Using LinkedIn endorsements

For a couple of minutes the last week, I've played with the new LinkedIn feature: the endorsements. Using them outlines the importance of including in your network especially people about whom you know something, or preferably you met in the real life. 

You have the possibility to confirm certain qualities listen as skills on the LinkedIn profile. Those endorsing you certify that you are genuine and what you say is exactly what you are. Thus, it is very important that you have in your network business partners, collaborators or former and current employers. Plus, many of those you endorse will be keen to do the same with you and thus, each member of LinkedIn confirms your professional qualities. The next time a head hunter will be interested in recruiting, checking the credentials will be very helpful to have a cleared profile of a potential candidate. 

If more features will be introduced, the possibilities of fake profiles will be strictly limited. And last but not least, you have the chance to increase the relations with the people from your network, but also to check their activity. Some may be inactive for months or even years and thus, you better eliminate them and add people that may add content to your network. The result of my 30 minutes of working hard to endorse people from my network was that for the next seven days I received a lot of endorsements and got in touch with some interesting people from my list of contacts.

Happy endorsing!

What's in a picture

Once again, I want to focus on the importance of having a picture for your profile, this time for your presence on the professional social networking sites. 

As I needed to work intensively for expanding my network lately, I spent a lot of time on Xing - Germany's favorite network - and LinkedIn. I neglected a lot those two professional places so I wanted to get in touch with some of the members of my networks, events and potential new clients. One of my main problem was to recognize some of the people of my networks that did not have any picture.

Even though when you are looking to hire or network, you are interested in the level of professional achievement and the immediate experience, but you may also need to have an eye contact. Not necessarily a bad looking person has less chances to get a new job or a new project, but it is equally important to know how the person looks like as a proof of her/his authenticity. I need to know which is the person with such and such experience as maybe I can meet him/her on one of the conferences we are supposed to participate together. 

Thus, you have a picture, you have credibility and wish my contacts without picture read this post and will help me to network better with them. 

Weekend reading: Hubspot on Written Guide Styles

An interesting lecture for all those interested in writing, from Hubspot. And how can you dare to do not be interested in writing when the written word is what can make the big difference for your brand, business project and any other business related project?

How to organize your blogging life

Let's think about the following nightmare scenario:

Happy mother, with a high academic profile, with a busy happy family life, and a lot of social networking, and a lot of passion for writing, reading - as many domains as possible, and many blogs to manage on a daily basis. Please add to the list a new job and some extra business projects I need to continue at least for a couple of months. I also love to cook and to blog about my recipes. I need to attend conferences, improve two foreign languages and other 'must to' at least twice the day.

Sounds crazy, I know, but I use to sleep maximum 5 hours the day and I am perfectly healthy. However, when it comes to my small blogging empire, I suffer a lot for neglecting the regular contributions. As one day - and many years later -  I hope I will be professional enough to focus exclusively on managing my blogging portfolio, I need to prepare the official launch of my free life. But how?

The easiest way to plan is to dedicate at least one hour the day updating two of the blogs and another 30 minutes later the day to keep the track of the social media from the domains close to those blogs. It is important that I create thus a certain regularity of the posts, instead of the current pace when I use to dedicate a couple of days in a row to updating one or two of the blogs and not returning for the next 2 weeks. On the other hand, as blogging is the only activity without deadlines, it was healthier for a while to refrain from being too intensive, as I need to draw the separation line between 'freedom' and 'financial slavery'.

I will try to keep this program at least for two weeks from now and evaluate if it is feasible or not. I decided - 100% randomly - to dedicate the Mondays and Tuesdays to this blog, so hope to be back then!

Lessons of writing

I am more and more convinced that without a good writing you cannot survive on the freelance writing market. As a non-English speaker, I continue my personal struggle with unhappy editors and unexpectedly glowing reviews from very happy customers. 

This article made me laugh at a certain extent, because it reminded me of my daily struggle to get a lot of work and get paid while I am still trying to improve my English at a native level. When you do not have any choice but to use your brain for getting money, you automatically throw yourself into a sea of desperation and waves of hope. On the other hand, I feel strong enough to hope that maybe within 12 months time I will be also able to write at a coherent level in another two languages - German being one of them - that will allow me to increase my chances of profit and the hopes to settle down financially. 

I wish myself a lot of good grammarly correct luck!

What your picture says about you

If you are an intensive user of the freelance networks - as I am - you will easily notice a lot of choices regarding the profile pictures. Some will prefer to hide their identity and post a picture with an avatar, somehow related to their work recommendations. The most used are a computer for the IT specialists and a pen for a freelance writer. 

There are also some that did not make a difference between their hobbies and their tailored profiles and thus they selected as professional recommendations images with favorite pets and various spots visited during their vacations. If the last choice could be a decent option after all, in the case of the pets pictures, I will think more than twice before hiring someone that considered that his representative picture should be a cat or a monkey. 

Last but not least, some decided to upload pictures with their children - could impress the audience when you realize that you will help the person to feed his/her family, but probably it doesn't work for all - or with their lovely spouses. Not few of them are fake and use other people's pictures randomly stolen from the social media networks or from Google. 

What I honestly prefer is a decent picture, when you can say something about yourself, with a professional look that will inspire the potential employer to work with you and not with anyone else. 

Less spam on Freelancer

After quite a long time when at least once the month I was somehow affected by a spam employer on Freelancer.com, I was more than happy to notice the introduction of a new option: the 'verified account'. Thus, before you bid to a project, you will be able to check the accountability of the company or person that you are supposed to work with. 

The checking involves the financial situation, as well as the identity of the employer. Another interesting feature that helps the bidders and employers is the option of checking the dashboards for evaluations, new messages for projects you applied as well as other details of your submissions. 

Good news for me and for other current users of Freelancer.com.