Disqus - Friends of blogaboutnothin

Re: Networking Is Key For Job Placement

Martin Piraino — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 17:32:52 -0000

Frank, Thanks for your input and great advice on networking. I have actually expanded my job search and networking efforts out east as well. I appreciate you guest posting for me as well. -Martin

Re: Networking Is Key For Job Placement

Martin Piraino — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:38:20 -0000

Alex, I've been working contract jobs for about the last two months so have let this slide a bit but will be back to posting more soon.

Re: Networking tips for shy people

Martin Piraino — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:14:08 -0000

Thank you Frank. A lot of what I wrote on this post comes from my own personal experience in the last year. i met some high volume (and high value) networkers, listened, and learned how they network. The remark about 'slow networking' was actually something I learned along the way. That quick 5-10 minutes you're standing with someone is a brief meeting, to really get to know them, offering to meet for coffee or something like that will build that relationship further. One other note that I might add here is, EVERYONE was new at some point, for some it comes more naturally, others it takes a bit of work. But it is worth it.

Re: How to Select a Twitter Handle

Martin Piraino — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:05:52 -0000

Rachel,

Some very good points on the pros and cons of using different types of user names on Twitter.

However, I disagree to a certain point on the con you have using your own name. What I mean is that while someone won't know immediately what you do based on your name, if they've got some common sense, they will look at your twitter page/bio and see what you're about, if you've done the job of branding yourself that way, there is less of a question what you do or what you're about.

I know a lot of people probably have the default twitter background, and nothing on their bio, but if someone has a purpose to utilize twitter for a business or marketing strategy, that's one of the first things that should be updated.

As far as using a 'brand name' like yours being BostonMarketer, I've actually said "BostonMarketer" to someone I was speaking with and then followed up with "Her name is Rachel Levy, and she's on twitter."

I consider my name a brand, and as such, most of my public profiles on various social networking sites are "martinpirano" as it is on Twitter. I've taken that spot, and in the last year, pushed most any other results not referencing me from the top 3+ pages on Google because of my involvement in various social media platforms and blogging.

Re: Networking tips for shy people

Martin Piraino — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 14:30:49 -0000

Thank you Angelo, for making a great point. What would be examples of some of those curious questions you would ask that are not the "what do you do?" variety?

Re: Networking Builds Opportunities

Martin Piraino — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:24:50 -0000

Thank you for your input Frank, you mention an important part of networking, and that is followup, as mentioned in a previous comment by Angelo Fernando on another post of mine, Networking tips for shy people. I too have had similar experiences.

I was at an event a while back, this happened to be at a job fair, and not many people I spoke with had a networking/business card, and I gave my contact information to about 6-8 people because I did have my networking/business card with me.

In my conversation with them I offered to help them find some job search resources through two different organizations I'd had contact with, and one I volunteer for. Over a 2 week period after the event I had hoped to hear from them, but never heard from any of them.

I'm glad you were able to make that connection that enabled you to gain other valuable contacts.

-Martin

Re: Selecting a suitable email address for your job search

Martin Piraino — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 16:36:35 -0000

I'm not saying there is anything wrong with Hotmail, just like AOL, it's just been around a lot longer. I've had Hotmail in the past, but haven't used the account in a while so I know it's inactive.

Re: Selecting a suitable email address for your job search

Martin Piraino — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 23:42:16 -0000

Frank,

Thanks for the comment, I've got another post I should have out soon that is specific for Gmail I think you'll like. It's on some tips and tricks with Gmail while I've written it more for job seekers, the tips can be used by anyone.

As far as the voicemail, yes, that too should be professional. I used to have the 'ringback' tones on my phone and when I started looking for work, I had it only play on weekends, after a while I dropped it all together. I've talked with people in my network including recruiters, and they don't want to hear music when they call, and depending on your choice of music, it can be a disadvantage to you to have a ringback tone or anything other than a simple professional greeting.

Re: Revealed! 100 Interview Questions You Should Never Ignore

Martin Piraino — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:31:06 -0000

Some great tips and questions that I plan to share with my network.

Along the lines of question #16, I've been asked in a recent interview actually "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?" a somewhat subjective question, and I may be playing semantics because an open question like that as opposed to your more specific "goals" wording you used, but I wouldn't answer "retired and living in paradise" in either case. Realistically speaking, and with this particular interview it was for mid-level position, how I answered was along the lines of "in a lead, supervisory or management role for this organization".

Questions 71 and 82 are similar, but one gives a time constraint, personally I'd go in there with ideas of what I'd want to accomplish on the job in 30, 60 and up to 90 days, especially if I'm being hired in a position of more responsibility than my previous ones.

In regards to question #99, some of those types of questions are not even related to the job, or company culture, and for me personally I'd ask why it's relevant in the interview. To me it kind of skirts on a bit of a gray area and gets a bit too personal, and while I have no problems telling me friends what movies I like or had seen last, it's of little or no consequence to an interviewer, at least in my job field. There are a few other questions peppered through this that I feel the same way about.

I have been in interviews where there was great rapport and some personal things did come up, such as where/when I like to go hiking as I found out the interviewer is an avid hiker by a photo that was on their desk, but overall most personal interests don't enter into an interview situation. I kind of cringe at the 'what are some of your hobbies?' question, because I never quite know how to handle that in that type of setting, especially if it's asked DURING an interview, and while it hasn't happened to me in a while, I have had that asked in an interview before.

Another question I got asked was along the lines of 62, in one job I had '3' bosses, and had to answer to all of them, it was difficult, and they all had different management styles and even differing agendas, but it was asked in such a way that it wasn't about a previous manager, but more like question #47, they asked what type of management style I disliked, in which I didn't put down any previous manager in my answer, but stated how I felt about a particular management style that I worked better with than another.

Thanks for putting this out there.

-Martin
martinpiraino.com

Re: Using Gmail email filters as part of your job search tools

Martin Piraino — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 23:09:28 -0000

Thanks for the compliment. I'm probably going to review another feature of Gmail as it relates to the contact list and the Motorola Android phone I've hand now for about 5 months. Google rolled out a new contact manager in gmail, and it's very intuitive, and easy to use.

Re: Selecting a suitable email address for your job search

Martin Piraino — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:29:44 -0000

I've been busy but have had some time to reply now, I'm working on a few more articles and will be posting more soon.

Re: Selecting a suitable email address for your job search

Martin Piraino — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:30:22 -0000

Hope you find the information useful. Thanks.

-Martin

Re: Syndicating your blog/website

Martin Piraino — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:32:08 -0000

Jack,

What link in particular is down?

-Martin

Re: Syndicating your blog/website

Martin Piraino — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:32:30 -0000

Thanks for the input

Re: Syndicating your blog/website

Martin Piraino — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 23:33:05 -0000

Sorry for the delayed response, been busy. Thanks for your interest. Hope you found it useful.

-Martin

Re: Keeping your passwords secure

Martin Piraino — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 15:22:58 -0000

As an update to my email account being hacked, I found out the breech came from another website I visit, I got an email from the site about a month ago saying that user data had been compromised, and the site owner had everyone change their passwords, I know this is where it came from, because I'm very careful about my passwords. Lesson learned, and all my current passwords have been changed across all email accounts and most sites that require login that I use regularly. I've installed the portable version of KeePass on my phone, that when connected to a PC will run from the USB drive, and also have the app specifically for the phone that can read the desktop KeePass file, so if I'm at a computer and need my passwords I can connect and run the desktop app on the PC, or just open the app loaded on the phone to view the login credentials and manually type them in.

Re: US nest

Martin Piraino — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 23:40:09 -0000

Phoenix AZ down

Re: US nest

Martin Piraino — Sun, 02 Jun 2019 17:19:55 -0000

Phoenix AZ everything down, app, website

Re: US fitbit

Martin Piraino — Tue, 06 Jul 2021 18:34:47 -0000

I did the same, I can log into the website and see some stuff on my dashboard including the last time it synced but if I try to look at my profile or settings it just brings up a blank screen.

Re: US amazon-alexa

Martin Piraino — Sun, 30 Jan 2022 20:05:30 -0000

Down in Phoenix AZ

Re: Phoenix on Verge of Sweating Past Record with 54 Days of 110-Degree Heat

Martin Piraino — Fri, 29 Mar 2024 00:42:58 -0000

Why is this being reposted in 2024? This is last summers news.