Jemblog

Looking for a job? So are a lot of people. That’s why you can’t afford to make a single misstep.

In today’s competitive job market, landing a job takes more than merely responding to a job posting with a clever resume.

Instead, successful candidates are approaching their job searches with the discipline of an end-to-end marketing campaign. And more than that, every job seeker must create a unique point of difference and communicate a value proposition in order to stand out. Armed with a comprehensive personal brand plan, anyone can improve his or her probability of securing a dream advertising job.

But surprisingly, people continue to make avoidable mistakes in executing their job searches. They end up giving away easy points through reckless statements, actions or behaviors.

Here are five job-search missteps that must be avoided at all costs. (more…)

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Skype, the Internet telephone unit of eBay Inc, is planning to launch its service for iPhone users on Tuesday and for BlackBerry in May as part of its effort to expand beyond desktop computers.

Skype has been pushing to make its service work on the most popular advanced phones with an aim to expending its more than 400 million users who were mostly lured by the promise of cheap and sometimes free calls made using its computer application. (more…)

Investigators suspect two African immigrants slain at a Long Island condo owned by an NFL player may have been killed in retaliation for a fake money scam, police said Tuesday.

Sekou Sakor and Ansu Keita were each shot in the head last week at a vacant condominium in Woodbury, N.Y., owned by Jonathan Vilma. There were no arrests.

The New Orleans Saints linebacker and former New York Jets player was not there at the time and “there’s no indication that he was involved,” Police commissioner Raymond Kelly said.

A lawyer for Vilma said his client “was as shocked as anyone” by news of the killings.

“Of course, he has absolutely nothing to do with this crime and will do everything possible to help the police solve it,” said attorney Michael Tein.

Vilma moved out of the home, which is up for sale, in November 2007, the lawyer said.

Police officials said investigators believe the victims may have been mixed up in a so-called “black money” scheme. Victims are sent e-mails saying that they could receive $100 bills smuggled from overseas — stained black to avoid detection — if they purchase a special chemical to wash it off; what they end up getting is a pile of worthless paper. (more…)

Looks like Dame Dash and Jim Jones are tryna make some serious power moves. We’ll see what happens. Check out the trailer for the Jim Jones documentary below. It seems like Dame Dash wants to use Jim to get off the mat and get back in the game. Judge for yourself.

MTV is ordering four more seasons of its veteran reality hit “The Real World.”

The order will extend the 17-year-old docudrama from Bunim-Murray Prods. to 26 cycles. MTV also is ordering another four rounds of Bunim-Murray’s “The Real World/Road Rules Challenge,” bringing the competition series to 21 cycles.

The current season of “The Real World: Brooklyn” will air its finale Wednesday, and producers are already shooting the next round, “The Real World: Cancun.”

Given MTV’s youthful target audience, the network must develop a constant stream of new, hip programing. But the “Real World” format keeps managing to hook new generations of viewers.

Producers tweaked the format for the Brooklyn season by not giving the cast members jobs.

“It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while, and it’s easier to do in a big metropolitan area,” executive producer Jon Murray said. “The season after Cancun, a location that hasn’t been announced yet, I think might be like that too.”

Los Angeles (E! Online) – Step by step, Kelly Rowland is distancing herself from the forces that helped her achieve music stardom.

Two months after she parted ways with longtime manager Matthew “Beyoncé’s dad” Knowles, Columbia Records has announced that Rowland is leaving the label for which she’s been recording since her Destiny’s Child days.

“Because Columbia Records has been my home base as an artist for more than a decade, the decision to move out on my own required a lot of soul-searching,” Rowland said in a statement released Tuesday.

“As a solo artist, I felt the need to explore new directions, new challenges, and new freedoms outside my comfort zone and my friends and family at Columbia have been incredibly understanding about my evolution. I want to thank everyone at Columbia for the love and support they’ve shown and I will never forget how many good times we’ve had over the years.”

There’s no word yet on what direction she’s planning to go in, exactly. Rowland cut her first solo album, 2002’s Simply Deep, while still a member of Destiny’s Child and released a follow-up, Ms. Kelly, in 2007, after the “Survivor” trio had permanently disbanded. (more…)

Minnie Riperton – Loving You, now this is a classic.

Via Associated Press – BOSTON -  Two sisters and the brother who killed them with a kitchen knife will share a single funeral service and be buried together.

Samantha Revelus, 17, and her sister, Bianca, 5, were killed at their home in Milton, Massachusetts, on Saturday. Police shot the girls’ brother, Kerby Revelus, 23, after an officer saw him decapitate the younger girl. A surviving sister, 9-year-old Saraphina, was recovering at a Boston hospital Monday after having surgery.

Ernst Guerrier, a Boston attorney and family friend, said he spent Monday morning with Haitian immigrant parents Regine and Vronze Revelus as they made plans to bury the three together.

“They are still dealing with the shock and disbelief of losing three of their children,” said Guerrier. (more…)

He was cool at 16!

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

-Jonh Lennon

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A New York student won a court order to temporarily freeze the assets of Peter Madoff, the brother of jailed swindler Bernard Madoff, the student’s lawyer said on Wednesday.

Andrew Ross Samuels of Brooklyn Law School said in papers filed in a suburban New York court that he lost nearly $500,000 in inheritance money in Bernard Madoff’s scheme.

Madoff pleaded guilty on March 12 to running the biggest investment fraud in Wall Street’s history, which prosecutors have said involved as much as $65 billion.

Madoff was sent to jail pending sentencing in June. His brother, who was an executive of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, has not been charged with any wrongdoing. (more…)

The world’s largest music store, APPLE’S iTUNES, plans to boost the price of many hit singles and selected classic tracks to $1.29 on APRIL 7th, breaking the psychological barrier of 99 cents in what could be the first big test of how much consumers are willing to pay to download individual songs, reports The Los Angeles Times.

Although the date for higher prices has not been publicly announced, APPLE has been notifying record labels it will go into effect on that date, industry executives said.

The move, part of a new “variable-pricing” strategy that will also lower the price of selected songs, is an attempt by the music industry to wring more revenue from digital downloads in the battle to offset declining CD sales. Label executives contend the new pricing will allow them to offer packaged downloads of songs that might entice consumers to spend more on music. (more…)

Via Gizmodo – By Adam Frucci

There are over a dozen people working at our fair Gizmodo, but as a Windows user, I’m in a definite minority. I still rock XP, and I’m pretty happy with that. Why haven’t I switched to Macs?

Plenty of reasons, not least of which being that I’m just too smart to switch to a Mac. That’s right, I’m too smart for Macs. As Bill Gates’s retirement rapidly approaches I figured now is a good time to lay out why I’m loyal to his OS.

I grew up with Windows. Although my first computer was a Mac Classic (I was like 3 at the time, and I only used it to play that helicopter game where you have to drop the little man into the horse-drawn hay carriage), I’ve been using Windows PCs for nearly my entire life, learning how to fiddle with the command prompt in DOS and dealing with the rudimentary pile of crap that was Windows 3.1. I survived Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows ME for a short, painful time, Windows 2000 and now, finally, Windows XP. It hasn’t always been pretty (see: Windows ME), but through it all I’ve figured out every little trick there is to know about running Windows. I’m a monster on Windows. (more…)