If you are looking for a job right now, expect that there will be 400 or more other applicants. A coaching client in Santa Monica, Ca reported that she is competing with 500 other applicants for a two week TV production job. When the competition is that stiff even for temporary work, you need to be a peak performer — a Black belt.

Last week’s post riled some with the suggestion to Burn Your Resume. If you are still clutching that single, antiquated piece of paper I am praying that you will check it out.

Heck, don’t read my post. Check out the comments of other readers that are using the suggestions — and getting jobs! Nicky D followed the post’s advice. She customized her resume. There were 400 other applicants. The company called her — because of her PPP resume.

Become a Black Belt
How do you step to the head of the job seeker line? One of two ways:

Your Resume or Knowing Someone
Now, more than ever it is essential that you become masterful at networking. Why? It is free. If you are a black belt in networking you are the best form of advertising and promoting yourself or your business. Networking generates ideas and makes whatever you are doing richer. Asking for assistance makes it easier to accomplish. In today’s business environment only Black belts will survive and thrive.

Black Belt’s Don’t Whine
“Back in the day when I started recruiting, before email, the Internet, contact management software or even MS Windows, the only way to network was to make dozens of phone calls a day. Only the tough skinned, most persistent of us survived the process.” Says recruiter Nicole Spicer.

Today you have hundreds if not thousands of passive ways to reach out to people — there are no excuses not to network!

Four Basic Rules of Black Belt Networking:
1. Build relationships.
2. Engage as a “human being” not a “human doing.” Don’t treat others as a means to an end.
3. Consistently grow your network.
4. Do not wait until you need a network — it may be too late.

If you do nothing else:

Give First
Look for ways to contribute to those with whom you are networking. Networking is a reciprocal process.

Follow Up
Call valuable new contacts within 24 hours of meeting them. I am a big believer in the power of a hand written thank you note. Stay in touch.

The World is Your Dojo
Now, you have the basics of being a Black belt of Networking. Please take this week to go out and practice. We will do it together. I am off to a networking lunch right now!

Here are the tips to put into practice:

Black belt Tip:
Treat everyone you meet as a friend.

Black belt Tip:
Black belt’s practice.

Black belt Tip:
Always offer to help.

Black belt Tip:
Follow up. Follow up. Follow up.

Who:
Network with everyone. Help comes from the most unlikely people and places sometimes.
Network with colleagues, bosses, subordinates, vendors, recruiter, mentors, family, friends, acquaintances, supporting groups and strangers.
Network by using your Rolodex, contact list from work and play, company directories and networking websites.

When:
Network at any appropriate time.
Network all the time and consistently. Build a networking plan and work on the plan everyday.
Network specifically by reaching out to an individual, and generally by dropping it into conversations.

Where:
Network everywhere that is appropriate.
Network via email, IM, online, on the phone, in person, at job fairs, at church, on the ball field, at a party, at your kid’s soccer game.
Network by using business networking boards. Join and utilize sites like LinkedIn.com, Plaxo.com, ZoomInfo.com, Jigsaw.com, BizWiz.com, PartnerUp.com etc.
Network by joining online groups and in-person groups. Locate and join groups like alumni from colleges, past employers, industry communities and users groups. Groups put you in a community with people who have similar paths and messages.
Network via Social boards. Join and utilize sites like FaceBook and MySpace.

How:
Network directly and honestly.
Network by telling others, you just might find your next mentor, employer, funder or partner.
Network by asking for referrals and offering reciprocal assistance — immediately or into the future.
Network by building a bridge of people to enhance your current career or to start a new career.
Network by researching the companies you want to work for and find people within the company to correspond with.

What are your successes and disasters in networking? What are your tips and tricks? Please share a comment. You can receive notice of my blogs every Friday by checking Become a Fan at the top. Ask Eli a question at: info@elidavidson.com or go to http://www.elidavidson.com/

Billionaire Clusters

by Duncan Greenberg
provided by

Want to become a billionaire? Up your chances by dropping out of college, working at Goldman Sachs or joining Skull & Bones.

Are billionaires born or made? What are the common attributes among the uber-wealthy? Are there any true secrets of the self-made?

More from Forbes.com: • In Depth: Billionaire Clusters • The 2009 Billionaire List • The Next Billionaire Boom

We get these questions a lot, and decided it was time to go beyond the broad answers of smarts, ambition and luck by sorting through our database of wealthy individuals in search of bona fide trends. We analyzed everything from the billionaires’ parents’ professions to where they went to school, their track records in the early stages of their careers and other experiences that may have put them on the path to extreme wealth.

Our admittedly unscientific study of the 657 self-made billionaires we counted in February for our list of the World’s Billionaires yielded some interesting results.

First, a significant percentage of billionaires had parents with a high aptitude for math. The ability to crunch numbers is crucial to becoming a billionaire, and mathematical prowess is hereditary. Some of the most common professions among the parents of American billionaires (for whom we could find the information) were engineer, accountant and small-business owner.

Consistent with the rest of the population, more American billionaires were born in the fall than in any other season. However, relatively few billionaires were born in December, traditionally the month with the eighth highest birth rate. This anomaly holds true among billionaires in the U.S. and abroad.

More than 20% of the 292 of the self-made American billionaires on the most recent list of the World’s Billionaires have either never started or never completed college. This is especially true of those destined for careers as technology entrepreneurs: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, Larry Ellison, and Theodore Waitt.

Billionaires who derive their fortunes from finance make up one of the most highly educated sub-groups: More than 55% of them have graduate degrees. Nearly 90% of those with M.B.A.s obtained their master’s degree from one of three Ivy League schools: Harvard, Columbia or U. Penn’s Wharton School of Business.

Goldman Sachs has attracted a large share of hungry minds that went on to garner 10-figure fortunes. At least 11 current and recent billionaire financiers worked at Goldman early in their careers, including Edward Lampert, Daniel Och, Tom Steyer and Richard Perry.

Several billionaires suffered a bitter professional setback early in their careers that heightened their fear of failure. Pharmaceutical tycoon R.J. Kirk’s first venture was a flop–an experience he regrets but appreciates. “Failure early on is a necessary condition for success, though not a sufficient one,” he told Forbes in 2007.

According to a statement read by Phil Falcone during a congressional hearing in November, his botched buyout of a company in Newark in the early 1990s taught him “several valuable lessons that have had a profound impact upon my success as a hedge fund manager.”

Several current and former billionaires rounded out their Yale careers as members of Skull and Bones, the secret society portrayed with enigmatic relish by Hollywood in movies like The Skulls and W. Among those who were inducted: investor Edward Lampert, Blackstone co-founder Steven Schwarzman, and FedEx founder Frederick Smith.

Please visit Forbes.com to check out the  full list of billionaire clusters by clicking  here.

Forbes.com is the original owner of the content in this article.

I once heard from a song once, “Don’t ask for permission, ask for forgiveness.” Look how far that went for Christopher Columbus. For God’s sakes, we have a day off to celebrate his futile efforts. So before I say what I’m about to, I’M SORRY. This is kind of going to change your life.

Always the jovial optimist, I wanted to express my concern and quarantine my negative feelings of the spread of an epidemic more bubonic than what plagued Europe in the 14th century. Often times, education and practice will guarantee you to be a master of the English language. The formula is simple: put 10,000 hours into a craft, and become a master. (That rounds out to about 417 days; chances are you are a master 100 fold by now) Almost everyone across the board has put in this amount of time into engaging conversation with others, writing, reading, public speaking, and I hope THINKING. But everyday, I lose more hope than George W. in people. It seems as though everyone’s vernacular is involuntary rather than voluntary. We are captains of our own ships; yet why are so many people missing the boat?

Let me illustrate this behavior first before I spill the beans. What is the inherent difference between urinating and vomiting? Both are considered excrement that help combat disease, infection, and a hang over. Yet urinating is voluntary. I remember aimlessly walking 30 city blocks holding my pride and piss, refusing to be a savage and succumb to peeing in an alley way. Instead, I opted for the civilized route, to have enough patience to see a yellow M awning and go to the McBathroom, supersized. That was a voluntary decision. For my 21st birthday, I wasn’t so lucky. It was an ominous night of revelry and imbibing, leaving my friend Pat with chunky streaks that was the sum of 21 shots that included SoCom lime, Tequilla, and General Tso’s Chicken. If it was voluntary, I’m sure it would have ended in the toilet, and not a “Pat on the back.”

One: I apologize for being extreme in my illustration. Two: again I’m sorry; for I’m about to say will change your life.

There is such beauty in the English language. We have options. The second edition of the Oxford English Dictionary boasts some 173,000 words plus. I have infinite beef with two.
It came to my attention in my last year of grad school. Here I am, among some of the smartest people that ever made an imprint in my life, with a sickening disease of diarrhea in the mouth, including myself. It is a word that everyone says INVOLUNTARILY, AND IT IS…

A C T U A L L Y.

Think about it for 30 seconds to yourself.

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU SAID IT TODAY?

HOW MANY TIMES HAVE YOU HEARD SOMEONE SAY IT IN CONVERSATION WITH YOU?

Now think about this. Really, really think.

How many times was it a conscious decision for you or the other party to say it? The dictionary defines it as “In act or in fact; really; in truth; positively.” ACTUALLY, IT HAS BECOME OBSOLETE. IT HAS TURNED TO NOTHING BUT A FILLER, THAT GIVES SOMEONE TIME TO THINK. I petition it to be banned from colloquialism permanently.

The phrase “you know” is no better. Listen to yourself speak next time, see how many times you say it, along with the person that’s speaking to you. If we both knew, we wouldn’t talk about it, now would we?

I’m not here to preach. I’m just making an observation that everyone is sick. Today, I can report that I haven’t used the “A” word except when I’m voluntarily trying to prove a point. I have been sober for two years running, and I encourage others to step forward. As for “you know”, everyday, I use it less and less. PRACTICE MAKES PERMANENT. I have the same beef with uhhh, but that is much harder.

Remember less is more.

This is just food for thought. Y’all do the dishes.

“It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open one’s mouth and remove all doubt.” ABRAHAM LINCOLN, SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.