I am not a professional job hopper – I have had only three employers in over 15 years.  When I got my first “real” job, social media was not even a buzzword.  Much can change in a decade and a half.  Even though I now have accounts on several social networking sites, this was the last thing I thought about when I applied for my current job.

I have no idea if anyone was looking through my LinkedIn profile or my Facebook entries, but I certainly didn’t do any optimization on any of my networking profiles.  Looking back now, maybe this would have been a good idea to consider.

Are you searching for a job?  Maybe you should take a different approach than I did, and give some attention to your social media profiles.  Are you putting your best image forward from your social media “projector”?  Have you eliminated any references to less-than-professional behavior, kept incriminating statements to a minimum, and attended to removing profanity?

Not every social network is designed for professional promotion, but all are searchable by your potential employers’ hiring managers.  Why not give them something inviting to look at, instead of something condemning?

Social Media, Politics, and Jobs is a post from: shannonehlers.com

The last eight years, also, have passed quickly.  I started that period by moving myself and my household from one region of our great state to another, in a sort of homecoming.  I had taken a new job in a new industry, an experience I would later write about in retrospect.

And now, again, it is time for a change.  I’ve parted ways with my beloved job in the natral products industry, and I am now off to a new beginning in an industry that is, in a way, also a homecoming.  I will again  be working in the agricultural sector, this time in an industry which is facing its own share of ups and downs right now, and I’m sure I’ll be sharing more details as time goes on.

Wish me luck!

New Adventures is a post from: shannonehlers.com

Straight from the horse’s mouth

Below is a video produced by the helpful folks at LinkedIn to help newcomers understand the whole bit a little better.

What is LinkedIn? from LinkedIn Marketing on Vimeo.

From Chris Brogan

Next, I wanted to recommend one of Chris Brogan’s many excellent posts that discuss LinkedIn and making your LinkedIn profile work for you. He gives specific tips on making the profile that is displayed publicly much more functional for both employees and freelancers. There is much more useful info on a host of social media topics at http://www.chrisbrogan.com, as well.

A Related Note

While reading and commenting on a post on Chris Brogan’s blog, I met the guest author, Becky McCray and she ultimately asked me to write a guest post for her own blog, Small Biz Survival. She suggested discussing how LinkedIn can work for small town professionals. The resulting five tips were published last month on http://smallbizsurvival.com (thanks for the opportunity Becky!).

Other Resources:

http://www.linkedin.com the main site

http://www.linkedintelligence.com a helpful site for users

http://blog.linkedin.com/ the LI blog

LinkedIn Tips is a post from: shannonehlers.com

On a wonderfully warm spring day in March, many thoughts pass through my mind.  I can remember the smell of the laboratory on my first day of work.  My butterflies and sweaty palms almost return, as I recall that original excited anticipation of my first real job after graduating from college.  Images of the people I met during that first day, people who would become lifelong friends, still roll across my mind like a “this is your life” movie projected onto a screen.

It is as if seven  years’ worth of life events were compressed into a single day, and it happened just yesterday.  The sounds of the automatic double doors that opened to the airlock separating the laboratory wing from the administrative offices, the lightly colored cinder block walls that created the corridors connecting the laboratories, the heavy oak lab doors.  The feel of the white linen lab coat and the sound of my feet on the tile floor as I walk through the halls for the last time.  The familiar ‘whoosh’ of the door opening to the walk-in cooler, and the pleasantly cool air inside, with metal shelving lined with petri dishes, small tubes, jars, bags and buckets, all teeming with life too small to be seen.  All of this experience, all of this experiencing, would come to an end today.

My friends and co-workers had thrown me a farewell party some time before.  I’d been asked to speak.  I wanted to be eloquent or funny or just memorable, but it was all I could do to choke back tears and spit out the simple sentence “Thanks, I never thought I’d be leaving.”

With those seven words still echoing in my head, in that always-stupid-sounding noise that is heard when you listen to yourself talking out loud, I handed my security coded key card over to the woman who had hired me and was my supervisor still.  For just a moment while we both had our hands on the card that had let me enter the lab for the last seven years, I didn’t want to let go.  Then I did let go.  I provided her with an official resignation letter, thanked her and said my goodbyes.  With that it was over.  I had reached the end of the day.

After a weekend to finish up moving my worldly possessions, I would begin my new job.  Still in a laboratory, but instead of a small city I’d be located in a decidedly small town.  No more microbiology, but natural products chemistry, science of a different kind.  No more weekly group meetings, no more lunch in the company cafeteria to network with new people, no more friendly competition between different laboratories.

It was a different kind of job. It was a different kind of company.  It was a different kind of laboratory. It was a different kind of town.

It was a different kind of  day.

A Different Kind of Day is a post from: shannonehlers.com

He is energetic and brilliant in his field of herbal medicine, well respected by his colleagues and something of a legend among his peers in the natural products industry. Success is frequently reserved for the bold, and Dr. Leung is one of the boldest people I know.

If you’d like to see more of why I get inspired by Dr. Leung, here’s a second YouTube video, this time of him discussing his life (warning: this one’s a little longer!).
Please accept my apologies. The clip of Dr. Leung visiting about his history has been taken down for further editing. When it reappears, I will again link to it here.

This Inspires Me (Part Two) is a post from: shannonehlers.com

Flash forward thirty-odd years and we’re in the midst of the Iowa caucus season (the “Hawkeye Caucii”) and I can tell you that now that I am grown up (this is subject to debate depending on who you ask), I have no such intention.

Although no one has asked me for two or three decades what I want to be when I grow up, I still sometimes think about the question. Over the years I’ve had several different dream jobs, but one seems to persist. I think about it on airplanes, I am reminded of it when I shave in the morning, and sometimes it occurs to me while I’m at my actual job.

So what do I want to be? Well, despite a technical education, a home in small-town middle America, and lots of agricultural experience, I hope to someday host my own late night talk show. This seems like the most wonderful existence to me. You get to know the latest gossip, you have a research staff to keep you current with the news, and you meet the people who make the news. You deliver a humorous commentary on this nightly, and you go on to interview some of the people responsible. You become an insider in famous circles. All of this, plus you get paid.

I think I first got the idea when I was three or four years old, around the same time I tried to declare my candidacy for president. I remember very clearly sitting with my dad in his black leather recliner and watching Johnny Carson most nights. I wouldn’t understand all the humor until years later, but I always got a kick out of the animals when they were on with Jack Hannah and I loved the opening music. Later, in high school, I began to pay more attention to David Letterman who came on after Johnny finished up. Despite an aversion to Paul Schaffer which I still have today, I loved the more rough and tumble format of the show, and Dave had an edgy side which came out when he interviewed guests. Sometime after high school, I began to follow Tom Snyder as he interviewed guests on his own “late late show”, seemingly uniquely suited for a late night audience. I loved the feeling of connectedness you got when he interviewed someone like Don Rickles and they then started discussing some shared experience from decades before.

Is it feasible? Who knows? Who cares – it is a dream after all. Do fantasies need to be practical? I would just say that I have the “late night” thing down pat. If I did pursue this, I would consider it a success if I attained even the modest status of something like the local access program produced by Wayne and Garth in “Wayne’s World”.

Thanks for stopping by, and “That’s our show tonight, folks.”

Oh, and “Party on, Garth!”

What’s Your Dream Job? is a post from: shannonehlers.com