Jobseekers' Bad Habits in the Pull Economy

Jobseekers, are you behind the times?

The Digital Age has launched us into the Pull Economy – where others, like hiring managers, potential customers, even dates – come to us. What a radical difference, a huge paradigm shift, from its Push Economy predecessor, which relied on heavy proactive promotion – whether with advertising, lead generation or finding a new position.

So are you job hunting accordingly?

Here are the top five indicators you may still be (mistakenly, ruinously) operating in ways that won’t have an impact in the Pull Economy:

Trusting the machine. Simply putting your application in with the company, via its online system, and calling it good is a rookie mistake. Come on, you’re so much better than that. You may have to put in a formal application at some point but relying on the system is like pitching a penny into a black hole and hoping to find it again. It’s just never gonna happen.

Falling short on networking. People can be very, very timid with networking. Maybe we’ll let people we know personally in on the fact we’re looking for a new gig. But that’s as far as many people get. Why? Who knows – perhaps it’s fear that a current employer will find out or shame that you’re currently out of work. Whatever the reason is, get over it. Remember: most of us love to feel like it’s within our power to do a good turn for someone else. And it largely IS in our power to help great people get connected, which will ultimately benefit you because an estimated 70 percent of jobs are never posted. That means people are the only conduits to these invisible positions.

Never auditing yourself. Did you know that 83 percent of recruiters cop to using online search engines to find information about you? There are just so many ways for this to go wrong for you. So. Many. Maybe you have the same name as someone else, whose information ranks higher than yours. Perhaps that person is a criminal or a deadbeat. It’s entirely possible a very outdated piece of information is showing up as number one in your search results. Maybe you’re tagged in some less-than-flattering photos that pop up, like a demented clown, in a Google Images search. Whatever it is, ignorance is far from bliss on the Internet.

Being stupidly social. More than 90 percent of recruiters and hiring managers have visited a potential candidate’s social media sites, a recent study revealed. Let’s be clear: it IS smart to be on social media as a jobseeker – unless you’re stupid about it. Facebook posts with off-color jokes, photos of wild partying, tweets that include misspellings, blog posts that are profane or even merely just inane, musings on politics or religion…they all fuse together into one, not necessarily ideal, picture. And while it’s completely, utterly human to think, “It can’t happen to me,” it can (and will).

Putting all your eggs in one basket. The best job candidates know that on the whole, finding the perfect position in the Pull Economy requires executing on multiple fronts. So if you’re only putting your resume up on Monster.com or cold-calling companies, think again. You want to flank this challenge and come at it head-on. This is war, baby, and you should take no prisoners.

Next week, I’ll share the Top Five must-dos are for jobseekers in a Pull Economy. For now, tell me – what’s your experience been searching for a job? Share your “never-dos” in the comments below.

BlackBerry Ltd

(Reuters) - BlackBerry Ltd is warming up to the possibility of going private, as the smartphone maker battles to revive its fortunes, several sources familiar with the situation said.

Chief Executive Thorsten Heins and the company's board is increasingly coming around to the idea that taking BlackBerry private would give them breathing room to fix its problems out of the public eye, the sources said.

"There is a change of tone on the board," one of the sources said on Thursday.

No deal is imminent, however, and BlackBerry has not launched any kind of a sale process, the sources said. Even if it tried, BlackBerry could find it hard to come up with a buyer and the funding to go private. With the company still posting losses and bleeding subscribers, private equity firms and other buyers may not want to step up.

The company's shares have fallen more than 19 percent this year. Its market value has fallen to $4.8 billion, from $84 billion at its peak in 2008.

BlackBerry, which had been pinning its hopes for a turnaround on its new line of BlackBerry 10 devices, declined to comment. The sources declined to be named because these discussions are private.

BlackBerry's openness to consider a deal marks a radical shift in thinking at the once high-flying smartphone maker. Until recently, BlackBerry, formerly known as Research in Motion and a pioneer in providing secured emails on handheld devices, had been bent on staying independent, betting its turnaround on its latest smartphones.

Last month, Heins said the company was on the right track and just needed more time to fix its problems. He said the company will unveil more devices that run on the BlackBerry 10 operating system over the next eight months.

The company has also been looking at options such as licensing its BlackBerry 10 software and other partnerships.

Waterloo, Ontario-based BlackBerry has recently had discussions with private equity firm Silver Lake Partners about potential collaboration in enterprise computing, one of the sources said.

Silver Lake is caught in a bruising $25 billion battle to take Dell Inc private. Should it succeed in the Dell buyout, one possibility could be for it to collaborate with BlackBerry in mobile computing, where the PC maker has struggled to gain traction, the source said.

The talks with Silver Lake did not involve any buyout or other transaction-related discussions, the source said.

Silver Lake declined to comment.

Pressure is only increasing on the smartphone maker. BlackBerry 10 sales have come in well below some analysts' expectations, raising questions about whether the company can quickly win back market share from Apple Inc's iPhone as well as Samsung Electronics Co Ltd's Galaxy devices and other phones powered by Google Inc's Android operating system.

Some investors say the company must now look at all of its options, from a sale of the whole company to a sale of parts. Its valuable patent portfolio and high-margin services business could draw interest from technology companies.

But private equity firms have circled the company for more than two years and have tried without success so far to figure out ways to structure a deal.

Moreover, Ottawa reviews any big takeover of a Canadian company for competitive and national security reasons. Government officials have often said they want BlackBerry to succeed as a Canadian company, but concede they do not know how things will play out.

(Editing by Paritosh Bansal and Chris Gallagher)