Hello Tweeples!

Welcome to the first THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF WORKING GIRL TWITTER CONTEST. 

The rules are oh so simple.  Simply retweet the tweet (i.e., “Retweet this & win a free signed Amazing Adventures of Working Girl. Info here + link”)  that brought you to this page. 

Do so, as often as you like, before midnight (Pacific time) Wednesday, July 1st, 2009.

Everyone who retweets (please note: you gotta include @workinggirl) will be eligible for a drawing to win the book – The Amazing Adventures of Working Girl: Real Life Career Advice You Can Actually Use. 

Publishers Weekly called it “encouraging and funny.”  The Seattle Times said it was “worth reading just to hear about the 59 varied jobs in 22 cities and four countries.”  All in all, it’s a helpful book that makes a pretty darn good gift, too.  

Here’s a photo.  The winner, who will need to provide a postal address, will receive an autographed copy of the  book and a lovely complimentary bookmark.  (No, sorry, you won’t also be getting the basket of flowers.  Them’s just eye candy.)

A friend just landed a new job!  Woo-hoo!

She phoned with the good news and then asked this question, “Do you have any tips for how I should act my first week on the job?”  Ha.  Of course, WG has tips.  Weirdly, they seem to all be negative–what not to do.  Hmmm.  Anyway, here they are:

Don’t be late.  Are you thinking, “Duh”?  But being late that first week brands you as a tardy person.  You don’t want this.  Even if you are on time every day for the next YEAR, some people will still regard you as the kind of person who’s not on time.  It’s not fair but first impressions take ages to live down.  So be absolutely sure to be on time while you’re still the newbie.*

Don’t talk too much.  That first week, focus on looking and listening.  You are getting the lay of the land.  Put yourself in receptive mode for a bit.  It’s amazing what you can learn while your mouth is shut.

Don’t criticize the “way things are done.”  Even if you can clearly see inefficiencies, stupidities, or worse, hold off before pointing out the error of your new co-workers’ ways.   People do not appreciate some new person coming in and telling them they’re doing things wrong.  Especially when they’re doing things wrong.  Even if you were hired expressly to identify and fix problems, spend that first week looking and listening (see above).

Don’t establish alliances.  It is too soon to reliably know who are the upstanding, smart, and sane ones and who are the whining, backstabbing, and bullying ones.  Treat all overtures of friendship with kindness, yes, but also a little bit of distance.  And if someone is too friendly, beware.  This may very well be the person who is on the outs with everyone else, or who is in some way a problem.

*Weirdly, once you’ve established a reputation for punctuality, you can actually be late from time to time and it won’t hurt you.  Not that you should, of course……

Yes, you can lie on your resume.  Or forget to wear deodorant.  Or fiddle with your BlackBerry on the interview.

And now, courtesy of the 21st century, there are a few more ways you can shoot yourself in the foot while hunting for a job.  Seven, to be exact.  Check them out in today’s U.S. News & World Report post.

Everyone says you gotta have a mentor, or one, or two, but just how does a person go about getting one?  Kathryn Marion, author of “Grads: Take Charge of Your First Year After College!” has some fabulous suggestions.  Working Girl couldn’t have said it better herself.  (Love that “Board of Advisors” idea–and it’s in “the book” too, page 263.  How cool is that.)

MENTORS CAN WORK MAGIC FOR YOUR CAREER

Having a mentor sounds like a wonderful thing, but how does a person get a mentor to help them through their career? It’s not as difficult as it sounds and you don’t have to limit yourself to just one mentor, either. Many of the career experts I interviewed during research for my book recommend that a new college graduate, or any job seeker for that matter, develop a “personal Board of Advisors.”

One mentor may work with you for only a short while, providing feedback on your resume. Another may help you work through an exercise of setting realistic career goals. And a third may help you prepare for interviews. Whatever you need help with, there are people ‘out there’ willing to help you—you need to find them and ask for their help. There’s no guarantee that everyone you ask will be available or willing to help you right now, but you’ll never know if you never ask!

You can start with your alma mater: alumni, professors, and counselors may have just the information you need. Look to local companies in the field you want to identify people with the experiences and insights that would be valuable to you. Mentors don’t have to be local, but developing a face-to-face relationship is a big help in nurturing a mentor-mentee relationship. You may also find mentors through networking groups or community service organizations such as Kiwanis or the Junior League.

To broaden your search beyond the local area, identify people through online research. Look through your friends’ contacts on LinkedIn and other networks. When you spot someone you’d like to learn more about, ask for an introduction. To connect with someone who is not within your network, remember the idea of ‘six degrees of separation’ and ask your network if they know anyone who knows the person you want to talk to (or another person in the same company).

If you’re having trouble identifying people you would like to learn from, there are a number of organizations and online services that can help you connect with a willing mentor in any number of industries. Some can help you find a mentor in a highly specialized field, such as the Association of periOperative Registered Nurses. Many universities and chambers of commerce offices have mentor match-up programs as well. For business mentors, www.GottaMentor.com has an excellent array of mentors willing to help.

Having a mentor, or an entire Board of Advisors, can be one of the biggest boosts to your career you’ll ever find. Respect your mentor’s time, act on their advice, and give back to them whenever you can, and you’ll be on the road to a valuable relationship that may end up lasting a lifetime.

Kathryn Marion is the author of Grads: TAKE CHARGE of Your First Year After College! She coaches new grads and job seekers through important career transitions and tirelessly shares career advice on Twitter daily (@RealSolutions22).

Working Girl is back.  Somewhat under the weather (news flash:  airplanes are rife with germs) but upright and sitting at the old computer.

Meanwhile, this NYT piece about people using their Blackberrys and whatnot to check email, send texts, and surf the net during meetings caught her attention.  WG would scornfully deplore this practice if she didn’t know, in her heart of hearts, that if she had a Blackberry she’d probably do the same thing.

At least, sometimes.  Some meetings are just truly wastes of time and if you can use that time by plowing through some email, then……why not?

But (and this is a big but):  Be a little sensitive.  The above article posits an “etiquette debate” about whether Blackberry-ing makes you look important, productive, or just plain rude. 

It’s not that complicated, people!  You should be able to tell if your co-workers, clients, or boss are being annoyed by that surreptitious tap tap tap.  Are they glaring at you?  Do they glance from time to time at your hands, grinding their teeth?  Do they start to speak more loudly and quickly? 

Use a little common sense.  Look around and get a sense for the overall mood.  If you pull your focus away from yourself, and put it on the people around you, you will know when to Blackberry.  And when to not.

Working Girl has to take an important trip, far away from all things Internet.

See you all later, around June 18th.  Have a nice ten days.  Relax.  Read a book.  Hug a friend.

This article really resonated with Working Girl, who thinks that you shouldn’t “follow the crowd” when job hunting; you should forge your own path!  Some nice insights here from Career Alley. 

We all tend to look for the “mother lode” of job opportunities. Which site has the most jobs listed, which company has the most job openings, which headhunters have the most jobs? Sounds like the right places to look, but maybe not. Maybe you should also be looking where not everyone else is. Doesn’t it stand to reason that the fewer people who know about job opportunities the better the chance for those that do?  I think so, and that’s why today’s post will look for some of the more obscure leads.

Crunchboard.com.  Not a well-known job search board (for sure), with only 59 jobs listed. Not much of a job search board, but that’s the point. What, only 59 jobs? Why bother? Well, you only need one so there are 58 to spare. The jobs here appear to be mostly technology-related jobs, but there are others as well. You can use the basic search function at the top of the page to narrow your search. Click on a job to see the details and apply directly. You will need to register on the site in order to apply for jobs.

Personforce.com.  “Search for your dream job” is the tagline on this site. Now, there are a few more jobs here than on the last site, but not many.  There were a total of 1,225 jobs when I looked. There is a simple search at the top of the page and a “view featured jobs” on the top right-hand side. But it gets better. There is a whole list of “less traveled” job sites on the right-hand side of the page.

Polachi.com.  Polachi is an executive search firm.  According to their site, their “Access executive search” is the world’s largest technology search network. Down the left-hand side of their page they have links to completed searches (which will give you a feel for the type of searchs they do), “Our Team”, News, Strategic Partners and Contact Us. Click on “Our Team” and any of the individuals to get their background and contact information (to send your resume).

The JobLab.com.  JobLab is a job search resource that provides a wide range of resources for your job search. They have both an entry-level membership (free) as well as several other levels that have a monthly fee.  I would start with the free membership to see if you like it. Entry-level membership includes weekly job search tips and articles, links to job search resources, discounted job search and career development, products and services, job search and career development news updates and recommended reading list and bookstore access. Give it a try.

America’s  fastest-growing small public companies.  This list, by Fortune Magazine, provides a list of small, fast-growing companies. Why would you be interested? Small companies are less likely to attract job candidates because they are less well known. I will start to review these companies and their job opportunities as part of this blog. You can get a head start by starting to look at this list now.

Good luck in your search.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

It’s easy to do.  You spend too much time on the activities least likely to land you a job.  And not enough time doing the things that are most likely to result in actual employment.

Find out more at WG’s regular Wednesday post over at U.S. News.

Interesting editorial in the WSJ last Friday.  It was called “Overestimating Our Overworking“ and tackled a popular topic.

Namely:  We work too much.  Work weeks of 50, 60, or 70 hours are common.  You work 10 hours a day?  Heck, that’s nothing, I work 12.  The guy down the street says, You’re all slackers; I work 14! 

But.  Working Girl has long wondered:  Do we really work as many hours as we say we do?  Are we maybe exaggerating just a teeny tiny bit?  This essay cites some studies indicating that, huh, maybe we are.  According to studies done by the American Time Use Survey, people saying they work 60-69 hours a week are actually working 52.6.  Those who claim 70- or 80-hour weeks are working 58.8 hours, on average.

Does this mean we are dirty rotten liars?  Well, no.  We just remember wrong, for a variety of reasons (read the essay for ideas). 

What’s of more interest to WG is, Why do we remember wrong?  And she thinks that part of the answer is that the nature of work nowadays is a built-in “never-doneness.”  We work and we work but we never feel we have completed anything.  So much work is intangible.  We can’t see the results of our labors.  We can’t point to a thing and say, Look, there, that’s what I made. 

It’s inhuman, in a way.  It’s why a  recent NYT Magazine essay entitled “The Case for Working With Your Hands” has been on the most-emailed list for two weeks now.

WG doesn’t have a solution to this.  Do you?  But she, for one, is going to start looking for ways to measure the results of her efforts in tangible ways.  Stay tuned.