Don’t Get Burned with Your Own Social Media Posts

Let’s face it: if you use a computer or a Smartphone, you probably use social media. Posting pictures of your vacation, your thoughts on politics, or even your dinner plans seems benign. But is it?

Time and again HR specialists and residency coordinators tell us when they Google potential candidates—which they all do—they mine TONS of “private” info. For example, one woman who applied for a job at a Fortune 500 pharmaceutical company had posted pole dancing photos of herself on her Facebook page.

But that’s supposed to be private, right?

Not anymore. Even if you don’t share beyond your personal FB page, your friends might be sharing for you. The same is true of Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media sites.

How do you avoid mishaps? Here are a few suggestions for posting online:

1.  Don’t post anything you wouldn’t want your mother or a Wall St Journal reporter to see. If this tip sounds obvious, just remember the pole dancer. Our tip: write your post in a Word file and save it for tomorrow. Still want to post it? Then go for it.

2.  Become a resource. Share smart stuff, especially when it’s not your idea. The Internet is a researcher’s gold mine. When you find an interesting article that’s relevant to your colleagues, post it.

3.  Lift others up. Pass along kudos, articles, and information about others. Reposting your colleagues’ work successes such as job changes, articles published, and promotions will lead to reciprocation.

For more communication skills tips, please refer to the book, Listen. Write. Present. The Elements for Communicating Science and Technology (Yale Press, 2012).

Find us on FB for a collection of other relevant articles.

Top 5 Comma Errors

Check any style guide and you’ll find page after page of rules for use of the comma. Below are five of the most common comma mistakes we see as we review papers and the web:

1. With quotation marks

RULE: Put a comma that follows a closing quotation mark inside the last quotation mark.

EXAMPLE: The baby’s three new words are “Dog,” “Hot,” and “No.”

NOTE: In the US, (unlike the UK) commas and periods go inside the quotation marks. 

2. Comma splices or run-on sentences

RULE: Don’t put a comma between two independent clauses.

EXAMPLE: I used to love tofu, now I can’t stand the stuff.

NOTE: When you have two independent clauses (phrases that can stand by themselves as sentences), separate them with a semicolon, a period, or a comma and a coordinating conjunction, eg, I used to love tofu, but now I can’t stand the stuff. 

3. In a series

RULE: Use commas to separate items in a list or series

EXAMPLE: I picked up the dry cleaning, dropped the dog at the groomer’s, and met my husband for lunch. 

NOTE: Although some style guides say that using a comma before the last and in a series or list is optional, most style guides suggest using one to help avoid reader misunderstanding

4. To set off nonrestrictive clauses

RULE: A nonrestrictive clause can be left out of the sentence without changing the meaning. Nonrestrictive clauses usually are surrounded or preceded by commas.

EXAMPLE: Carrie Phillips, the girl we often see walking alone on the beach, won the science award. 

NOTE: Often the word which precedes a nonrestrictive clause. For example, Mark lives on Elm Street, which is only two blocks from my house. In this case, use the comma before which.

5. Commas with dates

RULES and EXAMPLES: 

- Use a comma between the day and the year: August 4, 1969.

- When writing the day as well as the date, use a comma after the day and date: Thursday, May 23, 2013.

- Do not use a comma when it is just the month and the year: December 1977.

- Do not use a comma when using an inverted date: 20 June 1990.

Deborah

How can I overcome nervousness when I present?

This question is the number one concern we hear from our audiences.

Believe it or not, even though we’re “professional public speakers,” we sometimes get nervous before we present, too. 

Preparation and practice are key to moving through your talk because you can shift to auto-pilot if needed. We put a lot of value in “working the room,” and find that arriving early and speaking on-to-one with the people who will listen to the presentation helps us see them as “regular people” and not the rock stars we imagined. Plus, we can use these conversations to connect with the audience during the presentation.

Remember these premises:

• The people who come to your talk must see value in the topic, or they would not attend.
• Someone invited you to present because you have shown expertise in your topic.
• You are the master of your topic, even if other experts attend your talk. Your peers would not attend if they did not want/need to learn something from you. 
• Your audience wants you to succeed. They are on your team. 

Over the years, many physicians and pharmacists in our audiences have suggested various forms of beta blockers and antihistamines to prevent the appearance of nervousness. Instead of therapeutic intervention, we recommend that you get plenty of rest the night before your talk, exercise in the days preceding your speech, and cut back on your caffeine consumption the day of your presentation.
 

A few other relevant tips:

• Visualize your goal: see yourself presenting your talk, answering questions, and hearing the applause. This Stephen Covey tip really works! Many pro athletes use this technique with great success.
• Don't forget to breathe. Take your time when you present.
• Practice in the room where you will present. This Billy Graham tip is fantastic. We have rehearsed in the room beforehand and even planned where to look at certain points in the talk.
• Don't try to tell everything you know. Instead, streamline your talk so that you can focus on key points. This technique will help you plan your talk and prevent you from rushing through it.

We hope these tips help you prepare for your next presentation. 

Let us know how it goes!

Steph & Deborah

Resume Round-Up: How to Create or Update Your Resume for Pharmaceutical, Biotech, or Medical Device Sales Jobs

Last week, while sitting on my front porch reviewing a pharmaceutical executive’s resume, I jotted down a brief list of tips for writing resumes. Deborah St James edited and expanded the list. Here are our top tips:

DO

• Use active verbs immediately after the bullet points used to describe your job: organized, planned, supervised, coached, completed, etc.
• Be consistent. Find a good template and follow it. Also, use a style guide for correct punctuation, grammar, and spelling.
• Put all necessary information in the heading. Make it easy for the reader to quickly find you.
• Put your job title FIRST, then the company name, and then the dates of employment. If you’ve held multiple positions with a company, list the company name and total dates of service at the top of the heading, and then offer separate listings for each job.

For Example:

ABC Company, June 1993-present

Director, XYZ Product, April 2009-present

• Manage sales and marketing of XYZ Product, a (disease state) medicine…
• Oversee $X budget…

District Sales Manager, December 2003-April 2009

• Managed X Sales Representatives for X Drug…
• Coached representatives in developing business…

Hospital Account Manager, October 1996-December 2003

• Managed $X territory with X hospitals…
• Achieved formulary status for XYZ Product in every hospital in territory…

Sales Representative, June 1993-October 1996

• Detailed ABC Medicine to physicians in (specialty areas)…
• Earned President’s Council recognition…

AVOID

• Using adjectives and adverbs to describe your work as these can detract from your claims. For example, “significantly improved” could mean many different things. Instead, offer specifics such as percentages and rankings.
• Claiming anything you cannot back up in writing or with a reference.
• Using distracting or difficult-to-read type: unusual fonts, type that is less than 11 points, all caps, italics, and too much bold.
• Putting periods at the end of each bullet. These phrases don’t usually warrant a period because often they are not complete sentences.

For more resume writing tips, check out our book, Listen. Write. Present. The Elements for Communicating Science and Technology.

Please send us questions and blog topic ideas: Stephanie@ListenWritePresent.com

Cheers,

Steph

Top 5 Communication Tips

Book Signing Event at Hackney Library

Barton College, Wilson, NC

The book, Listen. Write. Present. contains over 245 communication tips. At a recent book signing at Barton College, we only had 30 minutes to speak, so we chose the most relevant tips for that audience. Now we’d like to share them with you:

1. Adapt to the audience. This tip applies to listening and responding when communicating with others, writing a cover letter, or presenting to a small group. What does your audience really want to know?

2. Narrow the focus of your topic. It can be hard to distill your content into one main point. Yet Twitter, texting, and common sense show us that others want only what’s relevant, not content overload.

3. Practice. Plan. Rehearse. Call it whatever you want...just make sure you do it! Practicing what you want to say prevents rambling, planning what you are going to write helps sort and prioritize information, and rehearsing a presentation takes away the jitters and helps you connect with your audience.

4. Give the punch line first. In anything you communicate, make sure you tell the listener, reader, or audience your main point BEFORE you offer supporting evidence or background information. For example, if you are pitching an idea to a group, plug the idea first, and then offer specific support: “I’d like to share three reasons why adopting ABC policy will benefit our group.”

5. Perfect your elevator pitch. This snapshot is the 30-second explanation of who you are or what you do or how you’ll fit into the organization. This skill is essential for effective job interviews.