LinkedIn “Netiquette” — Part 2
About 6 months ago I posted a thread on LinkedIn ranting about peoples (mis)use of the ‘Connections’ feature of LinkedIn. It has proven to be one of the most virulent, commented on and opinionated threads in the land related groups on LinkedIn. To date it has 78 comments and 32 ‘likes’. Today I’m going to re-write that post, because I’ve gotten more perspective over the last few months and I’d like to clarify my thoughts. However, don’t expect to see me radically changing my views…. You can choose to connect with people on LinkedIn from a variety of places on ...
Social Networking 101
Most of you probably think this will be another article lambasting the improper use of LinkedIn and Facebook, or asking you not to be a bad twit(ter). Fortunately, I think many of you are getting the point and don’t need to be lectured on how to use (and not use) social media. What I want to talk about today is networking with your colleagues in a social way. Many landmen I know like to tell me about how they are really working on ‘networking’, or I will get an email telling me that they are ‘networking’ to get a new ...
Gloom and Doom: What’s a Landman to do?
It’s probably safe to say that we have all personally experienced, or had a good friend who has personally experienced some downtime over the last few years. The United States is swamped in uneconomic dry gas, and even some of the wet gas is not worth drilling. Historic oil plays have been a place to hide, but by their very nature these plays require a certain amount of skill not all possess. I’ve seen a ramp-up over the last six months of experienced landmen who are looking for work, and I thought it was time to put some thoughts down ...
10 Reasons My Resume Doesn’t Look Like Yours
Well, maybe it’s an over-statement that my resume doesn’t look like anyone else’s resume. My point is that my resume doesn’t follow the ‘normal’ rules, let’s call it the “new normal”. It’s not that my resume contains any secrets that get it any more consideration, and I’m not doing anything that you can’t find other people talking about on the internet. Regardless, I think that the old ways of job searching are changing, and our resumes should as well. 1. I’m American, and Americans don’t have those little squiggly lines, dashes, and dots on their words. So I don’t get ...
Your Words Matter, So Double Check Them
Whether you are interacting online, by mail, or in person the words you choose are important. Equally important is the way you use them. Snap judgements will be made about you based on spelling, grammar, and context. Now, I know that many of you are thinking “oh great here comes the spelling police…” So I’m going to try to sway your judgement with a few examples I’ve seen lately, I’ll try to anonymize them enough to protect the ignor-innocent. The first example is the picture you see above. I’ll go ahead and tell you (if you haven’t figured it out) ...
Landman Websites I Check Often
I thought I would do a quick post this week just detailing some of the places on the internet that I frequently visit. I also felt that it would be a nice thing to give credit to these sources, as they often give me inspiration for the blogs I post here. So without further ado, here is my list of places that I go: www.landpro.com/landnews.asp Paul Nielsen runs LandNews, and has done so for quite some time. If you haven’t ever met Paul, he’s a great guy and does the industry a wonderful service by running LandNews. He posts available ...
Dear Resume: You’re Not Fooling Anybody
I wanted to spend some time today talking about an particular irritation that a (un-named) buddy shared with me. After he mentioned it I realized that I also see it all the time, and those that do it probably think that it is helping them out. I think they do it because they realize the number of years of experience they have is so important in the business of being a landman. At first I thought that it was a very simple thing, and maybe not worthy of a blog post all its own, but on some reflection I think ...
50 Ways To Leave Your Broker
One of the complaints I commonly hear is that newer landmen aren’t getting the diverse training that is necessary for them to be successful over the long term. The concept of ‘specializing’ is turning into having a landman with 5 years of experience who has only bought leases or only run title from disk. Regardless of my personal thoughts on using the number of years of experience, I think that it is the landman’s job to make himself a professional with a good background of work experience. What I see happening is that landmen get a chance with a broker, ...
Experience: Our Way of Evaluating Landmen is Hurting our Industry
A demon that has always been lurking in the corner in our business is how we decide how much someone is worth. Think about the last time you recommended someone to your supervisor. The first question they asked was probably “How many years of experience does he/she have?”. Occasionally you’ll get the “send me their resume” or the preferred “are they good?”, you might even get a “Do you want the person on your team?” line from particularly bright supervisors. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that using “years of experience” as an indicator of skill is ...
Why People Should Pay For Things
People should pay for things. Just in general, nobody appreciates things that they get for free. Case in point, on my daily rotation is to check landmen.net every morning. It’s not because I need a job, I just like to see who is hiring. I think it’s interesting. It’s also very interesting to see what, and how, people post jobs. There are some people that I really want to email and just tell them (Pulp Fiction style) “You stop posting today, right now. And when you stop, you stay stopped, or you be stopped. You lost all your job posting ...
