Someone asked a question on the Path101.com Advice Network yesterday that made me think of trends on the demand side for certain skills:

"Who is hiring social media experts...is this field something being pursued in corporate America?"  (Want to weigh in?  Click here.)

It's an interesting question, but it also says a lot about the tough time candidates have trying to figure out what to learn next.  According to Indeed.com, "social media" "twitter" and "blogs" are all skills growing in importance, but what does this mean?

Will this be a skill that everyone should know about, or will it only be an important skill for marketers?   Is it a job in and of itself or will it be part of another job? 

Path 101 is crawling millions of resumes from across the web to determine true career paths.  Know what the most widely featured skill is?  Microsoft Word (as if that wasn't obvious from the fact that you built a resume)    In 1993, when Word was duking it out with WordPerfect, it might have been appropriate, but now it's pretty meaningless.  You can't really rest your career on knowing Word these days, but there was probably a window for that at one time. 

Is social media the same way?  How long is the window?  Will it be a "need to know" skill for everyone?

Got questions about what specific skills are viable in your field?  Ask the Path101.com Advice Network.

Someone just asked this question on Path101.com's career advice network:

"How to get through the bottleneck after 10 years working experience?  I met the career bottleneck, there is little space for further development in my current job, to change a direction in this period is so difficult."

Switching careers isn't easy, so if you have any advice of your own, definitely let them know.

Here are some tips that we came up with:

1) Don't forget to be awesome at your current job.  This is the #1 mistake career changers make.  They are unhappy, don't like what they're doing and lack motivation, so they sometimes slack off--mailing it in a bit while they look elsewhere.  That makes it really difficult to build up a good reputation in your company, which is crucial.  If you are absolutely amazing at your job, but want to do something else, most companies would rather find something new for you to do and transition you over than completely lose you.

2) Have an constantly open dialogue with your supervisor about your career goals.  If there are skills that you want to improve that would be important for a career shift, make sure your boss knows about them.  People are pretty realistic.  They know you're not going to stay in your job forever, so it shouldn't come as a surprise when you have long term goals that branch out from where you are.  If you're getting your current work done, your supervisor can actually be an ally and a champion for you when it comes to helping you transition to other types of roles.

3) Find a stepping stone job--one that blends the job you have and the one you want.  Try not to completely abandon the experience you already have.  Let's say you are an accountant and you want to go into publishing.  Working as an editor of accounting textbooks would enable you to make important publishing contacts that you might need and learn about the industry.  Seeing where people go next can help you figure out a long term strategy.  Try our Path 101 Resume Analysis tool to plot out some potential directions.

4) Become a resource to others.  Anyone can start a blog about any topic.  If you want to work in another industry, start an interview blog.  You don't have to know anything--just be able to ask great questions and network.  A few interviews a week with other bloggers in your target industry as well as notables that you're able to reach out to would enable you to build a presence and learn a lot.  This works especially well when you're learning a new skill, like programming.  A "Learning PHP" blog would be a great way to journal your progress and ultimately build your own brand.

5) Get ahead of the industry by getting experience that no one else has.  It's really hard to break into an industry later on in life after everyone else has gotten a head start.  However, in every industry, there is going to be some new trend in the next five years that, right now, no one really has any expertise in.  Many times, it is around innovation and technology--or perhaps some analytical approaches to problems.  Bill James and baseball is a great example.  Now a special advisor to the Boston Red Sox, Bill James pioneered analytical approaches to evaluating players, even though he had no experience and was working as a nightwatchman at a pork and beans factory.  If you try to figure out what the next trend is, you'll be starting out on the same page as everyone else--versus trying to mask your inexperience or trying to dress up your background too much.  Not sure what's coming next?  Ask industry experts, like the ones in our Path 101 Career Advice Network.

"LinkedIn itself is merely a database. You signed up for it, so what? Did you fill out your profile? Invite people? Join groups? Did you actively network? You see, LinkedIn is merely a tool in your arsenal to assist you in finding a job and nothing more. After all, LinkedIn isnt hiring you, but companies and recruiters are. And companies and recruiters also have their own web sites. And they advertise on other sites. Some are starting to Twitter. So LinkedIn is not the only game in town."

nealschaffer shared http://linkedinquestions.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/will-linkedin-help-me-find-a-job/

So you paid six figures in college tuition to get your kid back at home exactly the same way they left you--unemployed.  Now what?

Here are a few suggestions to help your son or daughter take their first step--out of your house.

1) Don't put too much pressure on them.  After all these years, you have to have learned as a parent that just yelling or pointing out problems doesn't exactly motivate your kids to solve them.  Not only that, I'm sure your kids are pretty stressed out about the situation already.  What they really need from you now is support and positive encouragement, because it's easy to let a frustrating job search get you down.

2) Open up your network to them.  Are you on LinkedIn?  LinkedIn is a site for managing your professional network.  Since you probably have a much larger network than your kid, getting on there (here's how)  can help them seek out industry professionals that can help them.  Rather than you forcing them to meet your contacts, let them choose who they wanted to be introduced to from among your network.  Encourage as many informational interviews as possible, but set the expectation that few of these meetings will turn into real job leads.  Right now, they should simply be learning about what opportunities are out there and building their connections.

3) Support additional job-specific education.  I know you've already spent a boatload on their education, but an additional class or two or professional certification might go a long way--especially if it's for a highly sought after skill that companies are looking for right now.  Professional skills are always helpful as well, like public speaking or networking. 

4) Give them some work.  Maybe you've had a business idea that needs some researching, or there's some new innovation popping up in your industry that you've needed to get up to speed on.  Hire them on as an unpaid consultant to you or others at your job.  Maybe your business needs to improve its youth marketing strategy, or needs to work better with local business.  Anything project work that allows your children to meet a lot of people and take ownership over a professionally useful result is good for their resume.

5) Introduce them to professional organizations and groups that need some young energy.  Chances are, you belong to some kind of professional group or alumni association whose meetings are getting a little long in the tooth.  They mean well, but they're often run by successful professionals who just don't have the time to do the heavy lifting.  Getting a young professional involved to do some of the footwork and help execute some of these ideas--impressing all these senior folks, might be a win-win all around.

Bonus: In the NYC area?  Path 101 is running a job search seminar for young grads and students on Wednesday, June 10th at 6:30PM. 

A couple of weeks ago you graduated.  You packed up all your stuff, moved home, and you've been catching up with friends for the last couple of weeks.  You had a great Memorial Day weekend--BBQs, beach maybe.

But today is a new day--the first day of the rest of the summer.  You have no job.  You haven't heard back from most of the resumes you sent out before graduation.  Frankly, in this economy, you have no idea what you're going to do. 

Freaking out in 3...  2...  1...  

You need to get serious about that job search.  But, where and how do you start?

First off, if you're in the NYC area, Path 101 is running two intense job search workshops in June and spots are going quick.  These won't be a waste of your time--where you pay for someone to tell you about resume buzzwords.  You've got those.  You know that.  These will be about real strategies to get in the door and get noticed that are more than worth the price of admission (only $40). 

So let's start with five basic principals to your approach--things that most students graduates tend to get wrong in their search.

1) Forget "I'm willing to do anything": No one wants an entry-level generalist.

This is a buyer's market.  There is already someone out there who is exceedingly passionate about the exact job that I've just posted--in fact, probably two people.  I have nearly zero incentive to hire someone who just sort of wants to get anything, because there's no chance that you're going to be better than someone who is really psyched.  Here's the problem--you're honestly not sure what you want to do.  Pick something and go with it.  You don't have to live with this job or career path for the rest of your life.  But for now, try and actually focus on something to learn about and make connections to.  Be flexible enough to change that as you learn more, but without a specific goal, employers and networking connections will not only not know what do to with you, but they're just not going to perceive you to have the potential as someone with clear goals.

2) Most jobs aren't listed.

If all you're doing is looking on Monster or Indeed.com and applying to as many jobs as you can find, you're missing out on MOST of the jobs.  Indeed has nearly every job on the web, but the reality is that most job opportunities just aren't listed.  Jobs fall into three categories.  First are the jobs that are actually listed.  The bar to getting into this category is pretty high because it costs money to post a job.  Therefore, it often feels easier for companies to just dive into a database of resumes, look at Facebook or LinkedIn or just use their own network to fill a position because they can do that for free.  So, you've got a bunch of job opportunities that are open, where someone is looking, and maybe they've e-mailed people about them, but that you cannot find on any job board.  I'd say that there's probably at least 4 unlisted jobs for every listed one--at least!

An even bigger pool is the group of potential jobs you could have if you convinced someone that you could make a positive impact at their company.  Companies are always looking for amazing people.  The trouble is, there aren't as many amazing people out there as you'd like, and companies don't find out about them often enough.  When it happens, they'll do what it takes to find room in the budget and in the office for them.  Hiring freeze?  Not for everyone!  Imagine if the very best freelance PR person in the industry decided that they wanted to go corporate and work for a firm.  Don't you think that even if there was a companywide hiring freeze that the CEO of that company wouldn't trip over themselves to get them on board?  It's not easy, but if you're dealing with someone high up enough and you're awesome enough, there's a spot for you at any company.  You just have to know how to prove it and find the right connection.

3) Don't stop working or learning.

Think it's hard to get a job now?  Try going into an interview six months from now when the person asks you "What have you been doing for the last six months?" and you're best answer is "Looking for a job."  The next worst answer is "bartending".   Don't get me wrong, bartending can pay the bills in a big way, but that's not the only thing you want on your resume this summer (and you probably don't want it on there at all).

It might take a lot of creativity on your part, perhaps financially, but you absolutely need to figure out something to do with your time that moves your career forward, even slowly.  That can mean taking a class--not just any class but a class or workshop directly relevant to learning a skill that people list as important job requirements, like Excel, or a language, or sales training. 

4) Publish, publish, publish... through any medium possible.

You need to standout.  Thought leaders are writing, speaking, appearing on video everyday.  If you're going to get yourself out there and get judged over and above your resume, you need to maintain an active online presence in the form of a blog.  You can do videos, you can do essays, you can do interviews--it doesn't matter.  The point is that you're using the internet to convey that a) you have communication skills, b) you're interested enough in an area to participate in the community of other passionate people who are doing this and c) you're innovative.  If you're writing everyday about your interests, you'll learn more, because you'll research and interact with others more, and you'll sharpen your thinking.

5) Everyone can help you.

Any weekday that you are job searching that you haven't made at least three calls or taken three meetings is a failure.  You need to get out there and meet and learn from as many people as possible.  Why?  Your networking contacts become deputy job searchers for you because they'll have their ear to the ground on your behalf based on the impression you made with them.  Also, most students don't know very much about their industry of interest, so the more people talk to, the more you're going to get a sense of what the opportunities are and where you might get hired.  Plus, an interview is an interview is an interview.  Forget the fact that there may not be a specific job opportunity attached to all of them.  Interviews are a chance for both people to get to know each other better--and the more interviews you go on, the more chances you have of making a hire-worthy impression.  Some interviews you get by submitting your resume to a job post, but you can get lost more by just asking people to meet with you casually, but still professionally. 

How to get these interviews, the best practices for a digital presence, and how to find jobs that aren't listed are all things we'll be covering at "GET HIRED - The best techniques to get your first job or your next internship"