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CNN Sunday Morning
Interview With Kim Komando
Aired January 05, 2003 - 09:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Time now for our tech talk segment. We're here to find out what's going on online.
For that, we turn to our digital goddess, Kim Komando. She is the author of "The 50 Biggest Computer Mistakes and How You Can Avoid Them." She's also a syndicated columnist, has her own weekly radio talk show and her Web site is www.Komando.com.
Kim, how are you this morning?
KIM KOMANDO, TALK SHOW HOST: Very well, thank you.
SAN MIGUEL: Good. We want to talk about, first of all, before we get into talk about what we've been talking about all morning long here, how to find jobs online, it's the new year. We've got some -- everybody makes resolutions. Are there some new year's resolutions that we should have for our computers, as well?
KOMANDO: Well, you know, absolutely. Well, number one, everybody needs to have an anti-virus software program, right?
SAN MIGUEL: Yes.
KOMANDO: But you also need to keep it updated. I hear from so many people that get viruses that "I have a program." I'm, like, hello, did you update it?
Then also, you need a firewall. But it goes beyond that. You also need to make back-ups.
And then you want to take a look at the pop-up ads that appear on your computer and know that there are some trying to trick you into downloading them, because it will say system failure or system low performance. And so you don't want to check those boxes.
And also, you can opt out of the network advertising by going to Double Click's home page, as well as NetworkAdvertising.org. You can go ahead and type in your e-mail address and then they'll take you off some of the hit lists for the marketing purposes.
SAN MIGUEL: OK. So I guess the resolution here is just to be a smarter computer user...
KOMANDO: Absolutely.
SAN MIGUEL: And a smarter Internet Web surfer, as well. KOMANDO: You got.
SAN MIGUEL: So, moving on to this finding a job on the Internet, we've seen a lot of web sites come up like Monster.com, Hotjobs.com. But there are other ways to get the word out that you are looking for a job or looking for a job (sic), as well.
Is it just a simple matter of just putting your resume online?
KOMANDO: Well, you know what? There's some caution in doing that, because what you want to do is go ahead and go to maybe associations that you may be affiliated with, as well as if you can target companies that you really want to work for, odds are that they have job openings posted right on their web site.
And see, I'm not really pro-putting up a web site and then throwing your resume up there, because what happens is that the search engines like Google will keep that for infinity. And then maybe two or three years from now, maybe you don't want everybody to have access to your resume online with that.
SAN MIGUEL: This is true. I mean, that's an awfully good point.
I want to read an e-mail from one person, from Linda, who talks about this kind of thing. "One day I was alerted to a position through my Monster board profile." We were talking of Monster.com. "I sent my resume via e-mail. A week later I had a long telephone call with the employer, was invited to visit at my earliest convenience. A week later, by the time I completed the four-hour drive home from the interview, I had received a job offer to become the new editor-in-chief of 'Chiropractic Economics. ... The rest, as they say, is history. I began work a week later out of my home office until I relocate." Sounds like she's got the perfect situation here.
KOMANDO: That's true.
SAN MIGUEL: "I've worked for a number of large and small companies and one of my areas of expertise is job search. I always advise my clients to use all avenues to search for their new job, never to rely only on the Internet. However, just as I have found jobs in the worst economies by answering ads from the 'Wall Street Journal,' I've also won jobs by emerging from the dark holes of Internet job boards. The secret: a good resume, an effective letter and follow-up skills."
What do you think.
KOMANDO: Well, you know what? A good resume is important. And if you don't know where to start, Microsoft Word, they have tons of templates to help you get started.
But also, let's talk about that e-mail address for just a moment. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten resumes from people that have e-mail addresses like toohotforyou@whatever.com. You know, set up, like, a Yahoo or a Hotmail account and make it, like, pretty nondescript like joesmith@hotmail.com. This way, you're not likely to offend anybody.
SAN MIGUEL: I was going to say, what kind of jobs are these people looking for? I wonder.
KOMANDO: You know, it's amazing. I mean, I had an opening for a nanny and I actually had somebody send me an e-mail, or send me the resume that had an e-mail address like that. I'm, like, I don't think I want you watching my kids.
SAN MIGUEL: I was going to say, not a good move there. You know, if you're trying to be professional in the resume, be professional in the e-mail address, as well.
Here's another one from Ted. "I think if I had the online resources in 1992 that were available in 2000, I probably wouldn't have gotten out of flying. At that time, I just didn't know exactly what all was available. My flight background to that time had been in the Air Force and the major airlines (the only ones I thought of) were laying people off after the Gulf War."
And here we are in a kind of a similar situation, where, you know, the economy is struggling and there are people who may not know that there are these places out there that they can do go to.
Is it just as simple as going to Google or Yahoo and just putting "job search" in the field?
KOMANDO: Well, you want to hang out where the employers are hanging out. And if you look at all the ratings that come in from the Internet, like where the traffic goes online, you know, you have Monster.com as the big boy. And then there's Hotjobs, which is now part of Yahoo, so it's hotjobs.yahoo.com.
And then the third one on the list is CareerBuilder.
We just posted an opening this past week at Monster.com and believe it or not, in less than 24 hours, we had over 200 responses to an assistant position. And so if you're an employer, you definitely want to go ahead and post openings at the sites. But if you're also looking for a job, you should be searching all three.
SAN MIGUEL: Let's read one more e-mail. And this also deals with, you know, the kind of job you're looking for and whether or not there's, like, an organization or advocacy group for that.
"I found my job using an employment web site sponsored by a professional organization, National Athletic Trainers Association, NATA.org. As a member, I have access to hundreds of job opportunities all over the country. Another similar site, and this one has a very long, but you see it's classifieds.lwwonline.com/home.asp. Which lists many career opportunities in the field of exercise science."
This would involve, Kim, I believe, just doing your homework and seeing if the field that you want to go into has some kind of organization that can help you out here. KOMANDO: Yes, I mean, you know, you can't be a victim in the online search industry. I mean, you have to get in there and you have to do your homework. And that includes, as we mentioned, going to the associations, having a good resume, having a good e-mail address and don't give up. And follow-up is very important.
But there's one other thing that I want to mention, is that we get resumes from people that will send them in, like, .WPS formats. And that's using Microsoft Works. But the problem is a lot of people don't know how to open those files and don't have the programs to open them. So what you want to do is always save it as a Microsoft Word document. I mean, 90 percent of business use it, so that's what you want to do.
And also, don't include your picture in your resume unless it's absolutely important.
SAN MIGUEL: That's always good advice. And yes, the idea of, you know, making sure you download it as a Microsoft Word document, .PDF or Adobe, those kind of readers, not everybody has those, right?
KOMANDO: Right. Exactly. And you know, you don't want to zip it up into a Winzip file. And there are some e-mail systems, some corporations will not even allow attachments, because they're afraid of viruses coming through.
And so that's why it's maybe even smart to save it as a text file, but before you do that, e-mail it to yourself, because if all you do is copy and paste a Word doc, the formatting is going to look all funky and you want to make sure that you have a good presentation in that e-mail.
SAN MIGUEL: Exactly. Make it easy for the potential employer here.
Kim Komando, her Web site, komando.com. She's also on national talk radio. Thank you so much for joining us.
KOMANDO: My pleasure.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
Aired January 5, 2003 - 09:45 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RENAY SAN MIGUEL, CNN ANCHOR: Time now for our tech talk segment. We're here to find out what's going on online.
For that, we turn to our digital goddess, Kim Komando. She is the author of "The 50 Biggest Computer Mistakes and How You Can Avoid Them." She's also a syndicated columnist, has her own weekly radio talk show and her Web site is www.Komando.com.
Kim, how are you this morning?
KIM KOMANDO, TALK SHOW HOST: Very well, thank you.
SAN MIGUEL: Good. We want to talk about, first of all, before we get into talk about what we've been talking about all morning long here, how to find jobs online, it's the new year. We've got some -- everybody makes resolutions. Are there some new year's resolutions that we should have for our computers, as well?
KOMANDO: Well, you know, absolutely. Well, number one, everybody needs to have an anti-virus software program, right?
SAN MIGUEL: Yes.
KOMANDO: But you also need to keep it updated. I hear from so many people that get viruses that "I have a program." I'm, like, hello, did you update it?
Then also, you need a firewall. But it goes beyond that. You also need to make back-ups.
And then you want to take a look at the pop-up ads that appear on your computer and know that there are some trying to trick you into downloading them, because it will say system failure or system low performance. And so you don't want to check those boxes.
And also, you can opt out of the network advertising by going to Double Click's home page, as well as NetworkAdvertising.org. You can go ahead and type in your e-mail address and then they'll take you off some of the hit lists for the marketing purposes.
SAN MIGUEL: OK. So I guess the resolution here is just to be a smarter computer user...
KOMANDO: Absolutely.
SAN MIGUEL: And a smarter Internet Web surfer, as well. KOMANDO: You got.
SAN MIGUEL: So, moving on to this finding a job on the Internet, we've seen a lot of web sites come up like Monster.com, Hotjobs.com. But there are other ways to get the word out that you are looking for a job or looking for a job (sic), as well.
Is it just a simple matter of just putting your resume online?
KOMANDO: Well, you know what? There's some caution in doing that, because what you want to do is go ahead and go to maybe associations that you may be affiliated with, as well as if you can target companies that you really want to work for, odds are that they have job openings posted right on their web site.
And see, I'm not really pro-putting up a web site and then throwing your resume up there, because what happens is that the search engines like Google will keep that for infinity. And then maybe two or three years from now, maybe you don't want everybody to have access to your resume online with that.
SAN MIGUEL: This is true. I mean, that's an awfully good point.
I want to read an e-mail from one person, from Linda, who talks about this kind of thing. "One day I was alerted to a position through my Monster board profile." We were talking of Monster.com. "I sent my resume via e-mail. A week later I had a long telephone call with the employer, was invited to visit at my earliest convenience. A week later, by the time I completed the four-hour drive home from the interview, I had received a job offer to become the new editor-in-chief of 'Chiropractic Economics. ... The rest, as they say, is history. I began work a week later out of my home office until I relocate." Sounds like she's got the perfect situation here.
KOMANDO: That's true.
SAN MIGUEL: "I've worked for a number of large and small companies and one of my areas of expertise is job search. I always advise my clients to use all avenues to search for their new job, never to rely only on the Internet. However, just as I have found jobs in the worst economies by answering ads from the 'Wall Street Journal,' I've also won jobs by emerging from the dark holes of Internet job boards. The secret: a good resume, an effective letter and follow-up skills."
What do you think.
KOMANDO: Well, you know what? A good resume is important. And if you don't know where to start, Microsoft Word, they have tons of templates to help you get started.
But also, let's talk about that e-mail address for just a moment. I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've gotten resumes from people that have e-mail addresses like toohotforyou@whatever.com. You know, set up, like, a Yahoo or a Hotmail account and make it, like, pretty nondescript like joesmith@hotmail.com. This way, you're not likely to offend anybody.
SAN MIGUEL: I was going to say, what kind of jobs are these people looking for? I wonder.
KOMANDO: You know, it's amazing. I mean, I had an opening for a nanny and I actually had somebody send me an e-mail, or send me the resume that had an e-mail address like that. I'm, like, I don't think I want you watching my kids.
SAN MIGUEL: I was going to say, not a good move there. You know, if you're trying to be professional in the resume, be professional in the e-mail address, as well.
Here's another one from Ted. "I think if I had the online resources in 1992 that were available in 2000, I probably wouldn't have gotten out of flying. At that time, I just didn't know exactly what all was available. My flight background to that time had been in the Air Force and the major airlines (the only ones I thought of) were laying people off after the Gulf War."
And here we are in a kind of a similar situation, where, you know, the economy is struggling and there are people who may not know that there are these places out there that they can do go to.
Is it just as simple as going to Google or Yahoo and just putting "job search" in the field?
KOMANDO: Well, you want to hang out where the employers are hanging out. And if you look at all the ratings that come in from the Internet, like where the traffic goes online, you know, you have Monster.com as the big boy. And then there's Hotjobs, which is now part of Yahoo, so it's hotjobs.yahoo.com.
And then the third one on the list is CareerBuilder.
We just posted an opening this past week at Monster.com and believe it or not, in less than 24 hours, we had over 200 responses to an assistant position. And so if you're an employer, you definitely want to go ahead and post openings at the sites. But if you're also looking for a job, you should be searching all three.
SAN MIGUEL: Let's read one more e-mail. And this also deals with, you know, the kind of job you're looking for and whether or not there's, like, an organization or advocacy group for that.
"I found my job using an employment web site sponsored by a professional organization, National Athletic Trainers Association, NATA.org. As a member, I have access to hundreds of job opportunities all over the country. Another similar site, and this one has a very long, but you see it's classifieds.lwwonline.com/home.asp. Which lists many career opportunities in the field of exercise science."
This would involve, Kim, I believe, just doing your homework and seeing if the field that you want to go into has some kind of organization that can help you out here. KOMANDO: Yes, I mean, you know, you can't be a victim in the online search industry. I mean, you have to get in there and you have to do your homework. And that includes, as we mentioned, going to the associations, having a good resume, having a good e-mail address and don't give up. And follow-up is very important.
But there's one other thing that I want to mention, is that we get resumes from people that will send them in, like, .WPS formats. And that's using Microsoft Works. But the problem is a lot of people don't know how to open those files and don't have the programs to open them. So what you want to do is always save it as a Microsoft Word document. I mean, 90 percent of business use it, so that's what you want to do.
And also, don't include your picture in your resume unless it's absolutely important.
SAN MIGUEL: That's always good advice. And yes, the idea of, you know, making sure you download it as a Microsoft Word document, .PDF or Adobe, those kind of readers, not everybody has those, right?
KOMANDO: Right. Exactly. And you know, you don't want to zip it up into a Winzip file. And there are some e-mail systems, some corporations will not even allow attachments, because they're afraid of viruses coming through.
And so that's why it's maybe even smart to save it as a text file, but before you do that, e-mail it to yourself, because if all you do is copy and paste a Word doc, the formatting is going to look all funky and you want to make sure that you have a good presentation in that e-mail.
SAN MIGUEL: Exactly. Make it easy for the potential employer here.
Kim Komando, her Web site, komando.com. She's also on national talk radio. Thank you so much for joining us.
KOMANDO: My pleasure.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
