The new “Apply With LinkedIn” button

Attention all lazy job seekers: your dream is finally here.

With unemployment at around 14% in Florida, it might be really tempting to try to click your way to a job. Sure you may get lucky…just fill the countryside  with buckshot and hope that something falls from the sky. But I have always preferred rifle shot to buckshot, both when looking for work and when candidates are looking for work from me.

While I am not in HR, it seems like the greatest challenge facing job seekers today is to emerge from behind the firewall. To me this button could be just one more way to ensure you stay behind the firewall. Of course I am up for anything that helps people in their search to hire or be hired, but this button shows a prospective employer that:

– You are not uniquely interested in working with them.

– You are a button clicker and might be the same in your role.

– You are the same as all the other button clickers.

Finding employment is not like shopping on Target.com. You don’t want to just add your career to cart, review your order and check out, do you? You are more important than that.

Even without the Apply With LinkedIn button, look how ferocious the competition is. A friend of mine, Ivan Mlandenovic, CEO of Preemo, is looking to hire. Here’s what he had to say in response to LinkedIn’s new feature via Facebook:

There is one great feature about the Apply With LinkedIn button. “Once you submit your job application, you are given the opportunity to message your contacts at the company and ask for a referral.” That could come in real handy.

LinkedIn is a great resource on both sides of the job equation. I just don’t think you can just single click your way to a career, do you?

~Mike

What constitutes a legit Google+ account?

There has been much brouhaha over the issue of what constitutes a legitimate Google+account. Many that may have not passed muster have been taken down and Google is apparently ironing out the details. In the process, I hope they allow accounts that bring with them much flavor, levity, add to the conversation, can help shape opinion and dare I say, entertain.

Three examples of such accounts.

1) @BPGlobalPR on Twitter. With 168,00 followers, this account has helped dramatize the shortcoming of the response to this situation.

2) @FakeAPStylebook A Hilarious parody of the APstylebook, with a following of 236,3000.

3) @shitmydadsays With 2.5 million followers this ingenious feed not only landed the author a book deal, But a TV show aswell (don’t know the status).

I’m not trying to turn Google+ into Twitter, but I will say this. I live in Miami, Florida where nightclubs grant access to only those they find to be “beautiful people.” I hope that’s not what + turns out to be and that the final shakeout can be inclusive of alternate accounts that provide value in the eyes of readers.

Homogeneity bores me. I hope the nature of information sharing rounds out nicely so as to steer Google+ away from being a Google+ forum. Yes, there is varied content, but many of the more prominent people are posting quite a bit about Google+ and the “rules of the road.” Or maybe I’m a victim of over share.

Based on the current evaluations, the following feeds would be taken down.

Alan Alda – Alphonso D’Abruzzo
Albert Brooks – Albert Lawrence Einstein
Alice Cooper – Vincent Damon Furnier
Alicia Keys – Alicia Augello Cook
André 3000 – André Benjamin
Anne Bancroft – Anna Maria Italiano
Ashok Kumar – KumudlalKanjilal Ganguly
Babyface – Kenneth Edmonds
Barry Manilow – Barry Alan Pincus
Bela Lugosi – Be’la Ferenc Dezso Blasko
Big Boi – Antwan André Patton
Billie Holiday – Eleanora Fagan
Billy Idol – William Michael Albert Broad
Billy Ocean – Leslie Charles
Bo Diddley – Elias Bates
Bob Dylan – Robert Zimmerman
Bob Hope – Leslie Townes Hope
Bobby Darin – Walden Robert Cassotto
Bonnie Tyler – GaynorHopkins
Bono – Paul Hewson
Boris Karloff – William Henry Pratt
Boy George – George Alan O’Dowd
Buddy Holly – Charles Hardin Holley
Cary Grant – Archibald Alexander Leach
Cat Stevens – Stephen Demetre Georgiou. He later changed his name to Yusuf Islam
Chaka Khan – Yvette Stevens
Charlie Sheen – Carlos Irwin Estevez

There are plenty more, but you get the point.

I hope the final shakeout doesn’t turn out to be a yawn.

Or as Grouch Marz says, “I DON’T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER”.

His real name was Julius Henry Marx.

~Mike

Guest Post: Apartment Needed for Homeless Woman and Service Dog

I received this in an interoffice email today.  It was sent to me by Mitch Koch, senior writer at Beber Silverstein & Partners here in Miami.

There is a 50-something-year-old woman with a small, old service dog living in the park near my building. They’ve been there for a couple of days now and are desperate to find a place to live. Her story goes something like this:

Once a receptionist. Once married. Once an expecting mom. Then a miscarriage. Then a divorce. Then an auto accident which forced her onto disability. Since then, she’s lived in efficiency apartments and cheap motels. Most recently, paying $500/month for a studio in Kendall. She lost that place about a month ago when the landlord needed it for friends. She was in a bad hotel after that. Now the park on South Beach, where she thought the parks would at least be safer.

I walked by the park Saturday night, pretty late, and there they were, her and her little dog, sitting all alone on a bench under a streetlight.

She hasn’t asked me for anything, except directions to the park and to a store where she could buy a two-wheeled, wire-framed luggage cart (all other belongings are in a large, plastic bag and that bag probably weighs more than she does). I just went and bought her the cart, and also gave her a little cash, but I’d really like to help her find a place to live. It would be tough for her to do, because on top of everything else, she left her phone in the cab when she came to the beach and so far the cab company hasn’t found it. Also, some guy (not me) recently befriended her, told her he found an apartment, just needed to provide the deposit, then took her $500 and was never seen again.

This woman and her sweet dog could really use a hand. Which is where you come in.

I’m looking for a clean apartment in a safe neighborhood. Some place that accepts service dogs (which most just call “pets” and refuse). Some place she can get for no more than $500 a month. Her disability check is just over $800 a month and direct deposited. She has this steady income and said she always pays her rent on time. When she has rent to pay.

Thanks for any leads you can provide.

Mitch

P.S. I will gladly pass on any leads you can provide. ~Mike

Facebook Video Call. Could this be the new “reach out and touch someone?”

Just had my first Facebook Video Call with Jeff Zelaya. Yes, it works. He popped on the screen in a flash, but he’s so busy he popped off before I could get a screengrab.  So I called Alex de Carvalho. And here he is…looks just like FaceTime.

Here’s how to get going with Facebook Video Call:

– Log into Facebook.
– Go to : http://www.facebook.com/videocalling
– Go through the quick setup.
– Open up Facebook chat.
– Invite a friend to chat by clicking the video icon.

If you can’t do it just pry your nine year old from the Xbox 360 for about two minutes to set it up for you. Then you’ll be a click away from seeing and hearing your loved ones or your Facebook friends…who don’t screen your call. I think this could be the new “reach out and touch someone.” Do you?

~Mike

Read this or I could get whacked

It was a beautiful clash of new skool and and old skool.

Last Tuesday night I was invited to break bread with Anthony Bruno, founder of Anthony’s Coal Fired Pizza.  Some of Miami’s finest bloggers, social media types and techies dined on a San Gennaro style feast that included hand-rolled meatballs with ricotta cheese, Anthony’s delectable Eggplant Marino and their famous Coal Oven Roasted Chicken Wings.

Not to mention three different pizzas cooked in an 850 degree coal fired oven which scorched my knuckle hair when I brought my Flip Video too close to it. We dined family style in true Italian fashion, yet many faces glowed in the fluorescence thrown off from their handheld devices.  Not even an AT&T South Florida outage could quiet this digitally loquatious bunch as many of us knew to switch to the EDGE network.

The highlight of our night was our time spent with Anthony. Here’s some film I grabbed with the help of photographer and trouble maker nonpareil, Carlos Miller of Photography is Not a Crime fame. Could we ambush Anthony Bruno Punk’d style? Would he bite or would he send it back to the kitchen? Let’s go to the videotape.

As you can see Anthony can spot a Photoshop fugazi from a mile away.

Leave a comment here or on my YouTube channel for a chance to win a $25.00 gift certificate or you’re officially stoonad!

But wait, there’s more! As a special bonus, I’ll be giving away a second $25.00 gift certificate! No separate shipping and handling!

My local Anthony’s Coal Fired in Pinecrest sweetened the deal and donated an additional $25.00 gift certificate. So I’ll be giving away two $25.00 gift certificates to commenters either here or on my YouTube channel. Winners announced July 22nd! Leave a comment in either place or you might get sent for, capiche?

~Mike

Disclosure: I have not been compensated other than with Eggplant Marino for the above post.

Google+ Are you on it offensively or defensively?

Advertising giant Jerry Della Femina once said there are two kinds of people who read the Wall Street Journal.

There are those who want to know all the important business news and stay ahead. And there are those who don’t want to not know what the next guy knows and fall behind. Readers playing offense and readers are playing defense.

I’m just one guy sitting in apartment in Miami, FL., but Google has had its failures. Google X, Google Catalog, Google Buzz, Web Accelerator, Video Player, Google Answers, Google Wave, Wiki Search, Google Audio Ads, Dodgeball, Jaiku, etc. Googling around it’s known as the Google Graveyard.

So I ask, are you on Google+ offensively to ride the wave or defensively so you don’t get left at the gate in case it takes off? Not interested in Google+? Why?

~Mike