Jeffrey Bunn | FreshGigs.ca - Part 2

Author Archives: Jeffrey Bunn

Will Social Media Help You Get Hired?

Akin to online dating sites and their impact on relationships, social media is becoming an increasingly viable option for job seekers looking to get hired. Ten years ago ‘social media’ was a barely recognizable term.  Today, social media networks are visited by 2/3 of the global internet population, growing at a rate of 3x the rate of the internet itself, and is now more popular than email.

Ladies and Gentlemen, social media is here, big time.

What is social media?

But first, some clarity.  Social media is an ambiguous term.  Definitions of social media are as broad as the networks themselves.  For the purposes of this article, however, social media will generally mean the big three social networks – Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

The Social Job Seeker

The job seeker has become very social in recent years.  From newspaper classifieds to internet job boards and now to social media networks, the workforce has largely moved their job hunt online.

Don’t be that stereotypical job seeker that blasts out 100 cookie-cutter resumes and then lamenting on your less than stellar results.

From 2010 to 2012, growth in social network use has increased for each of the big three social media sites.  Facebook is the most dominant among job seekers, with 85% having a Facebook profile.  Despite Facebook’s massive lead, growth in social network use of both LinkedIn and Twitter, from 2010 to 2012, is ahead of Facebook by 31% and 40%, respectively.

Clearly use of all three networks is becoming more mainstream every day.  The job seeker, however, spends most of their time on Facebook, with Twitter and LinkedIn trailing behind.  Internet job boards still remain a strong area of focus for job seekers – and rightly so, as the effectiveness of, and sheer volume of jobs posted on internet job boards make them very attractive. Continue reading →

How To Summon Creativity & Slap “Status Quo” In The Face

“I’m just not creative.  Leave creativity to artists or musicians”

Are you one of these people?  People who feel that creativity is limited to the lottery of the gene pool?

The truth is we all have the ability to be creative.  Creativity is a muscle.  You simply have to know how to flex it.

How we try to be creative

There are endless ways people try and induce creativity.

  • Drugs
  • Exercise
  • Eating better (or worse)
  • Endless research

among many, many others.  The problem with this is that these do enhance creativity.

To a point.

I fully agree that the more clarity you have from eating better and exercising will help you be more creative.  It also goes without saying that a high amount of experience in very different fields (online marketing, violin playing, Mandarin speaking and windsurfing, for example) will only help creativity.

How is this done?  It sounds counter intuitive, but the best way to enhance creativity is to constrain yourself.

The problem is that this approach is inconsistent.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.  So how does one solve the problem of inconsistent creativity?  What is present when creativity is rolling?  What’s missing when you can’t be creative for the life of you?

The problem of choice

A major block to creative work is the problem of too much choice.  With the internet giving us answers in seconds and businesses catering to our every obscure need, creativity seems to be less important than it was in the past.  Solutions to our problems are seconds away, so it doesn’t make sense to try and be creative. Continue reading →