I have landed.

I have announced this via LinkedIn and Twitter in the last few days but now it’s time to make a “formal” announcement on my blog. I have landed.

I will be the marketing manager for Extreme Brandz which is a private Canadian franchise company. I will be managing one of their brands/restaurant franchise and am very excited about the opportunity. The people are good, the challenge is great, and the opportunity to use my marketing/project management/social media skills is amazing. I’m very happy and excited.

Looking back on the last few months, I have learned a great deal about the job search, myself, and the amazing people in Toronto. The process was at best an exciting opportunity and at worst, frustrating when it felt like my efforts weren’t paying off. I kept a regular schedule and got up at 6.30 am to exercise and start my day. During the day, I worked on applications, called/e-mailed people for informationals, met people, attended networking sessions, practiced interviewing etc. There wasn’t a day that went by that I didn’t think about getting out of this unemployment phase. It became a mental challenge. How do you keep yourself motivated and positive? Answer: you just have to believe that things will work out and you have to keep trying. Staying positive was the key to it all. The scariest part about the process was not knowing where my next opportunity would be coming from so I frantically tried to do everything and pursue every lead. I avoided writing cover letters/resumes for positions that I found on Workopolis. I knew my chances there were much more slim if I pursued that route. So I talked to people in the marketing industry. I had a target list of people. Told them my story and my interests and passions. I asked them what their path was and what advice they could offer me. It was about developing relationships with people who cared enough to meet with me and cared enough to want to see me succeed. I’m going to be sending personal notes to the people I have met. It just may take some time since I met with over 30 people for coffee and also kept in touch with loads of people from the past. Every single person I met in the last little while has helped me on my journey whether it was recommending a company or giving me a nudge of encouragement. For that, I thank you as I am very grateful for it.

I sought mentors (formal and informal ones). I volunteered with the Heart and Stroke and Toronto Community Foundation. I scored an internship with Summerhill Group, a leading environmental management consulting company and did online work for them. I learned some Mandarin. I entered into a blog-off contest with the Community Marketing Blog which now I’m a strategic partner for. I joined Toastmasters. I attended seminars and webinars on marketing/social media. I joined the Queen’s Alumni Association Toronto branch. The list goes on. These are things that I *wanted* to do. There’s much less structure when you’re unemployed and I wanted more structure. I still wanted to contribute to society. I was working harder unemployed then employed (HA! ) because the job process consumed me. I was never “off”. I didn’t want the recession to be my excuse for not being employed. If it means I work that much harder then so be it. This journey taught me great life lessons. Some of which I share in the blog, some of which I don’t. If you would like to learn more, I am happy to connect. You can reach me via this blog by submitting a comment, sending me a tweet or e-mailing me at jenmy.huynh@gmail.com.

Thank you for reading this and joining me on this journey. I am about to end one adventure and about to start another.

Constructive feedback

Constructive feedback is so important. How else do you expect to improve yourself? That’s what I like about Toastmasters, you’re given feedback on how to improve your communication skills. I find that people in ‘real life’ are less willing to give you you real feedback unless you ask for it.

The other day I was given a great deal of feedback on my job search strategy from a stranger who happened to stumble upon my various social networking profiles/sites. It was a very thoughtful note and the person may have been misled in how I depict myself online. No, I don’t just blog and tweet about my job search. I do many other things in my job search strategy (you can’t expect me to give everything away in this blog but I’ve given some pretty good hints in what I do). Every job seeker has a different strategy and while I think it is of value to provide/receive constructive feedback, I think giving criticism should be done in the proper way.

First, offer it to people that seek it. That way the person will be more receptive. Unsolicited criticism won’t necessarily be shut down but it’s definitely not a great way to go.

Secondly, think about what your goal is when you’re trying to provide feedback. Are you trying to connect with someone in a genuine way? Well then provide things that the person does well and things you think they can improve upon. It’s a give and take. If you can’t take it, then don’t dish it.

Lastly, think about how your phrase things. Take the other person’s perspective. Would your tone sound accusatory or threatening? If so, reword it. Do not rant. Keep it short and sweet.

The note that I got was very thoughtful and I was flattered that someone would spend such a great deal of time trying to help me in my search while they had their job search to deal with. This experience made me realize how public I am. Am I okay with it? Yes. I keep this blog knowing that people will read it. If you don’t like what I have to say, don’t read it. It’s as simple as that. Thanks to those that do read it and especially those that comment. I truly value constructive feedback because I know that it will make me a better person in the end.

You Can’t Force Inspiration

For the last few weeks I have been thinking about my third Toastmasters speech. I couldn’t decide on a topic for the longest time. It just wouldn’t come to me. Yesterday while I was sitting on the bus I came up with my concept and outlined it. I’ll have to flush it out some more but I have the points I want to make. The most difficult part about Toastmasters speeches is the fact that you can speak about ANY topic. My working title for my next speech is: “Green – Why It Isn’t Environmental” (it’s just a colour and equating the colour/word ‘green’ to being environmental is a dangerous assumption – hello greenwashing?)

Monday evening I met with a few others a part of “Creative Club”. I met the organizers back at Refresh Events. We both presented at the same event in July. They have weekly meetings on Mondays at the Victory Cafe. We talked about blogging and inspiration. I was relieved to know that they too have issues when inspiration doesn’t strike them. It’s not something that can be forced but it just happens when it’s right. I’m pleased that inspiration finally decided to hit me.

Body language speaks volumes

As I practice for my presentation later tonight at Refresh Events, I’m very conscious of my body language. It gives so much away. It’s not about what you say as so much how you say it: the tone, arm gestures, eye contact etc.

Last week at Toastmasters I was the Tables Topics Evaluator. I evaluated people’s short impromptu speeches. I listened to what they said and focused on how they said it. What I noticed was that I focused a lot on body language. Arm movements and eye contact can really make or break a presentation.

A good friend of mine is studying body language and suggested that I record myself while practicing for my presentation. He said “You can’t change what you don’t know what to change”. The first run-through on camera was interesting to watch. As I continued to practice more then I became a lot more confident because I knew to stop fidgeting or playing with my hair.

This is something you can apply to when practicing for interviews. Yes, you can practice your success stories all day but in the end, it’s all about how you say it. If you can, record yourself on camera to learn how others may perceive you.

Tips in presenting to a large group:

• Let your arms flow naturally as you speak
• Make eye-contact with different people in the audience and hold it for three seconds
• Be confident by practicing your speech
• Remember that you’re probably more critical of yourself than the audience so relax!

Finding Opportunities Presentation

I am pleased to announce that I will be an Ignite speaker at a Refresh Event in Toronto next Monday evening.

Refresh Events encourages collaborative partnerships, fosters education at all skill levels and creates networking opportunities within the Toronto interactive community. I went to their event last month and was inspired. I hope to do the same during my speech.

Here are the details for the event:

Refresh Events: Stay Fresh 10
July 20, 2009
7 pm – 10 pm (I will be presenting around 7.30 pm)
215 Spadina, Suite 120 (Centre for Social Innovation)

My presentation is titled “Finding Opportunities” and it’s about the different online projects I’m working on and how I found them. I’ll be speaking for three minutes and I think there is a Q&A period afterwards as well. I will be uploading my slide deck on to SlideShare, my LinkedIn profile and this blog after next Monday.

Hope to see you there.

P.S. What do you think of the title of the presentation? Pretty catchy eh?

Toastmasters Icebreaker Review

Along the lines of interviewing in my previous post, I will discuss my Toastmasters meeting yesterday. I had my first official speech and it was titled “Mottos to Live By”. I won’t be publishing my speech because 1) I only wrote rough notes and 2) it’s personal. But I will share my experience in my first speech and some feedback I got.

I wrote a rough version of my speech last Saturday and finally got to practice it Wednesday afternoon. I started going through it and timed myself. When I first went through it I was at 7 minutes. Eeks! It was suppose to be 4-6 minutes. I cut out portions of my speech and finally got it to 6 minutes and then sometimes 5 minutes. I timed myself using my iPod and had a log of all the times I practiced. I recited my speech 20 times. Eventually I could do it without looking at my notes. I stood in front of my living room behind my ironing board (I knew I was going to be behind a podium) just talking outloud. I felt fairly comfortable with my speech but brought rough point form notes just in case.

I spoke in front of 20 of my Toastmaster peers for 5 minutes. I didn’t look at my notes once and made eye contact with people. There were some moments where I stumbled a little but I think it came off well because I didn’t memorize my speech word for word. I spoke in a loud, clear voice and used arm gestures where appropriate. I even used the word of the day which was “delirious”. Time flew by.

The feedback was very positive! I was told I was a very confident speaker. I won’t bore you with how great I was but I’ll write about a couple things for improvement:

• Watch the filler words like “umms” (this is something that other people have to tell me in order for me to notice it)
• Speak more slowly (I’m notorious for speaking too quickly) and use pauses
• Smile less to emphasize intensity (hahaha, I love this one. I did a mock interview before with my business career centre and I was told by two different people that I should smile more because I look too stern sometimes)

During the meeting, the chair spoke about the theme of the week which was passion. He spoke about how Toastmasters is like a safety net. You can stumble and fall but your other members will catch you. It’s a great way to get constructive feedback from others who are also interested in improving their communication skills. I think that Toastmasters will greatly improve my presentation skills and help me during interviews. I am now one step closer to getting my Competent Communicator designation.

“Let’s not waste a perfectly good crisis”

The title quote is one that I heard from the Ad Women of Toronto event that I went to Thursday morning. Colleen DeCourcy spoke about change and technology. It was a great breakfast presentation.

Recession? I see opportunity.

I’m doing all the things that I wanted to do before but didn’t have time such as volunteering, taking classes and attending different networking events. There’s opportunities out there. There’s still movement in this economy. It’s just about finding the right one.

Next week is super busy for me with interviews, networking events and my first Toastmasters speech. I’m a bit nervous about it. The goal of the speech is to speak in front of an audience and recognize what strengths and areas of development I have. Pretty simple. The topic is about myself…not so simple. I’m trying to think of a way to style it so that it’s engaging and personal. I want to have it written out by today since I have so many things happening next week.

I’ll be guest blogging in the next two weeks on the Community Marketing Blog in the blog-off contest I was speaking about earlier in the last post. Check this link out for my introduction. The goals of each blogger:

1) To write topics they believe will be inspiring
2) To generate as much traffic to their blog as possible
3) To create as much interaction as possible

I’ll be blogging through their site but will post links to it on this blog and my Twitter account. Friends/strangers: HELP ME OUT! Support me by viewing and commenting on my blog posts on their site. Merci!

Also, there’s a networking event called Exposed. Looks really cool with speed networking and a game show. It’ll be May 22nd at Devil’s Martini.

What would you do if you were 10 times bolder?

I’ve done many informational interviews in the past and started doing them in third year and I’m still doing informational interviews to this day. Part of it is that I’m curious about what people are doing with their lives and another part is I’m trying to figure out what I want to do with my life. How can I learn from their experiences?

One of the greatest pieces of advice I ever got was from someone I did an informational interview with via telephone. I have a few fave quotes but this one really stands out to me:

“What would you do if you were 10 times bolder? Then do it”.

It’s one of those quotes I repeat to myself and it makes me braver. Why not approach an alum, a CEO, a friend of a friend and ask them for 30 minutes of their time so you can learn more about them and what they do? You’ll find that people are happy to help and you learn so many interesting things along the way.  It not only applies to informational interviews but anything like cold calling and trying new things. For example, I just recently signed up for Toastmasters in my area in Toronto (more about that later) and it scares me because here I am with 20 other strangers trying to improve my presentation skills. It’s scary but I did it because I made the decision to be bold and focus on improving my skills while in between opportunities.

Be bold and take chances.