Here is what I observed:

The general professionalism of the better candidates was…better.  Does this seem obvious?  Possibly, but what I am talking about is simple things like voicemails and formats of email addresses.

Emails: One of the emails contained the following:  DaddySpankU@(email domain.com). This was in application for a Director level position.  The resume contained the minimum level of experience, but I had to ask myself, “what is this persons level of professionalism?”.  In the end, I don’t care, I’m not going to roll the dice with this person.

Voicemail recordings: Next, I called a candidate and got a voicemail with dogs barking, an obvious party going on in the background.  Again, not professional.   BTW, he also sounded as if he had at least a six pack in him, slurring his words.

Poor Voicemail message: “Yeah, high um, I like got your message and I ahh will send you my resume…. blah blah blah”.   Message deleted.

Voicemail message with no recording:  “You have reached the voicemail number 414-555-1212…etc”.  My goodness, if you are applying for a sales or customer facing position, record a voicemail so people know they are talking to. I want to hear how professional you sound.

Funny voicemail: “If you are driving or over 30 send me an email later.  If you are under 30, send me a text message”.  I liked this guy.  Shows some personality and that is better than an “UM,  Er, Ah, speaking dolt”.   Sales reps should have personality.

Facebook pages: I don’t care if you have a tattoo on your ass.  But putting it as your *Profile* photo on Facebook is a bad choice.  This lady did not get a call.  Ok, nice photo, but I don’t want you representing my company.  Mrs. politically correct in Human Resources may tell you different that you can’t be discriminated against due to something on your Facebook page.  Reality: your application will be deleted and you will never find out why.  No call.  No job.  No explanation.

Regarding your resume.  For the experienced people… dates like 2010-2011 is a huge red flag.  That could be December 2010-Jan 2011.  Fill in all dates.  Good interviewers will ask you to account for all dates and gaps in your work history.  Did you take a 4 months off to travel Europe?  Don’t hide it.  This is a positive thing. What did you learn and grow from it?

Don’t lie.  You will get caught and there is no excuse.  In the first 10 phone interviews, I caught a few people in lies.  The interview immediately ended.  People lie about stupid things.

Example:

“I made $55,000 last year. ”

“Are you sure about that”,  I ask

“Yes.  It might have been a little more.”  (then I got a detailed description of the compensation).

I interjected.  “You do understand that we require copies of your last 3 years of W2 to verify past compensation”.

Pause… then. “Ok, then I only made $45,000 last year”.

“So you lied to me”.  I stated

“I just really wanted the job”.

I terminated the interview.  This is something that he should have learned in Kindergarten.  Funny thing is that his skills would have commanded the $55,000 he was looking for.

What it all comes down to empathy.  Job Applicants need to understand how each and every way you interact with a potential employer looks to the employer. Here are some take-aways.  There are many articles and tips and what to do and not to do.  Here are some of my pet-peeves.

• Have a professional email address.  DormStalker@gmail.com  FAIL.  Try something like First.Last@something.com
• Have a clear voicemail message. If your message includes “Um”,  “Er”, “Ah”, “you know”,  “like” (at the start of every sentence),  then re-record it.
• Fill in all dates on your resume.  If there is a gap, explain that gap.
• Spelling mistakes on a resume.  Have a friend proof-read it.  Yeah, I’m awful, but I have a job
• Unless you are prepared to forge W-2′s Don’t lie about compensation.  You will get caught when you are asked for proof.
• Do what you say you will do.  Return calls when you promise, send paperwork, etc.  Failing in what is required in the job application process is a huge red flag.
• Don’t treat my assistant rudely.  She has a copy of your resume and will write notes about how you engage her.  She is interviewing you too!
• Don’t lie.  What you think is important may not be.  Job applicants lie about the stupidest things.

This was last year’s Epiphany.

What led to the new epiphany was my pontificating on CRM systems.  This was a recruiter-centric talk about the future of recruiting.  Many recruiter CRMs have connections to LinkedIn profiles.   Every one of these, that I have seen, has been implemented incorrectly, not due to any fault of the vendors.  In an optimal situation, the data inside the Profile should be mashed up with current CRM data.  Instead, LinkedIn requires usage of their API which brings back a canned LinkedIn profile. This is what I call “social linkage”.

The optimal situation would be a pair of  “social agents”.  While a company may have 1000 company prospects  in their CRM, they may only contact 50 in a given day. One “social agent” would automatically refresh the entire CRM on a longer cycle such as once per quarter.  Another just-in-time social agent would update the CRM just before the outreach process.  Why is this important?  LinkedIn is not a definitive data-source; nothing is.  What happens when you combine Facebook, Google+, Jigsaw (now data.com), Foursquare, twitter and whatever social network Microsoft comes up with?  Are you going to clutter your Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics interface with 6-8 little snippets, much with redundant information?   This gets ugly fast.  The optimal implementation is to have a social agent retrieve LinkedIn, Data.com, Google+, Facebook, Twitter information.  Next, mash, score, apply analytics to present the information in a way that optimally fits your selling model.

What about Apps?

Enough setup.  First, I’m a huge iOS (iPhone/iPad) fan are there are some simply amazing apps out there.  Same thing for Android.  The iOS & Android AppStore model has really opened up a world of possibilities.  However, there is a problem.  While these Apps do great singular things, they do not communicate with each other.

That is a problem.

I’ll take FourSquare, the social check-in service, as an example.  Right now I’m at the SanFran airport.  When I got here, I had to open FourSquare on my iPhone, search for San Francisco International and check in.

This is why people get check-in burn out.  A check-in service is fun; keep track of your network of friends, compete for points, etc.  It should not be work.  Here is how it should work.

Build a special class of Apps called Agents.  Right now, there are Apps that can “push” notifications and work in the background, but that is limited.  An Agent would be able to interact with other Apps.  Example:  A Foursquare Agent could track my location and push check-ins to me for approval.  Now I don’t want to be checking into every gas station I drive by, so I would need an Agent to control my privacy/whereabouts.  The privacy Agent would screen the check-ins coming from the Foursquare agent.  Check-ins would then be automatic, or prompted for my to confirm, or anything I wanted it to be.

Newsflash: I just pulled up my Foursquare App to get a screenshot of it for this blog.  While I had it open, I saw that a friend of mine, Jenny D. also checked in to SFO.  Since I got sick on notifications popping up from Foursquare, I had notifications turned off (essentially, every app controls this individually, which is poor architecture). Luckily, I saw the notification and I would have the option to say hello if time permitted.  If I had a notifications App, that controlled all notifications from all Apps, I could set it up so when I was traveling, I would get all notifications from people in close proximity.

Setting these types of permissions on every individual App, would be (and is) a nightmare.  The only way to control it is with a master-permissions Agent.  A master permissions agent is called a “Clewd”.  I derived it from the word “include”.   The Clewd will be the agent that forces the world to work on your terms. You choose what to be included into.  Apps will not have the ability to push information in any direction, unless the Clewd agent allows it.

Your own Clewd should be stored on you mobile device.  When Facebook adds another feature, they would not be able to opt you in without asking you saying hello to your Clewd agent on your mobile device.

The Clewd is inevitable.  If you don’t see it yet, you are not overly connected. You have not experience “App-Overload”.  You have not joined the 4th social network, download the iPhone App and then turned off notifications.

The Clewd will control more than just the interactions between Apps.  If you have a business email address, you probably get a mass amounts of newsletters, webinar invites, and product announcements.  The marketing automation system that sends you these emails is the same as an App; *it* controls the permission options. You have no control over options;it forces you into it’s choices.  Example: Opt-in or Opt-out?  I say screw them!  I want to be in total control of how the world interacts with me.

Here are examples of a Clewd and a set of Agents working together with emails.

1. For every incoming invitation to an event, webinar, etc, an agent parses of the date and time as well as the vendor information. Check the Clewd if you have explicitly blocked this vendor, if not, Agent #2 compares to your current Calendar, if you are not open at that time, deletes the email or adds it to your Calendar (as an option), based on your Clewd preferences.

2. For each incoming email, have one agent extract the contact information, agent #2 checks your CRM for *outgoing* emails from you.  The Agent provides the Clewd with credentials  “This email is from someone you have in-turn emailed before” says the Agent.  The Clewd likes that, as you have set it up that way.  Since Agents are very-flexible, you don’t have to be limited to a simple “exact email match”, it can look for anyone at the same company.

3.  Expanding on the previous example:  For all non-recognized emails, don’t show them as they come in. That can be distracting.  Show all non-recognized emails once every two hours in a group; don’t mix them with high-priority ones. Let me delete them as a group. Sorry Google: “Priority Inbox” was poorly implemented.  Take this idea: please.

There are 1000′s of potential uses of a Clewd.  What happens when the RFID label on the bottle of water you just bought communicates with your Ford Focus computer, which then tells the Billboard you are approaching on the hi-way that you have driven 200 miles and 4 hours since your last bottle of water.  It then shows you a ice-cold-water ad, just turn into the oncoming exit.  This is the world we are headed for unless the permissions rest with the individual.   Watch the movie Minority Report. With Mobile outselling PC’s, the majority of future interactions with technology will happen on your mobile device.  Apple and Google can be leaders here.  Agents that interact between Apps will be a prerequisite.

Where is the Clewd to be stored?  This all-important set of rules that defines how the technology world will interact with you?  Ask yourself: Do you want Facebook or LinkedIn to control it?  They would love that.  My ultimate prediction is one of two places.  My first preference is stored, securely on my mobile device. Secondly is a 3rd party service, secure, where you pay $20 a year to have them manage your world-rules, your Clewd. This service provider cannot have a conflict of interest; it cannot generate revenue via ads.  No Facebook, Google, etc.  It may be a new business model.

The future must be permission-based and we each must control our own permissions. If we don’t it will be a world where conversations stop and everything is pushing and yelling trying to out-do each other.

Will the AppStore turn into the AgentStore?  Probably not, but in the future, it will be the Agents, not that Apps that have unique value.  What would you pay for an Agent that made all email communication obey your rules?  I would drop $100 in a heartbeat.  What is an email App worth… $1.00?

I’ll continue thoughts on this topic as I have them.  The question next is how to force those pushing content to obey the rules of the Clewd.

Note:  At this point I am not sure if a Clewd is singular or Plural, meaning one Clewd contains all your rules or each rule is a Clewd…I’m leaning towards one-contains-all.

LinkedIn is not a social network.

A thing is defined by it’s major attribute.  While LinkedIn has aspects of a social network, it is actually a social database.

Hey Donato…But they say they are a social network!

In the early days they were.  As the network grew, savvy users realized they needed to grow their networks as large as possible to spread their reach.  In polls done over the last year in live webinars, I’ve asked groups ranging from 200-600 how they use LinkedIn.  Here are the questions and the responses.

1.  I get as many connections as possible and figure out how to contact people directly.

2. I use LinkedIn to as it was meant.  Connect with people through a series of connections.

3.  I don’t use LinkedIn.

69% of people choose option 1. Last year, it was only 50%. The trend is growing and…

LinkedIn is a social database.

That is how the majority of people are using it.  Social database.  Why does this matter?  It is about methodology. First, I will admit, in some cases, an introduction is the only way to get to a high level contact.  Admittedly…this is one way how I use LinkedIn.  However, connecting through a chain of 3 people is too slow. Painful. Sales and especially recruiting cannot work at those speeds.  If they guy at the second place in the chain of connections is on vacation, kiss your placement goodbye.  Another recruiter that goes direct is going to eat your lunch.  Sales is much the same.

LinkedIn promotes bad outreach methods.

Have you ever received a canned message from LinkedIn member that starts with  “Because you are a person I trust…”.   When I am in a particular mood, I will reply to those messages with “Send me $50 please…if you trust me”.   Sometimes this will get a laugh and people will realize how bad their outreach was.  Sometimes, I never hear from them again.  As yet… none of these trusted connections has sent me cash.

Bad outreach is easily cured. Remove the canned invites and force people to actually write a real reason of why they want to connect.  Score the text of the message for uniqueness.  This is not hard to do.  Flag messages that were mass mailed.  Give users the ability to automatically remove any messages sent to more than 1, 5, or 10 people. If I see a message that was sent to 50 people, I would delete it.  I have a personal policy to read all 1:1 messages that are sent with a reason.  I sent this suggestion to Reid Hoffman, the LinkedIn CEO at the time and he said “they were working on something like that”.   Based on the amount of unsolicited LinkedIn spam I get…bullshit!

LinkedIn makes money on quantity, not quality

The actions of LinkedIn show that they want to make it as easy as possible for you to connect to as many people as possible.  They know that they have a tremendously valuable social database.   This is good business sense.

LinkedIn: are you reading?  Recently on the focus.com site, my answer about the worst thing on LinkedIn got the most votes.  Everyone hates the canned invites.  Here is the link:  http://www.focus.com/questions/if-you-could-change-1-think-about-linkedin-what-would-it-be/

The quality of LinkedIn will continue to drop over time.  Unless some major changes occur to (1) stop the LinkedIn spam (2) Force quality outreach (3) Give users more control on what is sent to them   …  LinkedIn will experience the exodus.

The LinkedIn Exodus

The future of the web and of technological interaction must be permission based.  Today,  LinkedIn is mob-based-permissions.  Many of the recruiters and sales people I sell to on a regular basis are part of 50+ social networks and groups.  They are being bombarded with outreach, unsolicited from members of those networks.  Eventually, I predict, vendors such as Facebook and LinkedIn will continue to (1) Follow the money (2) Abuse users best interests and then (3) lose those users.   It will be interesting what Google+ ends up looking like.  At some point, users will take back control and all interactions with networks will be on the users terms.  A centralized (maybe mobile) set of permissions that *dictates* to the outside world how the network may interact with the user.  This will happen.

Positioned for permissions.

Which company is going to step up and have some vision?  Give the user total control over what and how often they receive any type of outreach.  It is against LinkedIn’s and Facebook’s short term financial missions.  Maybe Google?  Google does not have to make money on their social network.  That may be one of the key pieces of building a permissions technology.  If money is involved, if the need to sidestep privacy in the name of profit is anywhere in the equation… it won’t work.

Examples of permissions:

Facebook: Block all Apps from Posting on my wall.  I will accept any personal wall post, but darn it, I don’t want to join F*&@ing Branch out.

LinkedIn: Block any messages that are sent to more than one person.  Again: personally I like personalized messages and respond if I can.

LinkedIn Groups: No, because I joined a group, you cannot add me to your widget mailing list.  I must request it and you cannot prompt me.

Google+: Stop notifying me that someone added me to a circle….. score one for Google… they actually just did this!

Social Agents: Yes, my wife’s iPhone can check my iPhone’s calendar and meetings scheduled.

Newsletters: Only accept 1 newsletter per quarter from my financial advisor.

Email: If the person is not in my email history,  mark as low priority (this I already do)

Excessive?  You won’t think that when the RFID label on a bottle of water you just bought sends your iPhone and advertisement.  In a technologically explosive world, permissions that we control will be required to keep our sanity.

A permissions foundation?

What if an independent foundation was created by the major players out there?   Facebook, Microsoft, Google, Apple and …LinkedIn.  Mission: to create a portable technology that is tied to an individual.  It includes all the rules of how the world may interact with that individual.  The “profile” is portable and exclusively owned and controlled by the individual.  Profit could be made by companies that have a better mousetrap for managing those profiles.

Time to get disrupted.

The permissions technology/widget/APP would lead to other interesting side effects.  As it is a few years away, it will coincide with very fast mobile processors.  Good bye Facebook.  Reality: no one trusts Facebook with privacy.  Give people an alternative social network, with permission you absolutely control, that you carry on your hip on your iPhone or Android… why would you want Facebook?

Social Networking evolves:  Mobile Peer to Peer

How will Facebook stop this?  They can’t.  It is inevitable.  Every major technology starts centralized and then moves to distributed as the technology is democratized.   Create a news alert on social networks and violations of user trust.  You will see the trend.  10 years ago…how many people in the world could develop an app for a mobile phone and distribute it in days to millions of people?  Not many.  Today it can be done by an industrious child.

Mobile Peer-Peer social networking will look nearly like Facebook or Google+.  The only difference is that all the data is stored on your iPhone/Android/Device.  New picture of the kids?  … it automatically connects to all your friends devices and uploads the pictures…based on permissions.  Think of it as a group DropBox for pictures, status, check-in’s,  etc.

What needs to happen for Mobile Peer to Peer

Mobile phone processors need to have about a 2X improvement in processor and battery life.  The iPad2 is there today.  In a recent live talk, I demonstrated my iPhone acting as a mobile web server.  It was a bit slow, but the point was understood. Ten years from now, mobile phones will be hosting full blown websites.  Peer-peer social networking will be childsplay  comparatively.

Entrepreneurial opportunity

Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yahoo, Microsoft want to control your data, your friends and record your interactions.  What you do & say, who your friends are, etc.  They want to know, save it and use it.  It’s good business.  Chances are they won’t invest in something that takes control away from them.  This is the perfect recipe for disruption.  Pick the right time, build it and monetize.

Twitter:  idonato
LinkedIn:  http://linkedin.com/in/donatodiorio
Google+:  http://gplus.to/donato
Facebook:  Friends & family only  (my permissions)

There are many facets to success at a trade show.  Elevator Pitch, pre-show marketing, booth setup, etc.  If you don’t have a good elevator pitch, here is a blog that can help you.   Nailing the 30 second Elevator Pitch.

Again, I ask…what next?   Think about this scenario, it is an important concept.

For the sake of this scenario, our fictional vendor is TabletCo.  They sell the hottest new Android Tablet for the educational market.

A prospect, Harry, walks up to your TabletCo booth.  He loves your product! Harry is excited about using the tablet at the school where he is a History teacher.  The school district is large. It is a good opportunity.  Some further questioning yields the fact the entire school district wants to have a tablet for each student.  Being a conscientious sales rep, you get Harry’s card.  You are all set for the follow up…or are you?

This is the disconnect point.  Not just in sales at a trade show, but sales in general.  Important questions:

1. Is Harry the decision maker?  Can he say YES to a purchase?
2. If is he the decision maker, is he the ONLY decision maker?
3. What is the approval process for purchasing at Harry’s district?  Is Harry even aware of the process?
4. Is the information on Harry’s card current?  He is a teacher, did you get a cell phone, direct line and email address?
5. What happens if Harry moves to a different position in the next week?
6. What happens if Harry gets laid off?
7. What are the names, titles, emails phone numbers and backgrounds of other people that will participate in a decision?

Simple questions.  Do you normally have the answers after the show?  Why is it important?

Having multiple points of contact is the single greatest factor in getting a sales advance.

What is a sales advance?  It is not a sale.  A sales advance is forward movement in the sales process.

Having, and leveraging 3 points of contact “after show” will give you a 9X success factor over following up with a single contact.

Did you get 3 points of contact or a single card? How do can you turn a single point of contact into multiple points of entry?

Turn this:
Scan of Donato's Biz Card

After spending $1000′s at a trade show, every lead is precious. Don’t waste them.  If you have the opportunity at the show, leverage each connection to get as many points of contact as you can.  Some good questions to ask:

Does your contact sign off on the purchase or does she simply recommend? Who are the parties involved in the decision process?  What are their titles? When was the last time your contact signed off on something?  What is the approval process?  Are they currently using another vendor? When does that contract end?

If you are having trouble getting those additional points of contact, a great resource is Broadook’s Profiler.

Bottom line.  If you are not prepared, your first outreach after a trade show can be your last. Spend the time to get as much out of your leads as possible.

Last thought:  Think hard.  People getting back from a trade show are bombarded with every vendor emailing and calling after the show.

How are you going to stand out?

So  I’m at it again.  Too much content for one blog.  For those readers of mine that are in the recruitment industry and digg the iPhone, you may want to check out iPhoneRecruiter.com.  Since I have recruited for iPhone Development Talent and led cross platform mobile applications, I’ve got some experience to share on the topics.

www.iPhoneRecruiter.com