they are awarded playing time only if they have performed well first. Ahhh, dangling the old carrot. And they spend fewer than 12 minutes per week playing games, redeeming points and logging goal accomplishments.
Loads of REAL companies are using Snowfly as an employee reward system and, whaddaya know, so far it’s working.
People who are allowed to play games as a reward for performance have higher productivity, higher morale and lower turnover. This is particularly true for Gen X & Y employees who grew up with the constant stimulation and immediate gratification of game playing. And 42 percent of employees who earn game tokens in the workplace take the tokens home and play them online with their children in exchange for chores, exercise and homework.
If you read my post a couple of weeks ago about Keeping Social Networking Simple, you know that I feel the pain of everyone who’s suffering from social media overwhelm.
The temptation with social media is to join every social networking community that launches, agree to blog for any company that will accept your posts, be a guest on anyone’s podcast and accept “friend” requests from people you barely know–with no visible results or connections–all in the name of being part of the conversation.
A few months later, you’re tired, stressed out and your business is suffering. You’re left wondering why your social networking efforts aren’t worth the megabytes they gobble up.
I’ll be leading a teleclass for the Downtown Women’s Club this Wednesday, November 19 at noon EST to show you specifically how to avoid that whole mess while still finding the time for social media. Yeah, you. The one sitting there reading this blog post.
Whether you’ve got five minutes or 50, I’m going to show you my personal low-tech, low-cost tips and tricks for getting the most out of social media while keeping your sanity in your back pocket.
According to a recent Jupiter Research survey, sharing personal information is the number-one reason consumers do not complete their purchases online. Quite understandably, they’re worried about their privacy — a concern that many smaller retailers with a lot on their plate tend to overlook. Tsk, tsk.
So what should you do? Do what I did, get the skinny on best practices for online retailers from one of the leaders in online privacy, Fran Maier, CEO of TRUSTe. (You know TRUSTe, it’s the one that gives you that nifty privacy graphic for your website, like the one on the left.)
You say you don’t know Maier? Well, it always pays to go to the top. Here are some pearls of wisdom she shared with me the other day:
Hold onto your current customers tightly. That means better insights and better targeted messages, promotions and appeals. But it’s important to gather information about your customers in the right way. Collect data about your customers while staying compliant with privacy obligations, to gather more accurate data about your customers and ultimately serve them better.
Enhance privacy. Don’t let trust or privacy stand in the way of your brand reputation. Participating in a certification program like TRUSTe’s and displaying a trustmark on your online retail site shows your customers that their information is safe and protected. In a tough economy, many online retailers are tempted to cut corners and take less-than-ethical approaches to increasing sales: Make sure you’re the one who’s trusted.
Make your privacy statement both easy to read and easy to find. When your privacy statement is in straightforward language, your customer is more likely to feel confident, stay on your site and make a purchase.
If data spills, contact the trustmark organization immediately. Take the appropriate steps if there is a security breach; organizations like TRUSTe, are able to track those complaints so you can respond to your customers quickly.
Take advantage of your company’s reputation. Is your reputation rock-solid? If so, now is the time, with modest investment, to capitalize on that differentiator. If it isn’t, then your competition will have an easier time luring your customers away and converting new prospective customers.
There are many talented graphic designers out there who would like to do some web work–but that means learning a whole new language . . . the language of web programming. Or does it?
I have just learned of a service that converts Photoshop files (PSD) into CSS-driven HTML files–no coding needed. It’s called PSD2CSS.
I did some poking around on the site, and it looks like it’s legit. The site offers video demos and tutorials along with helpful hints about how to make the most of all the service has to offer.
And best of all, it’s FREE.
Viven los robots!
Here’s what the site says about psd2css:
“psd2css Online is Software as a Service that converts your fantastic, creative, artistic, no holds barred web page designs into dynamic HTML and CSS web pages automatically. Use Photoshop or The Gimp to express yourself and create the most professional, aesthetically perfect, dynamic and functional designs you can think of. CSS stands or Cascading Style Sheets and is technically the best way to build your web pages.”
So if you’re a pro with Photoshop, but can’t or don’t have the desire to figure out how to code websites, your train just pulled in. Toot, toot!
Many of you might know that I’m also the social media strategy blogger for Girls in Tech, and there’s a big-deal award up for grabs, the 2nd annual Open Web Awards to be exact, and Girls in Tech wants to win it.
All you have to do in input your e-mail address below and hit send to make your vote count. Easy peasy. Don’t forget to click “Submit.” Thanks!
When my dear friend and blog strategy client, Harry Allen, sent me this link, I thought, “OK, Harry. . . and?”
But, as ever, Harry does things for a reason, so I decided to stop skimming The New York Times article about a credit card-sized projector and really read it.
The article is about the Optoma Pico Projector (about $400) that literally can fit in your shirt pocket. It connects to your cell phone, iPod and smart phone to project whatever’s on the device’s screen (clear that last text from your hubbie first!)
As someone who had had her share of projector madness while trying to deliver my fabulous presentations across the country, I really must say that this is a sight for sore eyes–pun intended.
David Pogue goes into all the nitty-gritty tech details in his article (like battery life, etc.), but I wanted to share this with you to ask the real question:
Now that many previously sizable machines are small, do women (myself included) still need to carry such huge purses?
If you want to keep social networking simple and you don’t want to be bogged down with other social networking sites and tools, it looks like LinkedIn is calling your name.
The folks at LinkedIn understand that today’s busy-ness professional is focused on how to do more with less and squeeze every bit of utility out of one tool. They’ve learned (sometimes the hard way) that it’s best to stick with one thing and master the heck out of it.
For the social networking newbie, you can’t beat LinkedIn to get started.
It doesn’t require a lot of money–I’ve had a free account for years and have used it to network just fine.
You create and update your own profile. You control whom you’re linked to and for how long.
You can build your network as large or as intimate as you like and be a “connector” by introducing people in your network to one another.
For increased visibility, you can create your own “R&D team” by asking timely, relevant questions and developing a dialogue with those who answer.
And, for all you Twitter-ized FriendFeed‘ers, if you’ve pooh-pooh’ed LinkedIn, its new offerings might be of interest:
The evening marks a celebration of entrepreneurial women and the community that supports their ventures.
The honorees include Maggie Wilderotter, chairman and CEO, Frontier Communications Corp., and Geraldine B. Laybourne, founder and former Cchairman and CEO, Oxygen Media.
And if that’s not sexy enough, guess who the special guest of the evening is? None other than Project Runway’s own Tim Gunn. Carry on, designers. Make it work.
Whether you believe that we’re in a tough economy or not, it’s always good business practice to think about how to streamline processes and make work flow actually flow–even if that means doing more with fewer resources.
I’m pleasantly surprised to see that the folks at PBWiki are addressing areas of concern for today’s businesses.
If you’ve ever wondered about wikis . . . what the heck they are, what they can do for your business and how they can help improve productivity, this webinar is for you.
The shindig goes down on Tuesday, October 21, at 1 p.m. EST–that’s tomorrow–and the best part is, you don’t have to go anywhere: Everything will be available online. So saddle up your computers and prepare to learn. Register for free today.
Sick of being confused about social media? Download your free Social Media Strategy Blueprint now! Visit xynoMedia.com to get the latest on Social Media Strategy Visit xynoMedia.com
If you’ve ever dealt with (or considered doing business with) a placement firm or online hiring website, you know how costly it can be. There’s a fee to place your opening or there’s a fee if you hire someone or there’s a fee for the fee. It’s nuts.
Women’s Club 
So what should you do? Do what I did, get the skinny on best practices for online retailers from one of the leaders in 
