Branding yourself suggests you’re clueless. In the May 26, 2015 Ask The Headhunter Newsletter, readers ask about branding themselves and about self-marketing. Two brief questions this week reveal the bunk in “branding” yourself when job hunting. The fallacy in this marketing tactic is that getting a job is about you. It’s not. It’s all about the employer and the work you need to configure yourself to do. Question What is your advice for promoting oneself through personal branding? Nick’s Reply Michael Jordan has a brand. Here’s the problem with applying “branding” to yourself. “Personal branding is essentially the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the minds of others about an individual…” The point of branding is to fix an image in people’s minds.
But consider what happens when you apply for a job. Sports stars are brands. Don’t come off as clueless. Show how your work will help produce profit for the business. Think instead about your reputation. The basics have been around forever. Use LinkedIn’s Profile Headline Helper. To use this functionality: 1. Click “Profile” in the LinkedIn drop down menu. If you have received the recent profile update, proceed to Step 2 below. If you haven’t received the recent profile update, click “Edit Profile” and proceed to Step 3 below. 2. 3. 4. 5. This takes you to pages that display the headlines of connections in your industry. Screenshot: Your Resume & The Psychology of Fonts. Brand Your LinkedIn Vanity URL. But it’s OK, because LinkedIn lets you set up a personal URL for your profile.
This is also known as a vanity URL. Mine looks like this: Much nicer, huh? I have the good fortune, as far as I know, of being the only Donna Svei on the planet. Not the case for a resume client I worked with this week. So I asked him to do something to distinguish himself from all the other Ken Lee guy types on LinkedIn. For example, I could use: Hmmm, I like it — except that I’m also a retained search consultant. Not really, because his name isn’t Ken Lee and he isn’t a sales manager. Now imagine putting that branded personal URL right below your name on your resume, or on your business card. Here’s a quick video on how to get your vanity URL. What You Can Do in 12 Minutes | 12 Minute Social Media Playbook. The premise of 12 Minute Social Media Playbook is simple: There are too many choices and too much to do and it’s way too easy to get overwhelmed with all that’s out there that’s there’s got to be a better way to market your business.
After all, you need to be marketing your business at least 50% of the time, and if you ask me, everything you do is marketing your business. So what can you realistically expect to do in just 12 minutes? LOTS of stuff! Set your stopwatch for 12 minutes, and try one of these tasks. Basic skill level: See if anyone else is using your name/brand name/username at Knowem.comStart an account on 1 or more of the above social media services and finish your profile with a picture, a bio and a link to your company website.Find 10 blogs in your niche using Google Blog Search (just put in your most important key word, click the links and read those blogs later)Read 1 article and leave a comment on 1 of the blogs you just found Intermediate level: Advanced skill level:
Job Seekers: To Blog or Not to Blog? Why? Learning blogging software takes time, trial, and error.It demonstrates your writing skills — for better or worse.It requires some graphic design ability.You have to entice traffic, otherwise you’re talking to yourself.Unless it’s on the critical path of getting you in front of hiring managers, your time might be better applied to finding target companies, identifying hiring managers, and getting your smiling face into their offices.
Besides there’s a simpler way, with better odds, to get hiring managers to see your thoughts, face, and name in print than going to the effort of starting your own blog. You’ve heard of OPM — other people’s money? Well, we’re gonna talk about OPB — other people’s blogs. What on-line media do people in your field and industry read? Oh, so you should do some guest blogging?
Here’s what you do: Figure out your Ideal Hiring Manager’s most likely on-line reading list.Subscribe to those sites using feedly.com. Hah! And there’s a great upside to this hack. The Cutest Cat Video on the Internet? Really? HOW TO Avoid the Top 10 Faux Pas Seen in Twitter Profiles. The less formal the social media site, the more likely people are to let their hair down. Thus, many recruiters want to know how job seekers show up on Facebook and Twitter. “Watch out what you say on Facebook” is good advice. I hear it somewhere almost every day. Interestingly, Twitter hasn’t received as much attention, even though it’s much more public than Facebook. I looked at some Twitter profiles for people in a very mainstream profession yesterday. Let’s just say that I was shocked, shocked, OK, maybe not shocked, but surprised, yes, surprised, and concerned, at what I saw people sharing. What is the half-life of our Internet posts? Who knew that our political contributions are posted on the Internet?
Who knew that my local paper would print my “Favorite Movies of 2007” list, with my name, in both the paper and on the Internet? Sheesh, I had to start blogging to try to bury this information beyond Google’s long reach! Appearance: hot, long blond hair, sexy, obese, etc. Stop Facebook from Tagging You in Photos & Videos. Add Your Picture to Your Blog Comments.
Have you ever considered that commenting includes two elements? Your comment.Your avatar, or in the case of most job seekers, your photograph. If you comment on blogs, but don’t associate those comments with a picture of yourself, you’re missing a big opportunity to let people get to know you better and build your brand. Have you wondered how people get their pictures next to their comments? But it seemed like too much trouble to find out? No problem. You go to gravatar.com, enter the email address you use for blog comments, and upload your picture. Do it. BTW, gravatar means globally recognized avatar. Add Your Picture to Your Blog Comments. A Cup of Coffee to Relevancy | Personal Branding Blog - Dan Scha. It’s time to grab your cup of coffee and spend 30 minutes on some solid – but easy – action items that will make a difference to your personal online brand. As you add your cream and sugar, reflect on the general purpose of building a brand: to establish credibility and visibility in order to signal quality and reduce perceived risk from buyers.
Okay- let’s get started. Today, we’re going to talk about one word: Relevancy. The Google empire Google built an empire on that word. Once you know exactly where your pond is – and who else swims in it – you can then provide good, relevant information to the others in the pond. Define your words So, today’s before-you-finish-your-cup-of-coffee lesson is to define 10 of your most relevant key words and phrases and incorporate them into your online profiles and into the content you delineate hereto-forth. What are people going to rely on me for? Now you’ve got some usable information. 7 things you can do right now: Author: