How to transform your interview and defeat your competition

By Neil Patrick

If you think you know how to prepare for a job interview, think again. A recent survey of employers by job site Careerbuilder.com found that 39% of jobseekers failed because they didn’t properly research the company they were being interviewed by.

Whilst it might seem an obvious point that research is a key part of proper interview preparation, there’s a powerful secret extra benefit to doing this which I’ll reveal in a moment.

As Monster.co.uk points out, "Nothing is as disappointing as when a candidate oozes enthusiasm and then doesn't even know the most basic facts and figures about a company."

What’s more, in this digital age where so much information is freely available online, companies expect you to do this. There really is no excuse not to anymore.

What you need to know

Naturally, your aim is to appear knowledgeable about the company, its market position, plans for the future and the particular role you're applying for. With smaller employers especially, you should also reassure yourself that the company is financially sound.

It's also valuable to know about the culture within the company and a little about the person who’s interviewing you. You might just discover that you have connections, background or interests in common.

At the very least, their career history will give you valuable insights into how they are likely to think and what their particular focus at interview might be.

The company website

The first and most basic information source is the organisation’s own website. Any reasonably-sized firm is likely to have a blog or media centre. You'll find out what the company is doing right now, its products and services and how it markets them.

The website will probably also contain biographies of senior staff - possibly including your interviewer - and a list of important clients. If you extend your research to these clients, you can also pick up some very useful information that will enable you to talk knowledgeably at your interview.

Social media

Most companies now have a Facebook or Twitter account, and this can provide you with a good insight into the company culture. It's also very useful to look up the person that's interviewing you on LinkedIn. Do you have any contacts in common? If some of these are good personal connections of your own, it may well be worth having a private chat with them to get their insights.

Other websites

Job sites including Glassdoor and Inside Buzz, contain profiles of thousands of companies. Some have reviews written by current or former employees, which can tell you a lot about what working there is like.

When applying to small companies, provided you have some basic financial knowledge it is worth creating a Deudil account to check out the financial well-being of the company. That way, you won’t be blinded by any smokescreens by interviewers to cover up the real story. Make no mistake, companies in difficulty often keep on recruiting right up to the point of collapse…

Google is your friend…

The company’s website will only tell you what the company wants you to hear - and this may not give you the full story. Create a Google alert using the name of the organisation and/or business unit. This will give you daily updates of any news items about the company.

You can find out how your target company is doing by using Google searches such as "(company name) + research + share price". With luck, you'll find research reports about how your target company is performing, and some independent expert opinion on its prospects.

You'll need a context in which to put all you've learned about your potential new employer. So check out their competitors' websites too.

Get smart with social media tools

A valuable tool to help you establish the success level of the company on social media is Kred. I was recently talking to a client about their online marketing strategy. I showed them how their competitors were scoring higher than them on Kred and why. They had no idea this was the case. And this news made them really sit up and take notice of the plans I was proposing for them. Had I been applying for a job, this sort of insight would have been really valuable too.

How to use the information

After all this, you'll have a heap of information about your prospective employer. But you need to utilise it tactfully. Posts to the company's social media sites, may well include some customer complaints; unless the site's swamped with them, this doesn't automatically mean you should reject the company as a prospective employer.

Once you get into the interview, it may be tempting to try and showcase all your homework by dragging as many facts as you can into the conversation. Whilst this will make you look keen, it's much better to hold back a little and simply use what you've learned as and when it comes up. Your aim is to look as if you knew it all already. Where you've uncovered negative information about the company, a lawsuit, a fall in profits or any other negative information - it's best to avoid mentioning it altogether.

So, prepare, prepare, prepare!

I promised I’d let you in on a secret at the start of this post. And here it is.

A couple of years ago I was interviewed for an executive board position on a major UK plc.

Before the interview I wrote down every question I thought I might be asked, from the deceptively simple ‘tell me about yourself’, to the testily specific ‘what’s your take on the regulatory frameworks in the market’. And everything in between. I scripted the best answers I could come up with, polished them and learned them so I could more or less recite them word perfectly.

But I didn't just prepare answers, I prepared almost as many questions. I wanted the interview to be as much of a discussion as I could make it. And for that, I needed good questions. This would not only take the pressure off me a little, it would show if I chose the right questions, that I had really done my homework.

To find the right questions I really went to work on my research. I mean really went to work. I got hold of every news report and company statement I could find. I tracked the share price history. I used LinkedIn and other social media to discover the name and background of every senior person in the business. I researched their competitors. And their competitors’ strategies. I made notes on all the market sector reports and analysis I could find.

All in all, I think I spent about five full days of work preparing. But at the end, I was so prepared and ready, that I knew I would put on my best possible performance. When the day came and I sat in the reception area, waiting to go into the interview, I was calm, focussed and actually looking forward to the interview and having the discussion.

As it turned out, the interview was just between the CEO and myself. And it was the simplest interview I’ve ever had. It was more like a friendly chat than an interview.

And this was because my research meant that instead of me passively responding to a string of questions, I was able to not only answer every one, but also bring up relevant topics I had discovered through my research. And since most CEOs love talking about their companies, we ended up having an interesting and engaging discussion.

At a stroke, I had proved that I was super knowledgeable about the business and therefore interested and qualified. But critically, the interview turned into a two way discussion…and I’m certain that it facilitated a more meaningful dialogue as a result. I was no longer a passive participant - I was actively steering the conversation too.

Of course this couldn't have happened if I was being interviewed by several people or a panel. But the key point remains - proper preparation will make you more relaxed, more confident, and more knowledgeable. Do it thoroughly and the extent of your preparation will be clear, proving that you really want the job...in a positive way.

So don’t just think that research is about showing that you know a little about the company…do it right and you can change the whole interview process for the better and empower yourself too.

Show you mean business and let your competitors have the stress instead!

4 tips to get Twitter helping your career

By Neil Patrick

Until about one year ago, I thought that Twitter was the biggest waste of time ever invented.

Why on earth would I want to spend any of my valuable time, telling people that I’d just eaten a great dinner, or that I was worried about global warming, or that I was gutted because some wanna be pop star had just been kicked off Celebrity X-Factor Millionaire?

More importantly, why would anyone else be in the slightest bit interested?

Twitter was for the birds as far as I was concerned.

But I have had an epiphany. I am an absolute Twitter fan today. I have started to understand it a little and learned enough to begin to harness its immense power. It has become a cornerstone of my work and without it, I think my professional goals would be infinitely harder to achieve.

But every day, I talk with mature professionals and it’s clear that many of them are stuck more or less where I was a year or so ago.

They mostly don’t have a Twitter account and even if they do, they are really unsure about what to do with it.

So today I thought I’d share a few basic points I have learned which I hope will be useful to anyone looking to use Twitter to help develop their career.

So here goes:

1. If you want Twitter to support your career, you should stick to just one or two fields that relate to your career.

We are all multi-dimensional in our lives. I happen to tweet about careers and jobs and the economic crisis. Because that is one of my main professional interests and what I want to talk about with people.

But it’s certainly not everything that I am. I have plenty of other things in my life that I never talk about on 40pluscareerguru. Like my day to day business activities, my community support work and my love of military history and heavy metal music.

If I were to include those subjects in my Tweets, it would be really confusing for everyone. Who is this guy…what’s he really about?

Twitter recognises this issue and that’s why it allows us to have up to ten accounts. I happen to have another Twitter account called @Marshalstackman which is all guitars and heavy metal. I keep all my loud music stuff there. And I'm sure you don’t want to see or hear that. Right?

So ensure your Twitter profile and Tweets are consistent with each other and deal with your professional interests or some of them. If you have multiple interests, use multiple Twitter accounts.

2. Twitter has no instructions

This is a problem for many. It’s also a great opportunity. Twitter is there for you to use however you choose. There’s no single ‘proper’ or best practice model. It’s a powerful communication platform if you can get to grips with its unique and somewhat quirky characteristics. But this requires creativity and a plan. And the absence of such a plan is why you’ll see plenty of people using it clumsily.

Some approach it as a version of the SMS texting they do with their friends. This is one end of the spectrum and it’s legitimate, if you just want a bit of fun and engagement with a few people. But it’s not really an effective way to build your personal career standing amongst the people you want to increase your influence with.

At the other end of the spectrum are people that view Twitter as a mighty spam engine. They just endlessly send out link after link after link. And if they are not focussed on a single topic, these links about seemingly random things are of no value or interest to 99.99% of the people that get them in their Twitter stream.

Links themselves are I think a good thing provided they connect people with something of value and relevance to them. But if that is all you do, it all gets a bit tedious and one-sided. Who really wants to be endlessly talked at? Most of us had enough of that when we in school.

So the key here I think is balance. Try to strike a happy medium between talking to all and talking with people individually.



3. This is social media, so be erm… social

I still see plenty of Twitter accounts which are nothing more than endless spammy links promoting things I don’t need, don’t want and am not interested in. I never follow these people or organisations. Why would I?

Likewise, I am not keen on people who only send out their own tweets. If you are on Twitter and you have a following, you should in my opinion, support your followers and show your appreciation by retweeting them when you think they have said something interesting, relevant, amusing or whatever.

If I see people who are clearly engaging in conversations with others and they are courteous and friendly, I’m happy to follow them back. It doesn’t matter if they have 100,000 followers or just 10.

And when someone is kind enough to engage with me I will always try and engage back and help them if I can…even if it’s just with an acknowledgement or bit of light-hearted banter.

Just a quick aside…today, even with only around 7,000 followers on Twitter, I just cannot individually thank people every time they retweet me or favourite me. I wish I could. But there are now just too many. But I will try and answer every tweet to me that has a question or a comment in it.

So tip three is engage, support and be nice to people on Twitter and almost always they will be nice to you. This is much more useful to you than just endlessly talking at people instead of talking with them.


4. You need thousands of followers to have any kudos or influence.

Wrong. If you are clear about what your Twitter account is all about, you’ll steadily build a great network of people who are interested in the same things that you are. And this shared ground is essential if you are to have any chance of developing Twitter relationships and engagement.

If you use Kred and/or Klout to track your social influence, you'll notice that the size of your following is a relatively small factor in how they calculate your score. The amount and quality of your online engagement with individual people has a much bigger influence.

Like attracts like on social media. If you follow people randomly, you’ll get random people following you back. And that’s just a waste. You’ll have no basis of a shared interest or viewpoint that allows you to build meaningful relationships.

What’s better - to have 10,000 random people following you, or 500 who are all passionate about the same things you are?

So rule four is focus on connecting with the people who share your professional interests, background or outlook.

So there you have four simple fundamentals on how I think we should all set up the basics of our Twitter presence if we want to use it to help our careers. I realise this has only scratched the surface of this huge topic, so if anyone finds this helpful, or has additions or questions do please let me know and I’ll use these as the basis for my next post on this subject.

There’s much more to talk about on this so please share your thoughts!

Tips to turbo charge your social media for job hunting

By Neil Patrick and Axel Kőster

Several people have approached me asking about the best way to grow their social media presence to help with their job search. So I thought I’d team up with my good friend Axel Kőster at the Manhattan Group and share a few quick tips that we hope will be of help.

1. You cannot buy social media success!

Our first piece of advice is don’t ever be tempted into taking up offers to buy Twitter followers, Linkedin network or Facebook likes. This is a breach of the terms of service of Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook and it can easily get your account suspended. So don’t waste your money or risk your reputation! It’s also a wasted effort as the type of followers you’ll get are unlikely to be the type you want.

Like attracts like too, so if you follow people too randomly, you may for example start attracting a following of Romanian wrestling fans (or worse!) And once this happens, you can be sure more of the same will follow! Of course, the same thing happens if you follow the right people - you’ll attract more of the right people.

Whilst quantity is not a bad thing, quality trumps quantity every time. The people you should be connecting with are for example recruiters, job search experts, other people in your profession or what you are all about, news media and target employers in your own region/country (assuming you’re aren't planning on emigrating) not teenage Transformers fans in Tokyo! You will find many useful Twitter connections if you search the #Hashtags relevant to their field...for example #Job #Recruitment #AxelJob etc

2. Feel free to use my Twitter lists and set up your own!

Twitter can be a difficult thing to get comfortable with at first. As someone once remarked, ‘Twitter doesn’t come with an instruction book.’ Neither does it have much in the way of useful tools within it (more on this shortly) and the ‘Help desk’ is non-existent. So it’s down to you to be creative and develop your Twitter account in a way that works for you and helps you achieve your goals.

Our view is quite simple - you should 'run your own race, not someone’s else’s' and make it one which you are comfortable with. Setting up your own Twitter lists before you get too many followers is a wise idea to help you find people again when you may have forgotten their name or company!

So, my second tip is to take advantage of the Twitter lists I have set up to help you on my Twitter account. Here, I’ve placed the most helpful people in my Twitter following and organised the key ones like recruiters by location, so you can quickly and easily find and follow the ones which are most relevant to you.

Please feel free to subscribe to any of my lists you like and as I update them, they’ll be automatically updated for you too!

I have also set up lists of other useful people for you like coaches, resume writers and the most exciting firms that are hiring.

And for beginners on social media, it is a great idea to network with experts and more experienced people in this field. Their blogs and tips will usually be free and can get you off to a faster and more confident start.

We are both more than happy to help beginners for free and steer you in the right direction. So if you think we could help you, please just ask!

3. Use Twitter to find and engage with the people that are important to you

Compared to Linkedin, Twitter is an informal and relaxed environment. And in every field, there are ‘stars’ who everyone would like to have in their network. But asking strangers to connect with you on Linkedin may result in a decline. So don’t risk it.

Connect with them first on Twitter by making some positive comments on or regularly retweeting their tweets for example and they will be likely to reciprocate your follow. Once you've established a connection in this way, it’s then relatively easy to connect with them also on Linkedin.

4. Have a plan and stick to it

Our fourth tip is to make your social media activity a regular part of your daily routine. It’s very easy to get sucked into spending hours and hours every day, reading posts, commenting, sending out Tweets etc. etc. Don’t! Have a strategy and a plan for a reasonable amount of time each day to devote to your social media activity and stick to it. Prioritise the tasks you will do each day and focus on hitting those targets.

Developing a successful dialogue with one or two key people each day is a much better use of your time than spreading yourself too thinly across dozens of discussions and Groups. A single well-constructed comment or response to a key person is more valuable than clicking a hundred ‘like’ buttons. So stay focussed!

5. Make use of social media tools to help you

The next tip is to make use of some of the fantastic free tools that are available to help you manage your social media presence and get much more efficient at it.

As I said earlier, Twitter doesn’t have many useful tools within it, so you need to make use of separate tools to help you develop your social media profile in an informed and focused way.

Two of the most useful are Kred and SocialBro and here’s Axel’s take on these and how they can be of help to you.




Last but not least, if you’d like more help from Axel or myself, please feel free to get in touch and we’ll do our best to help.

The value of blogging and my favourite Twitter people in the world!

By Neil Patrick

Happy birthday to US!

I am writing this at the first anniversary of starting this blog.

I thought that it would be useful to share what I've discovered so that you can see for yourself what anyone could achieve in 12 months starting from scratch. I have absolutely nothing to brag about, but strangely few bloggers seem willing to share this stuff. Many people extol the benefits of blogging, but few talk about the numbers side of it. So, I thought it might be helpful to share my data and experience for anyone who is curious about the potential that blogs and social media offer for mature professionals.

Why did I do this?

I put up my first post here on 24 September 2012. I was a total rookie and had never blogged before. My blog posts came from three sources. About one third were written by guest posters, a further third were curated from mainstream and online media and all the rest I wrote myself. Since my first post, I have followed up with 263 more. That’s quite a lot compared to most bloggers it seems, but I am in a hurry; I’m driven by two main motivations:

1. A desire to urgently inform mature professionals about how the career world has transformed without many of them really noticing and what they could do about it to protect their futures. 
2. An intense curiosity to discover for myself if and how I could harness the power of social media to assist me achieve 1. above. 

What happened?

Well it’s now one year on and I have some answers.

I’ll start by sharing some headline numbers.

Total all-time hits on this blog are around 60,000 according to Blogger. Monthly hits on this blog are currently around 10,000. However, the biggest chunk (around 70%) of these ‘hits’ are not in fact reader views, they are hits by various ‘bots’ from Google, Twitter, Kred, Klout etc. The ‘real’ figures according to Google Analytics are currently around 2,500 - 3,000 human visits a month. Big difference huh? So the first point is do not trust the numbers of hits that are recorded by Blogger or Wordpress etc. Most of these are not human reader views.

At the same time I set up the blog, I also set up a Twitter account to support it and get the message out to anyone who might be interested in what I was doing. Currently, my Twitter following is around 6,200 followers. So on average, I'm getting roughly one blog view every two months per Twitter follower.

According to Beevolve, the average Twitter following is 208. So if you have more than that, you can give yourself a pat on the back! Interestingly, less than 0.5% of Twitter users have more than 5,000 followers. 

You can see these stats and more here:

http://www.beevolve.com/twitter-statistics/

According to statisticbrain, there were 554m Twitter users in July 2013, so the top 0.5% of Twitter users ranked by following is a whopping 2.8m people! Suddenly being in the top 0.5% doesn’t sound too impressive, but given this is hardly the sexiest or most entertaining blog in the world I’m totally amazed to have got so far so fast.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/twitter-statistics/

But the numbers alone don’t really tell the whole story. I am not chasing numbers for numbers’ sake. I think engagement is much more important. What’s the point of having hundreds of thousands or even millions of social media connections if you are not interacting with them?

This is where Klout and Kred come in. These both purport to measure online influence. My Klout score has reached 61 out of 100 and my Kred score is 785 out of 1000 for influence and 8 out of 12 for outreach. Before I started this blog, these were both zero or as close as makes no difference. If you want to know more about Kred and Klout and what they mean, I have written a post about it here:

http://40pluscareerguru.blogspot.com/2013/04/klout-and-kred-are-they-relevant-to.html

And then there’s Linkedin. A year ago I had about 360 connections on Linkedin. Every single one was someone that I’d met at least once (and usually much more) face to face. People I’d worked with and done business with over the last 20 years or so. About six or seven of them had been kind enough to give me recommendations.

In all honesty, I used LinkedIn pretty much like many do…rather like a self-updating address book of all my real world business connections. And since I worked mostly inside that little bubble, my network was growing very slowly. I would receive about one invitation a month to connect if I was lucky…and most of these were from people I'd met face to face.

Fast forward to today. Every day now I get a new invitation to connect with someone new on Linkedin. Most days it’s several. And most of these are from the sort of people anyone would love to have in their network. Apart from creating lots of exciting new opportunities, this has also massively boosted my search ranking on Linkedin. Today if I search against the keywords for the type of work I do, I come out on page one of a Linkedin search within a radius of about 50 miles. This in turn means I am approached more and more frequently with great new opportunities. 

But numbers are not the most important thing…people are

But these numbers don’t reveal the reality of the situation. People and relationships are what this is all about, not statistics.

I want to share insights, information and knowledge that is relevant and that I hope will help people. I want to engage with people. I want to help them avoid the growing threats to their futures and achieve their goals.

Which brings me to what I think is the most incredible outcome of these last 12 months. It’s the sheer number and quality of people that who’ve chosen to connect with me with and who have responded positively to what I am doing.

They are as diverse as they are numerous. There are so many that I couldn’t possibly recount all the details of all the emails, DMs, tweets, phone calls, Skype and Google hangouts that have gone on. But I want here to publicly thank every single one of them that has inspired me, helped me, encouraged me, enlightened me and even just been nice to me.

Here they are. Every single one of these people is just wonderful and I have provided their Twitter handles too so if you wish, you can easily follow them on Twitter and engage with them yourself.

Awesome Recruiters:

Axel Koster @AxelKoster

Barbara Adams @CareerProGlobal

HRIS Jobs @hrisjobs

Ibro Palic @Ibro_Palic

Intellego Jobs @intellegojobs

Randstad USA @RandstadUSPros



Career and resume experts:

Debra Wheatman @DebraWheatman

Kerry Hannon @KerryHannon

Kim Marino @CareerCoachKim

Michelle Lopez @One2OneResumes

Tony Restell @tonyrestell



World class coaches:

Donna Svei @AvidCareerist

Fernado Ratkoczy @JobSearchCenter

Jacob Share @jacobshare

Jane Anderson @jane_anderson__



Awesome HR pros:

Anne Marinis @AnneMarinis

Jeremy Scrivens @JeremyScrivens

Karalyn Brown @InterviewIQ

Lisa Orrell @GenerationsGuru

Nicole Le Maire @NicoleLeMaire



Linkedin experts:

Koka Sexton @kokasexton

Stacy Donovan Zapar @StacyZapar



Great guest post writers:

Anna Pitts @annaepitts

Anthony Juliano @ajuliano

David Hunt @davidhuntpe

Jim Langendorf @jplang43

Ron Thomas @ronald_thomas



Brilliant bloggers:

Andrew Ginsburg @GinsburgJobs

David K Waltz @davidkwaltz

Deb Briceland-Betts @DBricelandBetts

Jason Poquette @jasonpoquette

Jesse Colombo @TheBubbleBubble

John Baldino @jbalive

Karen Austin @TheGenAboveMe

Leo Woodhead @thecareersblog

Marc Miller @CareerPivot

Marcia La Reau @ForwardMotionUS

Mary Eileen Williams @FeistySideFifty



The lifetime achievement award goes to:

Everald Compton @EVERALDATLARGE



Social media and tech experts:

The one and only…Gary Hyman! @GaryHyman



Special mention for support above and beyond the call of duty:

Yittah Lawrence @ITISAGR8DAY



And last but not least all these super kind people who have supported and encouraged me:

Abby Kohut @Absolutely_Abby

Angel Torres @angeltorres

Anke Gosch @ueberfliegernet

Anne Sachs @TheatreSmart

Anthony Sider @BudgetDude

Biggleswade JCP @BiggleswadeJCP

Buzz Brindle @BrindleMedia

Caroline Fabian @fabe_recruits

Corrina Wade @wade_corrina

Dave Kushan @DavidKushan

David Nicola @Capt_Careerist

Deepak Sharma @deepakmandi

Diana Schniedman @DianaSchneidman

Diane McWade @dianemcwade

Dionne Lew @DionneLew

Dr. Heather Dix @HeatherChizz

Elzbieta Jaworska @edjaworska

Fotis Tsoumanis @fotispersisting

Getrude Sawadye @getrudesawadye

Gul Nur Bilek @GulNurBilek

Hanna Hurley @hanna_hurley

Helen Fisher @HelenJFisher

Jacqueline Ktita @JacquelineKtita

Jeanette Barrowcliffe @J_Barrowcliffe

Jerome Holland @JeromeHolland1

John Hanna @johnhannagdp

John Siracusa @john_siracusa

Karen Julius @karenjulius

Karla Crawford @kklm7

Kimberlee Lockhart @Kimba_67

Les Floyd @Lesism

Luis Carlos de Paula @lcdepaula

Margie Miklas @MargieMiklas

Mark Affleck @markaffleck

Mark Seaden @MarkSeaden

Projectme @projectmeuk

Sonja Vukadin @SONJAVUKADIN

Steve Leuck @AudibleRx

Wayne Miller @Affilipede

William Carrington @ColCarrington 

I only knew just one of these brilliant people one year ago (yes that's you John!). Today I am proud and flattered to count every one of them as a valued friend and supporter. My sincere thanks and appreciation goes out to each and every one of you. You are all awesome!

Which brings me to the most important point of all. When I started out just one year ago, I had no idea of where I’d be today. I had no clue if anyone was interested in what I thought or had to say.

The last year has shown me that social media can help anyone not only get their message out, it can connect you with people that not only share your beliefs, but also who are willing to share their valuable time, which is why I wanted to express my gratitude in this way.

And that’s the whole point, none of us knows everything. We never can and we never will. But through teamwork and helping others before ourselves, it’s possible to achieve extraordinary things. And that’s the power of social media. Finding and connecting us with the people that share our beliefs and values so we can create amazing things together.

I’m not promising that I can solve everyone’s problems, although I’ll try to help wherever I can and payback all the people who have helped me on my journey. I started out with a very simple idea. I just thought that too many mature professionals were blind to the career revolution that has swept away almost everything that we all grew up believing about work and careers. And this was a big threat to them. And I hoped that my modest insights could help make peoples’ futures a bit more secure and successful.

My work is far from done. But thanks to all of you, my commitment and belief in my mission has been cemented and will drive us forward to…who knows where?

Thank you all and I am now wondering where things will be a year from now. Personally I can’t wait to find out!

Happy birthday to US!

Klout and Kred: Are they relevant to your career or jobhunt?

By Neil Patrick

Scott Levy wrote a great article last week on the Forbes website, which I tweeted recently called Klout Vs. Kred: Which, If Any, Is Better For Your Business?  I have quoted some of his points below and would like to thank him for raising this highly topical subject.

Given what this blog is about though, this post is focussed on individuals and specifically those looking to advance their careers or find a new or better job. Are these things meaningful? Do they matter? And what if anything should you do with them?

In case you are only vaguely aware of these things, let’s start with a basic overview of the two tools and the differences between them:

Klout:

Klout was the first company to create an algorithm that would assign a number to people based on a mathematical measurement of their social influence.  It was a novel and interesting idea. People with high scores proclaimed what a great platform and measurement tool it was.  Those with poor scores didn’t care, shrugged it off or felt mistreated. Critically, there was no transparency as to how Klout had come up with these scores, however. 

Yet some HR folk with no real ability to understand or make their own determinations about social media prowess started to make hiring decisions based on these scores! As most people know, this score goes up and down daily and often without an understandable reason. In addition it’s always been easily manipulated - hire someone to spam your twitter handle and all of a sudden you’re a social media rocket scientist. If we accept the Klout algorithm as valid, then a 14 year old screaming about Justin Bieber every day is just as influential as an intelligent and insightful tech journalist with a solid following and engagement.

Kred:

Kred started off in a similar fashion, focused on a score. Their approach was different though in that they attempted be completely transparent about what factors went into their score calculations.

By displaying a massive real time stream of the data they aggregate via their data engines, it’s like a visual buffet of everything you have ever tweeted, posted, or commented on in social media. It also helpfully shows your retweets and accolades in sorted into different topics.

Kred proclaims, ‘This is what we see you doing, this is how people are reacting to your content, and this is why and what we feel you’re influential about’. To its credit, this transparency makes the tool much more useful to us than Klout; transparency is everything today and to do things better we all need meaningful data, not a black box which simply produces a number for everyone that only its proprietors understand the workings of. As Scott has pointed out, Kred is so transparent that they have even published a Scoring Guide: http://kred.com/rules

A Kred score (mine!) today

In addition to influence, Kred also measures what they call outreach. Think of it like this, influence is about how well received your content is (such as retweets for example), outreach is about how much you help others by sharing their content and replying to their messages. It’s perfectly possible to score very highly on one and very low on the other. The size of your network impacts both however.

The transparency of Kred is also its biggest problem. There’s too much information upfront. It’s cluttered & hard to sort through. It really does need to be restructured, and presented in an organised way versus a streamed and somewhat chaotic wall.  This way you could drill down and investigate your key social media moments and how certain pieces of content performed etc. Right now, the way it’s laid out is too difficult to sort through and understand.

As the situation stands, we have two increasingly widespread measurements, but their meaningfulness for hiring decisions is extremely questionable. Nevertheless the fact is that some recruiters, especially for marketing and media jobs ARE using them to assess candidates before or after interview.

So if you are in these fields, you need to manage your scores, whether you agree with their meaningfulness or not.

Does this mean the rest of us can relax and forget all about this stuff? Well yes and no. If you are job hunting or serious about developing your personal brand, then Kred in particular is actually rather helpful. Because of its transparency, it gives you real time feedback on the impact of your activities and their outcome. You can also benchmark yourself against those you aspire to match or outperform in your specialist field. And since there is so little real analytics available for social media, there aren’t really any better options out there.

So in conclusion, if your personal network and profile are important to your future career goals and success, then I believe these tools are useful despite the shortcomings I’ve talked about above. You might not like them, but the fact is some recruitment decisions (and probably more in future) are being influenced by these numbers. Don’t be afraid to use them to explore what someone does via social media, their interests, and even outreach. It’s a pretty neat way of stripping away the veneer and seeing what the people in your network are really all about. And if you are developing your personal brand successfully, it’ll give you some bragging rights too!