Tag Archives: Facebook
New Rules of Work about Cover Letters and Resumes
On Friday at the Park City Club in Dallas, I will present a synopsis of this best-seller by Alexandra Cavoulacos and Kathryn Minshew: The new rules of work: The modern playbook for navigating your career. New York: Crown Books (2017).
You can register for this event on the home page of 15MinuteBusinessBooks.com.
One of the issues the authors discuss is whether job seekers still need resumes and cover letters, given the amount of information available about them on social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.
Here is what they say:
“Believe us, we’ve heard that question many times before. But heed our advice when we say that nothing replaces your formal resume and cover letter. Not your LinkedIn profile. Not your impressive personal website. Not your articulate expression of your skills and talents in your informational interview, or your well-written email to the hiring managers. These are all important, of course. However, you absolutely still need to have a polished resume and cover letter prepared. Because all those extra trappings won’t matter if you don’t have the right packaging to catch the eye of your target audience – the hiring managers” (p. 125).
They publish a list of resume and cover letter do’s and don’ts (pp. 149-150)
|
Resume |
Cover Letter |
|
Do’s
· Tailor your information · Include quantifiable achievements · Show, don’t tell · Make contact information easy to find · Stick to one page – two at most · Check for skimmability · Include key words from job description · Use powerful and unique verbs · Proofread · Save as a PDF |
Do’s
· Share your personality · Tell a relevant story about what brought you to the job · Expand on your resume · Highlight key transferable skills · Use the company’s “voice” · Address the letter to someone specific |
|
Don’ts
· Make bullets read like job descriptions · Include confidential information about a previous employer · List “references available upon request” · Neglect application instructions · Squish it all to one page – six point font · Lie |
Don’ts
· Fail to write one · Regurgitate your resume · Use stiff, formal language · Address to “whom it may concern” · Include a desired salary – unless asked |
CCN Involved with Domestic Violence Candlelight Vigil on September 30
On Friday, September 30, the New Beginning Center hosts a candlelight vigil to honor the
victims and survivors of intimate partner and family violence. The New Beginning Center is a non-profit organization in Garland, Texas, dedicated to where life without Domestic Violence begins. The multi-faceted program begins at 6:00 p.m. at Lakeside Market Plano, located at 5801 Preston Road at Spring Creek Parkway.
You can find directions and other information about the candlelight vigil on the New Beginning Center’s Facebook page by clicking here.
The featured speaker at the vigil is our own Carmen Coreas, an international consultant for Creative Communication Network. Coreas, a victim and survivor of sexual abuse and domestic violence, will share her personal journey as she moved from victim to survivor to thriver. Her upbeat message offers the dual features of remembrance and hope. She is a frequent speaker to agencies and shelters for Domestic Violence victims, and offers a complete presentation entitled “It Ends With You,” which she gives free of charge to qualifying organizations. You can find complete information by clicking here. All attendees will receive a free copy of her newest publication, “From My Heart to Yours,” based upon entries in her Christian blog, which you can read by clicking here.
In addition to this event, Coreas is also one of five speakers at the October 21 half-day conference at Springcreek Church in Garland sponsored by Creative Communication Network entitled “The State of Affairs in Domestic Violence,” benefiting the New Beginning Center and Hope’s Door, with voluntary donations. You can find a flier for the event by clicking here, and pre-register by clicking here. Coreas will speak on “Victim Interventions: Four Ways It Ends With You.” This event is CCN’s featured charity at our First Friday Book Synopsis on October 7. Click here for complete information.
Creative Communication Network is proud to host the October 21 conference, and we are also proud of Carmen as she presents at that event, as well as the September 30 candlelight vigil in Plano.
You can call the New Beginning Center for more information about these events at (972) 276-0423.
Why Chaos Monkeys Flew in to the Best-Seller List at # 5
Only one new book debuted on the Wall Street Journal business best-selling list, published on July 16-17, p. C10.
The book is entitled Chaos Monkeys: Obscene Fortune and Random Failure in Silicon Valley by Antonio Garcia Martinez (New York: Harper, 2016). The book was distributed on June 28, 2016, and debuted at # 5 in the list, which is incredibly high. It has also been on the New York Times best-seller list, thus qualifying the book as a potential selection at our First Friday Book Synopsis in Dallas.
One description of the book is “Liar’s Poker meets The Social Network in an irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble.”
Here is a summary of the book, from Amazon.com:
“After stints on Wall Street and as CEO of his own startup, García Martínez joined Facebook’s nascent advertising team, turning its users’ data into profit for COO Sheryl Sandberg and chairman and CEO Mark “Zuck” Zuckerberg. Forced out in the wake of an internal product war over the future of the company’s monetization strategy, García Martínez eventually landed at rival Twitter. He also fathered two children with a woman he barely knew, committed lewd acts and brewed illegal beer on the Facebook campus (accidentally flooding Zuckerberg’s desk), lived on a sailboat, raced sport cars on the 101, and enthusiastically pursued the life of an overpaid Silicon Valley wastrel.
“Now, this gleeful contrarian unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing
and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future. Weighing in on everything from startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetization and digital “privacy,” García Martínez shares his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a humorous, subversive tour of the fascinatingly insular tech industry. Chaos Monkeys lays bare the hijinks, trade secrets, and power plays of the visionaries, grunts, sociopaths, opportunists, accidental tourists, and money cowboys who are revolutionizing our world. The question is, will we survive?”
I haven’t read this book yet, and I don’t know if we will present it at the First Friday Book Synopsis. But, I’ve been doing this long enough to know that people love to buy books that are exposes. Also, books about scandals sell very well. Perhaps that is how this book vaulted all the way to # 5 in its debut on the best-selling list.
Recent Forecasting Questions as Follow-up to Superforecasting
Those of you who attended or have listened to the synopsis I gave on Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction by Philip Tetlcok and Dan Gardner (Crown Books, 2016) at the First Friday Book Synopsis are aware that you can participate in the Good Judgment project by clicking HERE.
Here is a follow-up with some of the questions that participants are forecasting:
Newly Published Questions
- Will Iran officially lift its ban on either Facebook or Twitter before 1 October 2016?
Will Dilma Rousseff cease to be President of Brazil before 1 January 2017?
Will the EU lift visa requirements for Turkish citizens before July 2016?
Most Forecasted Questions
- 204 new forecasts:
Will Dilma Rousseff cease to be President of Brazil before 1 January 2017?182 new forecasts:
Which team will win the 2015-2016 NBA Finals?174 new forecasts:
Will the EU lift visa requirements for Turkish citizens before July 2016?136 new forecasts:
Who will win the Republican Party nomination for the US presidential election?127 new forecasts:
Will a majority of voters in Britain’s upcoming referendum elect to remain in the European Union?
Where to Start to Reduce Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse Against Women
Since our focus at the First Friday Book Synopsis is on business, we have covered very few books of interest to general society. However, a
great friend of mine encouraged me to investigate domestic violence against women and sexual abuse. I have made several FB posts about this, and am preparing a formal persuasive presentation on this subject.
President
Creative Communication Network
(972) 601-1537
www.firstfridaybooksynopsis.com
Not What Sandberg Had In Mind – This One May Need to “Lean Out”
A new book about gender has created controversy, but perhaps for all the wrong reasons. How would you like to know that women are the superior gender, and that we actually don’t need men at all?
I don’t think that’s what Sheryl Sandberg had in mind when she wrote Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (Knopf, 2013). That’s a best-seller by the Facebook COO that I am familiar with, having read and presented a synopsis of that book at a Creative Communication Network (CCN) client site. Note: I can no longer do that under contractual agreement with Randy Mayeux, who presented it at the First Friday Book Synopsis and other CCN sites. and who has exclusive presentation privileges for the book. Regardless, there’s no way that Sandberg wanted women to eliminate men – but rather, to figure out how to co-exist with them, and how to get their “fair share.”
That’s not what Women After All: Sex, Evolution, and the End of Male Supremacy (Norton, 2015) by Dr. Melvin Konner says. His book provides evidence that men are more likely to commit crimes, die in accidents, and incite violence. To your great surprise, he also points out that men cannot reproduce without women. But, did you know that there is evidence that females can reproduce without males? You’ll have to get the book to learn how. (Hint: it’s not by humans.)
And the critics on Amazon.com are not happy. One consumer review, after giving it one star out of a possible five, remarks: “Konner practically salivates when considering a future without men.” That is in spite of a glowing quoted editorial review which says, “Women After All describes what future historians will surely recognize as one of the momentous transformations in the human saga: the decline of men’s political dominance, and with it many deplorable practices and belief systems. Engagingly written and persuasively argued, it shows how an acknowledgment of human nature combined with a long view of history can advance the human condition.” (Steven Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University, & author of The Better Angels of Our Nature.)”
Dr. Konner is a professor of anthropology at Emory University. He is actually one of the rare “Doctor-Doctor’s,” holding both an M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard. He has written many books, perhaps the most famous of which was published in 2011, entitled The Evolution of Childhood: Relationships, Emotion, Mind (Belknap Press). You can see a list of the titles and publication dates by clicking here.
From his own website, he describes why and what he does: “I apply science to human nature and experience, exploring the links between biology and behavior, medicine and society, nature and culture. Why do we do what we do, think what we think, feel what we feel? I find answers in anthropology, biology, medicine, evolution, the brain, childhood, history, and culture. I’ve often commented on medical ethics, health care reform, child care, and other issues, and I do that here too.” You can read some of his blogs on the site by clicking here. 
This book contains great outrage at the historical indignities suffered by women. Sandberg may appreciate his call that treating women better will help men as well. But, it appears that there is not a great place at the table for men. And, the thesis that society will be better off without them may be difficult to swallow.
By the way, this is no best-seller. It is nowhere close to that on Amazon.com, and it does not appear on any list that I can find.
You can’t say the book is biased. It’s full of scientific data, trends analyses, and logical interpretations. It’s just that a book which exposes problems without giving much in terms of solutions is not going to appeal to very many readers.
You can expect to see more about this author and book very soon. It is an obvious choice for the “Good Morning America“s of the world, the Huffington Post, radio talk shows, and even some of the tabloids. If nothing else, Konner will make a lot of money and get famous.
