Another Personal Branding Blog

Okay the title sounds trite; but it's just my warped sense of humor. Given the time of day when this is being posted it's definitely warped. (I'm a nightowl and this daytime thing is murder for me).

Well as you may know (or are finding out) employers are fond of "googling" people before offering interviews. (And you thought it was just fun to look up your blind date that way). Unfortunately because of the next generation web users; "googling" someone has almost replaced calling for references. Employers now use what they find on you (or about you) online to gage whether or not you are a worthy candidate.

So it's best to prepare your eBrand and save yourself from countless stress.

eBranding is taking the real you and translating into a virtual you. This is generally done by making sure you create a self-marketing plan prior to going online and signing up for countless social networks.

Try these to help you get started with your eBranding.

1. Create a self-marketing plan. Just as you would need a business plan to start your own company, you'll need a marketing plan before you start your personal branding. Include a mission statement which should detail who you are, what you are "truly" about, why you're here and where you're going. If this isn't enough information for you add what your values are and what you are passionate about.

2. Invest in your own personal URL. If you can get all of the TLDs (Top Level Domains) at once. The reason being someone can easily use your URL and while immitating you do major damage to your credibility. Try Sign Mark Hosting for great packages on domains. They also offer free forwarding and masking (these mean you can have your domain(s) pointing to a webpage located on another host site withough the viewer knowing it). SignMark Hosting also offers a free landing page, or 5 page website and email address when you register for a domain.

3. Get a good picture or have an avatar created that represents you. This is especially important if you are a job seeker. Invest in a good headshot or head and shoulder shot of yourself for posting on all your social networking sites. This way the employer knows you're a real person and not a spam bot or someone looking to upload virus's by setting up phoney sites pretending to be a job seeker. For a cost effective way to get a headshot either have a friend do it for you with a digital camera (if you own one) or visit a one hour photo. They usually have packages for $20 which they will scan and give you a CD of your photos along with your prints. If they charge for the CD then ask a friend with a scanner to scan your prints into their computer and email them to you.

If you don't feel comfortable using a photo, create an avatar. This representation can be used on all of your social networks, blogs, websites, landing pages etc. the same as you would your photo. It's this consistency that creates the brand. You can even use it on your personal business cards much as your would your photo or a logo. Visit The Branding Wizard for website image ideas or avatar packages.

4. Create a landing page. You can use your blog if you'd like. Many blogs have become useful landing pages or you can invest in a reasonable website. Try a free website such as Yola.com or Webs.com. They don't put advertising on their free sites and they have nice templates to use if you are CSS/HTML challenged and you don't want to hire a graphic designer.

Your landing page can either be a teaser leading the viewer to your actual site or you can just turn it into your online resume, complete with your mission statement, your photo, a simple list of your previous employers (make the employer's names a hyperlink to your reference's email instead of the employer's website - just don't forget to inform your references you are doing this otherwise they may delete the inquiry). You will want to include a list of skills or a portfolio of your work (depending on the site functionality). If the site allows for the slide show great! If not turn your "portfolio" into a link to another page that does or a prepared Flickr account containing only your portfolio pieces.

5. Create an Acknowledgment Page. This is a fun page you set up as an attachment to your landing page/website/blog etc. It can be its own independent page and attached to your personal URL (remember you were supposed to get one in step 2). The purpose of this page is to have your peers, managers, clients, people who know your work to visit it and leave comments about you there. (Yes you can remove the ones you don't think are showing you in the best light).

The page is a great way for you to get an ego boost when you're feeling depressed about you last four interviews. You can also direct potential employers to your on line press page instead of offering up references. These references are online for everyone to read about you. Don't forget to set your trackbacks.

6. Join the "correct" social networks. You want to look for networks that are credible, offer resources with status and cater to potential peers and employers you'd like to work with. LinkedIn.com is the leader of this area but you can also have luck with Facebook.com and Twitter.com. Just remember that you are using this for business and not just social. So if you have a lot of crazy friends that post EVERYTHING, I suggest setting up two separate accounts. One so they can post their lives to your wall and the other for business and job seeking use.

7. Get involved and join forums within your social network. Interact with the people on the forums and remember to put your backlink in your signature so others can find your page(s) and this will grow your network.

DO NOT join forums and post simply to plug yourself and your site. It's rude and will get you into trouble since news on the net spreds faster than California wildfires. Be courteous and thank the people who do opt to "follow" you. Strike up conversations with them from your own page or start forums and invite them to take part.

8. Go communal. Have some business cards printed up for yourself SignMark Graphics has great packages on business cards for job seekers). Make sure you include your correct contact information on the front and perhaps a memorable blurb about you or what your expertise is. On the back offer your website, acknowledgment page, or even list the services you can perform.

Don't miss an opportunity to give them out when you meet people. Attend church functions, little league games, classes to improve a skill (or learn a new one), your hairstylist, your manicurist, your barber or join the local chamber of commerce and ask about posting a flyer on their boards to advertise your availability.

9. Go out and see the sky. Job searching is a time consuming process and it can be depressing. But do your due diligence; allow yourself so many hours each day to do your search, update your social networks, answer emails, take part in forums and then shut it down. Working yourself to death trying to find a job isn't going to help your other relationships, ie., your family, children, and friends.

So finish your daily work search, marketing and get up and stretch, play with the pet, go for a walk or visit the library to get a movie. Work and life should always be in balance.

10 Tips for Successful Career Planning

Contrary to how it used to be, career planning is not just an activity to be done once in high school and/or college and then forgotten about after you get a job. Career planning is performed on a regular basis. It’s not a hard activity to do, but many people dreaded it or put off, which you shouldn’t do especially since the average worker will change careers (not just jobs) multiple times over his or her lifetime.

Career planning should be a rewarding and positive experience. It should be an activity that is liberating and fulfilling. Career planning, if done correctly, should be providing goals in your current career to achieve or create ideas for goals in planning to begin a transition to a new career.

Career planning will make you feel more secure in your career choice and direction and you'll be better prepared for the many uncertainties and difficulties that lie ahead in all of our jobs and career.

Remember it’s never too soon or too late to start your career planning.

Here are 10 tips to help you achieve successful career planning.

1. Do Your Career Planning Annually
Just like you have physicals, eye exams and dental checkups annually you should include career planning in that category. Chose a day every year (you can do it more often if you feel the need or if you're planning a major career change) and schedule a retreat for yourself. Block out all distractions so that you have the time to truly focus on your career and what you really want out of your career. Think about how your career is impacting your life.

2. Chart Your Career Path
One of your first activities whenever you take on career planning is spending time mapping out your job and career path. This should be done based on the last time you did any sort of career planning (assuming you’ve actually done career planning). Don’t dwell on your past; just review it as it involves your previous job choices and reflect on the path(s) you chose. They could be straight and narrow or filled with curves and dead-ends; but looking at this will help you plan for the future.

Once you've mapped your past, take the time to reflect on your course and note why it looks the way it does. Are you happy with your path? Could you have done things better? What might you have done differently? What can you do differently in the future?

3. Think about You: What are your Likes and Dislikes? Needs and Wants?
As you grow you change. Change is a factor of life; and as you change so do your likes and dislikes. Your wants and needs also change accordingly. Things you used to love doing a year ago may now bring you dissatisfaction and irritation.

This is why it is imperative that you make time to reflect on the things in your life, not just in your job, that you feel most strongly about. By taking the things that are important to you in your life you will begin to realize what it is you need from your career. Take the time to “really think” about what is important to you and what you want or need from your work, from your career.

Be honest with yourself. Are you looking to make a difference in the world? Do you want to be famous? Do you want to become financially independent? Is it important for you to effect change? Don’t hold yourself back take the time to understand the motives that drive your sense of success and happiness.

Make a two-column list of your major likes and dislikes. Then use this list to examine your current job and career path. If your job and career still fall mostly in the like column, then you know you are still on the right path; however, if your job activities fall mostly in the dislike column, now is the time to begin examining new jobs and new careers.

4. Look at Your Pastimes and Hobbies
Career planning provides a great time to examine the activities you like doing when you're not working. It may sound a bit odd, to examine non-work activities when doing career planning, but it's not. Many times your hobbies and leisurely pursuits can give you great insight into future career paths. Remember your pastimes and hobbies are things that you pursue with a passion; even when you put them on hold, they still gnaw at you. When anything is that persistent, it’s best to acknowledge it.

If you think, you can't make a hobby into a career; guess again. People do it all the time. The great painter Paul Gauguin was successful in business who painted on the side. It actually wasn't until he was encouraged by an artist he admired to continue painting that he finally took a serious look at his hobby and decided he should change careers. He was good at business, but his love was painting.

Mrs. Fields took her love for making cookies and made an empire. Famous Amos is another “cookie king.” Look around, and you’ll see that many successful people took their pastimes and hobbies and turned them into lucrative and successful careers.

Try the two-column list approach again; only substitute your pastimes and hobbies and which ones you like vs. the ones you love.

5. List your accomplishments
If you make a list your accomplishments, it can help you in two ways: 1. It reinforces your security in your abilities; and 2. If you know your list of accomplishments then you will be able to create a better more powerful resume when it's time to search for a new job.

So make notes of your accomplishments, both in work and from hobbies or pastimes, because it's also useful for career planning.

Sometimes in reviewing these accomplishments, it reveals forgotten successes, one or more that may trigger researching and planning a career shift so that you can be in a job that allows you to accomplish the types of things that make you most happy and proud.

6. How to See Transferable Skills
Most workers are so entrenched in their job titles that they don't see any other career possibilities for themselves. Think outside the box. Don’t limit yourself to just your job title since every job requires a “specific set of skills”; try categorizing yourself in terms of these skill sets as opposed to just throwing up a title.

For example, one job seeker who was trying to accomplish career planning was stuck because their job title was administrative assistant. However, once they got past the job title, they had a strong collection of transferable skills such as writing, editing, researching, investigating, interviewing, juggling multiple tasks, meeting goals and deadlines, and managing time and information skills that are easily be applied to a wide variety of jobs in many different careers.
You can try the two-column approach here as well. List the “job title” in the left column and list the skills that you use in performing that job.

7. Review Trends
A career path that is expanding today could easily shrink tomorrow or next year. It's important to see where job growth is expected, especially in the career fields that most interest you. Besides knowledge of these trends, the other advantage of conducting this research is the power it gives you to adjust and strengthen your position, your unique selling proposition. One of the keys to job and career success is having a unique set of accomplishments, skills, and education that make you better than all others in your career.

Everyone makes his or her own job and career opportunities, so that even if your career is shrinking, if you have excellent skills and know how to market yourself, you should be able to find a new job. However, having information about career trends is vital to long-term career planning success.

8. Set Career and Job Goals
Could you be successful in your career without setting goals? Yes, you could. But could you be even more successful through goal-setting? Most research says yes. Develop a roadmap for your job and career success.

A major component of career planning is setting short-term (in the coming year) and long-term (beyond a year) career and job goals. Once you initiate this process, another component of career planning becomes reviewing and adjusting those goals as your career plans progress or change - and developing new goals once you accomplish your previous goals.

9. Explore New Education/Training Opportunities
It's somewhat of a cliché, but information really does lead to power and success. Never pass up chances to learn and grow more as a person and as a worker; part of career planning is going beyond passive acceptance of training opportunities to finding new ones that will help enhance or further your career.

Take the time to contemplate what types of educational experiences will help you achieve your career goals. Look within your company, your professional association, your local universities and community colleges, as well as online distance learning programs, to find potential career-enhancing opportunities and then find a way achieve them.

10. Research Further Career/Job Advancement Opportunities
One of the fun outcomes of career planning is picturing yourself in the future. Where will you be in a year? In five years? A key component to developing multiple scenarios of that future is researching career paths.

Of course, if you're in what you consider a dead-end job, this activity becomes even more essential to you, but all job seekers should take the time to research various career paths and then develop scenarios for seeing one or more of these visions become reality. Look within your current employer and current career field, but again, as with all aspects of career planning, do not be afraid to look beyond to other possible careers.

Final Thoughts on Career Planning
Don't wait too long between career planning sessions. Career planning can have multiple benefits, from goal setting to career change, to a more successful life. Once you begin regularly reviewing and planning your career using the tips provided in this article, you'll find yourself better prepared for whatever lies ahead in your career—and in your life.

© Copyright MMVIII, Office Venus. All rights reserved.

The Skinny on Finding a New Job

Most Americans today say they would change their jobs if they could. They also say that they are too afraid to do so. Most Americans live paycheck to paycheck so they rely deeply on that steady paycheck. But that does not keep them from wondering what's really out there.

The problem is that in today’s uncertain job market your job could be gone tomorrow morning. And what’s worse; employers have put the brakes on hiring (even though this is supposed to not be a recession). Job creation fell by 17,000 in January, the first month of decline in more than four years. For the hardest-hit industries like banking and real estate layoffs and hiring freezes have dominated the media as of late, which means there will be more qualified applicants are chasing fewer job spots.

Given this outlook, job seekers must do some sweet and savvy selling of their talents. Now more than ever the quality of your job search skills becomes more critical. Bottom line your skills need to be better. You need to utilize career branding. You must learn the new rules of networking and how to approach an employer.

Here are five tips to land a job in this today’s market:

1. Don't Rely on Job Boards. As popular as they are and how they market themselves as being able to connect job seekers with the employers of their dreams; online search engines and resume banks are essentially "resume black holes.” Many companies pre-screen resumes using software that only hunts for keywords. The keywords are related to the skills, training, degrees, and experience associated with a particular job. Even if you are a perfect match for the job, your resume may never get to someone who could decipher your potential value.

A second item that happens with job boards is the unnecessary deluge of “dead-end” recruiters (also using the same keyword searching software) pulling your resume from an online search engine based on a keyword showing up in your resume (no matter how irrelevant they are to the job at hand; it’s just that the word showed up on your resume in some capacity) and calling you offering a position that they have no connection with. Their sales ‘pitches’ sound good; but just wait and you’ll suddenly notice you’ve got two or three recruiters all from different companies; all offering you the same job for the same company; all claiming to be the only true representative for that company.

While both of those are reasons are valid enough on their own; the biggest issue is that the majority of jobs are never advertised—online or anywhere. This is where your networking skills come into play. You should spend at lease 85% of your job search energy on networking and 15% submitting resumes online.

2. Tap Your Network. Networking is how things get done. You are probably already keeping in touch with former colleagues and industry peers. Why not put the feelers out and have them notify you about job leads before they go public? If you remember the old cliché it’s not what you know; but whom you know. When it comes to looking for a job truer words were never spoken. But let’s take it one further it’s not only who knows you; but who knows what you know and what you can do. Make sure you're on the radar of people who have access to the kind of job leads you want.

If you're looking to work for a specific company, the key is to connect with a current employee. If you’re wondering how you do that; think Monster.com/Network. This is a useful tool on job boards; they offer networking circles in all manner of industries for you to join into. You can also ask your regular contacts in your network to leverage their network. Another great site for connecting with your friend’s friends is Linked In where you can essentially connect with your friends' friends.

To use this type of “networking” you must apply rules of “Netiquette” (social etiquette for using the Internet). First, ask for an introduction. Then, if you're at an entry level politely say you would like an informational interview. If you're at a higher level it is proper to “talk about the market and where the industry is going.”

3. Harness the Power of the Blog. Locate blogs that are relevant to your industry that are written by professionals at the top of their career and become a regular commenter. The best thing about blogging is that it let’s you show your stuff and thus you’re not solely being judged based on your resume. Once you've developed rapport with a blogger, ask about career advice and job leads.

4. Offer to Assist Others. Stay in regular contact with your network so it doesn’t look like you're asking for favors every couple of years, From time to time pass along a tip or an article that may help your contact. It keeps things mutual and you both are benefiting from the union. You will also be keeping abreast of the current trends while keeping your lines of communication open.

Try to avoid contacting someone out of the blue. Some may be flattered; but most will just figure you're using them. That's not what you're trying to convey (even if essentially that's what you are doing). Always be professional and courteous. If you must contact someone out of the blue, offer something in return, such as an invitation to a lecture or a link to a website that might be of interest, This may not always work; but on those rare times that it does keep that line of networking open; no mater what. Don’t forget them once you’re “in” and working on a new job.

5. Market Your “Brand”. Let your modesty fly out of the window. Marketing a brand (the name of an entity) is how all the big companies get ahead. Think about why you eat at your favorite burger place or can sing you favorite jingle at a moments notice. It’s because of the marketing of that brand.

Well you are going to become your own “Brand”. Market your name. Establish yourself as an expert in your industry. This is easier than you’d believe. It’s as simple as volunteering your skills for a community project (don’t forget to solicit references and referrals), participating in an online forum, creating a website, or—blog. You could also try writing for an industry trade journal or an alumni newsletter. If all else fails (and it won’t) become a published author. Today self-publishing is the norm; and it’s reasonably inexpensive.

The idea is to build credibility in your field and set yourself apart from the competition. You can even advertise your book on your blog or add a blurb about it in your writing or on the website you maintain.


© Copyrighted MMVIII, The I.V.A. Company. All rights reserved.