Easy Computer Backups

It's been a weird weather year around the U.S. -- in addition to the normal hurricanes and tornadoes, there have been huge wildfires, an earthquake in California, and extensive flooding throughout the Midwest. Even if you've personally been unaffected by any of these natural disasters, you may be thinking about what you would do if it happened to you.

Even something as simple as a power outage can be enough to zap your work. So how do you protect yourself? You can use an online service or backup your work using a CD or a flash drive -- but if you're pressed for time (and want a free alternative), e-mail your work to yourself.

Yahoo, Hotmail, and Google all offer free Internet-based e-mail accounts. Sign up for one that you use only for backups. When you're working on a resume, e-mail a copy to your "storage" e-mail account. Then, even if disaster strikes, you can borrow a friend's computer (or go to the library) and access your work.

Affluent Are Networking Online

According to the latest Wealth Survey from the Luxury Institute, 60% of wealthy Americans participate in online social networks, compared to 27% a year ago. These individuals have an average income of $287,000 a year and an average net worth of $2.1 million.

According to the survey, these individuals belong to average of 2.8 social networks, with roughly 110 connections. The most popular of these are LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and ExecuNet.

Source: ExecuNet, April 2008

Google AdWords

Are you using Google AdWords to promote your business online?

I've been experimenting with them for the past few weeks (since launching a new section on my website focused on my resume writing services) and I'm amazed at the results. (No, not the click-throughs. Those have been a bit slow coming ... about one a day on average.)

No, I'm amazed when I log in to the AdWords site and it tells me that more and more of my search words are inactive because the price has gone up. I'm paying the same ($1.00 per click) for "Omaha Resume Writer" as I am for generic terms like "resume critique."

Now I know there are ways to reduce my costs by increasing the quality of my site, and that's something I'm working on ... and I'm still not to the point where the cost of the lead is prohibitive. After all, I pay about $40 a month for my Yellow Pages ads, and average 3-4 calls a week (and 1-2 clients on average) from that ... so paying $1.00 for a click isn't too bad ... but I'm still working on refining things.

Have some tips for me? Let me know. This is definitely a subject I want to do an article for Resume Writers Digest on.

Describing Language Competency

I had a client ask me today about how to describe her language competency -- how well she speaks a foreign language. She'd had four semesters of Spanish in high school. After doing some research, I came up with the following competency scale. Be sure to put it back in your client's hands to describe where they fit on the scale.

Novice/Familiar (beginner)
Proficient/Competent (read/write)
Conversant (speak)
Fluent
Native Speaker

Do you find this scale helpful? Do you have any suggestions or comments? Post a comment below.