Marshall Brown Named “Career Coaching Blogger” For The Washington Post
July 12th, 2010 | 
Author: Marshall Brown, President of Marshall Brown & Associates, was recently selected as the new career coach correspondent for The Washington Post “The Career Coach Is In” blog.
“Whether someone is in the midst of a job search now, “between successes,” or considering a career change in the future, I hope each person will gain invaluable resources from reading this blog,” Brown explained.
The subscribers of “The Career Coach Is In” have expressed their excitement in corresponding with Brown and have made it quite clear that they are hungry for insight to their burning questions on interviewing, resumes, networking, and the overall job search. Brown plans to offer just that–specific solutions and details on these topics and others.
“The Bureau of Labor Statistics just reported the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) was 6.8 million,” Brown declared. “These people can use all the advice and resources they can get, and I plan to give them all I can.”
Brown is a certified career and executive coach, an entrepreneur coach, and a personal brand strategist. He is also the past board president of the Washington, DC Chapters of both the International Coach Federation and the Association of Career Professionals International.
Brown also publishes his own monthly e-newsletter called “It’s All About You!” He also writes a monthly career column for Association Trends called “Ask the Coach,” and has published articles in leading association management magazines and newsletters.
As an industry expert, his speaking engagements have attracted hundreds of association and business professionals from across the country. He can be seen on Business Week Online regarding the benefits of hiring a business/executive coach.
“Those who are looking for unbiased, professional advice on changing careers, managing the job search as a project, or have just been laid off will definitely want to subscribe to ‘The Career Coach Is In’ to get in on the conversation,” Brown says.
For more information about Brown’s programs, visit www.mbrownassociates.com
Marshall
http://www.mbrownassociates.com
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Dear Marshall Brown,
I recently read your article about maximizing your resume, and thank you for it. You answered my questions about on-line resumes.
I have a dilema that a number of un-employed people have, and that is the number of companies that have gone out of business due to the recession, and mergers, and the references are no longer available.
I have found several jobs on-line that I can do very well, but the companies that I worked for have merged, re-structured and no longer have the employees that knew me, or have gone out of business.
If you have any input on how to build new business references without being employed again, I would surely love to hear your input. Sincerely, V. Merrill
If anyone else is having problems with finding solutions for defunct business references, and has any solutions for finding them or building them, please let me know.
Great question and you are right. You aren’t the only one facing this dilemma.
Here are a few suggestions that I hope will help.
1. I would still encourage you to list your previous employers and the dates, even if they are no longer in business or have moved on. It shows that you (hopefully) were working for a period of time consistently. It shows that you were able to maintain a position and for a period of time. Obviously without knowing your time periods, this may or may not work.
2. Don’t forget about vendors or business partners that you might have bought from while you were working. They can act as great references.
3. If you are doing (or have done) some volunteer work, get references from those individuals as well. Let them know the type(s) of position that you are looking at and have them tailor the reference to reflect your experience with them.
4. Check your LINKED IN connections and see if you can find any previous peers, colleagues, etc. You will be surprised how people are using this social networking site (and others) to find people from their past. You can search via company name and if others have put their past employers information in, you can locate former staff.
5. Once you do locate them thru LINKED IN, be sure to ask them to put a reference on LINKED IN as well. This will increase your Google presence (very important!)
Good luck and if you have any suggestions, let us know.