Milwaukee JobCamp today was a great success. Over 500 people showed up at Bucketworks, one of my favorite places ever, to meet other job seekers and get advice. Jim Trainor gave a great presentation on job hunting that had standing-room only.
My talk picked a few of the high points out of my upcoming book, which I condensed into my presentation 23 Rules for Job Hunters.
Response was even better than I had hoped for, with at least a dozen people coming to talk to me after my presentation. I met a couple more great people like Angela Harris, trading stories and talking shop until the place closed at 9:00.
If you were at JobCamp today, thanks for stopping by my blog, and I hope you'll follow my news feed. You can also follow me on Twitter @theworkinggeek.
You should add somewhere something about knowing when to break these rules. For instance, in Seattle, showing up to an interview for any tech position outside a bank or insurance company in anything more than a sweater and dress shoes is a big red flag. I showed at my first interview here in a simple white shirt, tie and slacks, and my boss later told me he had initially had serious doubts about whether I would integrate well into the atmosphere since I was dressed so "straight and professionally." His fears were quickly abated when I walked into work the first day in a biker jacket and Chuck Taylors, but still, not all rules work for all situations. The research you do for any position can and should feed that.
On the other side of the fence, I have never given the thumbs up to a candidate who, when I asked if he/she had any questions, responded "No, I think I'm good." It just shows a complete lack of engagement and interest. Asking only about money and benefits is almost worse, although it can be understandable if your company has been in the news for having problems, and there I go again with the exceptions.
Rule #1: You have a brain, use it.