Resume Tips and Career Advice

Here's a creative solution to the economic downturn -- let people pay you to wear their swag.

Jason Sadler, 26, sells companies the opportunity for him to wear their company's shirt for a day. He charges what he calls "face value", meaning January 1st costs $1 and December 31st costs $365. It might not sound like a ton of cash, but it adds up to $66,795 on a sold out calendar. He then sells monthly sponsorships adding upwards of $18,000 to his take home.

It may seem like one of those ridiculous ideas that would never actually work, but last year Jason made $83,000. According to BLS.gov, the average US take home was $32,000.

Here's the best part. In true entreprenuerial style, Jason's hiring on the west coast of the United States to expand his fledgling company's reach. Time to start bombarding his website with that Emurse resume. Make sure to mention how awesome your farmer's tan is in the cover letter!

Your colleagues are following you on Twitter, trust me. If you're looking for a career move right now or in the future and you want to promote it, wait till after you've moved from your company.

Supervisor references are always important because endorsements rule the world, so if you want to burn your previous employer by not being transparent offline, then you're in trouble. You can tell your friends and family, but once you announce it to the world, it's fair game and you'll be laid off immediately without the chance to ever return to that company. A lot of people don't realize that once you establish a reputation and a network at a company, it can be your safety net in the future if you desperately need a job.

Brand association isn't just for advertising and public relations nowadays, even the common worker is effected by this. As such, please don't say that a blog disclaimer is going to disassociate your brand with your company's because it's not and when you get fired your boss won't accept that excuse either!

Brand association is powerful and cannot be undone, which means you have to be smart about what kind of attention you want to draw to yourself. A reporter, journalist, producer or blogger can easily scrape your content and quote it in a story, without your permission. Not only should you be careful about your presence on your blogs but be careful about any attention you draw to your social media outlets including answering linkedin questions, status comments on facebook or myspace, etc. They can link you to your company, even if the blog topic isn't related to your current work position. If news breaks out because of this visibility, your company can fire you for carelessness and for harming the corporate brand. Its called conduct detrimental to the company outside of work. Again, our lives are different now, so you better be safe than sorry (and that sounds like something my parents would say).

<< Social Media Mistakes Part 3: Corporate Policy

• Mac Developer for Graphics Focused Project: Have a passion for graphics and a background in computer science? This may be the perfect gig. Joshua Distler, an award winning designer and Apple alumnus, is looking for a code ninja to help him turn his patent pending techniques into a world class Macintosh application. He's looking for someone with " the ability to implement mathematical algorithms and concepts in C++, C# or Java."
• iPhone Developer - Groupon.com is looking for a crème de la crème iPhone developer. They're based out of Chicago but they're down with the telecommuting if you're not down with the windy city. Groupon is sort of like a localized version of woot. Mobile is big, shopping is big and local is the "next big thing." Seems like a great opportunity with a really cool startup!

Company cultures are always different and have policies (some have social media policies for workers too). Some block social networking sites, while others refrain because they know that people are doing work at home, so their employment contract is different. Robert Half International found that 54% of companies prohibit use of social networking Web sites during work hours, including popular sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Another survey by ScanSafe, indicates that 20% more companies are blocking social networking sites and that 76% currently block them, which is much more than the Robert half survey. Don't complain that your company blocks these sites. If you're truly obsessed, why not access them from your mobile phone? Otherwise, get fired or quit and go somewhere else (though that is not a great idea in todays economy)!

Other companies realize the potential in good corporate web-citizens. For example, eBillme offers training on how to use social networking sites to spread company information.

People use a lot crazy tactics to try to get a job, and some actually work. Brandishing a gun, however, is not one of them.

According to LoHud.com, a man took the term "Job Hunt" a little too literally. He walked into a Taco Bell in Haverstraw, NY on Monday afternoon, pulled out a gun, demanded money, then continued on to the manager's office.