I Always Feel Like...Somebody's Watching Me...

The world of recruiting is changing drastically - instead of using a passive method of posting a job and waiting for candidates to arrive, the focus has shifted to active direct sourcing. In order to find quality candidates, the use of internet mining skills has become commonplace.

Social networking sites are one of the gold mines for finding candidates. Profiles, memberships in professional organizations, and resumes abound in these sites. Users on many of the sites focus on their career accomplishments and current industry contacts.

Other social networking sites are more of an online meeting place for people to share personal information. While many of the "pages" are tame, others contain details of a nature that the average job seeker would not want to share with a potential employer. One site in particular was developed for college students; only people with an e-mail address ending in .edu could join. That changed, and now the site is open to anyone. Creating a membership is simple, and allows for searching profiles.

Savvy job candidates, passive and active, should keep this in mind. Think of it this way - if you check out a blind date's page before committing to spending one evening together, it stands to reason that an employer would want to look at the same information before basically marrying you. Recruiters also check out this info to make sure that they aren't presenting a candidate who could turn out to be a potential embarrassment. Sorry, but there it is. I've been told by a candidate "it's none of their business!" to which my response was "you put it on the INTERNET, pal - with your name, city, and a photograph so there couldn't be any mistakes...exactly how private did you think it would be?"

And that's really the key...we all leave our fingerprints on the internet. If they're too sticky, it's just good housekeeping to wipe them up and do some general cleaning.

I'm thinking of a certain Grammarian...

...and I think this might make her laugh.

I'm sore, and not in a World War II movie dialogue kind of way...

Recently (two days ago) I grabbed myself by the collar, and made me start working out again. As some of you may know, I lost about 50 pounds last year. It was a life and wardrobe altering event, and now my task is to maintain the less of me to love.

I also had a flash in the shower that I really want to outlive certain people I don't like, as it would greatly perturb me to see them coming to my funeral to gloat. But I digress.

So, here goes me, back on my elliptical glider. If you aren't familiar with the wonder that is an elliptical glider, it's a delightful machine that uses the same muscles as running, without the jarring pain to one's joints. I do love to exercise, the way I feel after is bliss...and I'm trying to not analyze that too much as it would only make sense that the end of pain is by nature blissful. To help me in my endeavor, Dave made a playlist of music to keep me going during my self torture. The first of my dear readers who can state the historical significance of the playlist title will be featured in a future blog post. The playlist title is "Pump YOU up". Start guessing!

Three Year Old finds my exercise to be quite entertaining. Should we happen into the office, where the elliptical glider lives, he will say "Exercise, Mommy". Explaining to him that I've already tackled that part of my day doesn't alleviate his wish to see more of what I'm sure looks like Gerbil Mommy.

In other news, I'm not sure if I previously mentioned that I removed my acrylic nails around Easter. It's been a frustrating run, but my natural nails are almost grown out, which makes me very happy. When I took off my acrylic nails, I also started doing my own pedicures, for a total monthly savings of about $100! I wish that I could say these funds have gone toward savings, but in actuality they have been used for transportation and food costs. And I'll now channel Forrest: that's all I have to say about that.

Last item of the day - if you haven't seen "Stranger than Fiction", I recommend that you watch it within the next 24 hours. The writing sounds like the running dialogue in my head which I loved, it's very well acted, and keep an eye out for the interviewer on the TV show - it's none other than Kristin Chenoweth (Broken Arrow, OK native). Seriously one of the BEST movies I've seen in a long time.

Whoops, sorry, I lied. One more thing - Season 3? Outstanding. And thus begins the jonesing for Season 4...