The other day, my colleague told me a crazy story about a candidate who was instructed to log into her Facebook account during an interview so the hiring manager could see it. Surprisingly, the candidate – in relaying her story to my colleague – seemed more concerned with whether or not she would be hired than she was with what many would consider an abuse of power and invasion of privacy.
The whole thing left me wondering: When it comes to using sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn for recruiting – what we call social recruiting – how far is too far?
With so many nuances, and so many (as yet) unwritten rules, how can recruiters best utilize social media to source quality candidates and assess whether they would be a good fit? Thankfully, there are some best practices emerging to help recruiters know when they’ve pushed the proverbial envelope too far – as happened with my colleague’s friend.
Beyond learning the hard way what works and what doesn’t, hiring professionals are discovering a new line of recruiting applications and tools designed to help them rise above the same old hashtag to better identify, connect with and place viable candidates.
LinkedIn has over 135 million members internationally and the average household income of a LinkedIn user is over $100,000 annually! With just a little bit of effort you will see how the powerful social site can help you market your personal brand and your business far more than you imagined.
Our friends at MindFlash have enrolled you in a basic LinkedIn boot camp training to give you the fundamental tools necessary to use the site for all your business and personal marketing needs.
If you want to learn more about LinkedIn, check out our London based LinkedIn workshops.
We cop criticism as recruitment consultants – some of which is justified. So we thought we’d shine the spotlight on ourselves and explain why we ask the questions we do in interviews. What salary are you expecting? There’s nothing sinister behind this question. We want to understand what you are looking for so we can…
Have you noticed just how many sites allow users to leave recommendations or reviews online? 10 reviews for this, 5 people recommend that, and this trend is becoming ever more popular. Many ecommerce product and service websites are now flooded with user generated reviews to provide their users with confidence in purchasing products and services…
Sometimes in the world of marketing, we get a little “cart before the horse”. Everyone is always focused on marketing a brand, selling a brand, pushing a brand. This is all well and good, but how does one create a brand? What are the steps required to make sure that the brand created is functional and memorable? In short, how is a brand made? While it can be daunting to attempt to boil any idea, business, or physical entity, down into a recognizable two-dimensional visual representation, there are some steps one can take to make the process easier and more successful.
Since branding can take many forms, for the sake of this article, we will focus primarily on the process of personal branding, and the effective creation of a personal business identity. A brand is what was formerly referred to as a trademark. As defined by the American Marketing Association, it is a “name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” In the case of a personal brand, it is also referred to as a “trade name”. To generate a personal brand successfully, use the three steps below as a jumping off point.
A. Define Yourself
This is actually the most difficult step, and the portion of the process you should plan to spend the most time developing. Ask yourself how people perceive you. What words do they use to describe you and your business? What aspect of yourself are you attempting to sell or market? What aspect of yourself or business is unique and sets you apart from other similar types or companies? What is your niche market? Look at the answers to these questions.
It may also be helpful to create a map, or plan of what you hope to accomplish by branding yourself. Make sure that you use the information you glean from those around you, to further your goals for yourself. Finally, create a name, based on these ideas.
B. The Two-Dimensional You
Remember that a personal brand is, in essence, your visual package. It’s the athlete on the box of Wheaties at the grocery store. The baby, sitting in the Michelin tire. The little boy fishing that opens every motion picture produced by Dreamworks.
Now that you have defined yourself, it’s time to create a visual representation of that definition. This visual representation of yourself needs to appear everywhere, on any and all media associated with you. Do not be overly esoteric with your design. It is helpful to sit down with friends or associates and brainstorm how the verbal definitions you discovered via Part A, can be visually represented.
Once you have some ideas, look at them across media. Print some out on your computer and see how they look as stationary, as homepage images, as logos on business cards. Ask strangers what the various logos mean to them. Once you are clear about which logo or design is most effective, you are ready to begin to brand yourself publicly.
C. The Media Juggernaut
If you are at the point of creating a personal brand, it is assumed that you have already examined and defined where you want your business to be in one year, three years, five years, etc., and that you have created a solid business plan. It is important to have these ideas in place before you begin to introduce your brand to a wider audience, because the last thing you want to have happen is for your brand to gain negative associations because you were unprepared for business.
Creating a positive reputation is much more effective than attempting to repair a poor one. If you have not yet created a solid business model, do that, then proceed with Part C. In order for people to find you, you must place your brand where it can be discovered. In today’s market, that means, literally, everywhere. Create an online presence with a clear and recognizable email address, a personal website, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn profiles, blog posts, press releases, Internet business cards and email marketing, the use of an online portfolio, and targeted online advertising.
Create a physical presence with business cards, resumes, reference documents, and carry representative work on your handheld device, CD, DVD, or flash drive, so that it can be shown to somebody immediately, if necessary. With all of these marketing tools, the presence of your brand, the design that represents you, is vital. Your personal brand should appear on everything. Repetition breeds recognition, so the more you can get your name, and the images associated with it, out there into the public eye, the more successful your brand will be.
Bottom Line
Though it may seem like a lot to take on, personal branding is incredibly important in the development of a thriving personal business. Done correctly, it can propel you, and your product or company, into an incredible future. You owe it to yourself to take the time to create the best representation of yourself that you can. Remember, you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and in this age of multimedia and online marketing, that first impression is your brand.
Susan Black is a tech and web geek who spends most of her working week reading and writing on marketing techniques, both online and off. She writes here for discount sofa specialists sofasandsectionals (dot com).
A career as an entrepreneur is quite lucrative. To become an entrepreneur, you need to have plenty of confidence, motivation and the courage to take risks. In the modern-day world, there are multiple examples of successful entrepreneurs. If the story of an entrepreneur highly motivates you and you dream to make your own mark, you can decide to start on an entrepreneurial journey.
If you haven’t decided to leave work just yet, check out So You Want to Leave a Job You Hate. If you are already on your way, here are the 6 ways to becoming an entrepreneur:
1. Think of a Unique Idea
The journey of an entrepreneur begins with an idea which has the potential to bring success. If you want to prove your entrepreneurial talent to the world, you should start brainstorming to come up with a great idea.
If you are already working in an industry, you should try to figure out the gaps that other businesses have been unable to fill up. Once you have identified the loopholes in an industry, you can rack your brains to come up with an idea in the form of an effective solution.
2. Believe in that Idea
Whether or not you have strong belief in the idea you have come up with can make all the difference. If you don’t believe in an idea really strongly, it will fail even if it was a unique one.
Once you have thought of a great idea, you should have enough confidence to make it work for you. It is your determination which will matter more than actually the idea that you hit upon.
3. Write Out a Plan
To make an idea really work well, you should prepare a concrete plan. Successful entrepreneurs have always put their entire plan in written. Right from creating the product to marketing it to the target audience, you need to focus on every detail. Don’t forget to do extensive industry research to write out a great plan to make the business idea come to life.
4. Get the First Round of Financing
In the initial stage of your entrepreneurial journey, you will need to arrange for the first round of financing. This is where putting your entire business plan to paper comes in handy. When you have a written plan in hand, you can easily put across your point to venture capitalists.
5. Start Working
When you have the finance available to start your entrepreneurial venture, it’s time to prove yourself. Use appropriate resources to accomplish the project within the pre-decided timeframe. You should also have the motivation to overcome the barriers that you might face while moving ahead. Be inspired and continue to move on with a positive attitude.
6. Connect with Other Entrepreneurs
You must have heard the line that ‘being with a winner makes you a winner’. Now that you are in business, you should adopt the habit of networking with other successful entrepreneurs. Networking with other entrepreneurs keeps you motivated as well as abreast of the latest tips and tricks of the trade.
So, are you determined enough to set out on your entrepreneurial journey?
James Tomerson writes regularly on career, education and latest job trends. To read more from him, you can visit Jobdiagnosis.com, which also offers jobseekers a free career test to choose a career which is in tune with their career, aptitude and skills.
As a machine is only as clever as its user, a LinkedIn account is only as productive as the person in the profile picture. Although most users know by now that simply inputting your name and occupation into the allotted spaces won’t bring in a deluge of opportunities, many don’t know enough about the benefits to go the extra step. It takes courage to press a button sometimes. Here are 10 reasons to increase your account’s productivity.
1. Increase credibility.
Forgive me, but I’ll begin with a no-brainer: the more connections you have, the more credible or at least engrossed in your career you appear. This is good. People like hard workers and are more likely to hire someone who’s earnest and has a strong network presence than someone who doesn’t appear to want to get to know people they already don’t know. Remember that who you know can hold the keys to who you want to know.
The number of connections also increases (or decreases) the likelihood that people searching for someone will find you first. Moreover, LinkedIn profiles get pretty high PageRanks on Google. If you want to take it a step further, customize your public profile’s URL to be your brand or name.
Not to contradict myself, but s/he with the most friends does not win. Sometimes, it’s better not to connect with someone you know or don’t know on LinkedIn. As with our physical lives, excess entities in our virtual lives can create distracting clutter. On the other hand, it doesn’t really pay to be a snob, either. A good start for any new LinkedIn user is to allow LinkedIn to access your email contacts.
LinkedIn, while perhaps not as flashy as Facebook or Twitter, is a network like any other: karma exists here. Someone pats your back, pat them back by promoting them, linking to them, connecting with them, and the like. You can begin with good karma by teaching someone the benefits of LinkedIn and showing them the ropes. You can even look up an individual and get an idea for what they need to perform better. You never know when someone from the past will drop a gold mine on your lap.
5. Break the ice.
Go into a job interview more confidently by looking up your potential employer’s LinkedIn profile. Maybe you two both worked at a Starbucks once upon a time. Maybe you went to the same high school. You get the picture.
This is your chance to decide whether or not you want to work for said potential employer. You can even look up individuals who have previously held the position for which you’re being interviewed and see what they have to say about the job and its future. Uncheck the “current titles only” box when doing so.
When your business has overcome a hurdle, launched a new venture, or undergone some manner of change, update your LinkedIn profile to notify your contacts. This is more seamless and casual than email notifications, which can seem spammy.
Sneak around the network to get an idea for what the competition is up to, who they’re targeting, and what you can do to one-up them. Less maliciously, you can gauge the status of an industry in which you’re thinking about investing by checking in with succeeding companies from time to time. On the other hand, you can check in with companies who have failed. They can offer you just as much wisdom as those who’ve succeeded.
Searching through LinkedIn can help open-source vendors understand who’s already worked with their software and how. As an employer, you can hire someone whom you already know is familiar with your code. You also get to find out what people find practical about your product and what you can improve about it.
Not only can you request advice from experts by using LinkedIn’s Answers feature rather than a mere open forum, you can look forward to becoming (and becoming known as) an expert, yourself. This adds to your credibility. As an inquirer and not an expert, you might make a new contact or two, or even a job. If someone is answering your question, obviously you two have something—at least an occupational interest—in common. You might be able to fix each other’s problems; you never know who you’ll stumble across in such a vast network.
LinkedIn has been touted for years as not only a useful tool but also a satisfying experience. It turns your résumé into a living, breathing entity that has, like you, undergone evolution for potential employers and employees across the globe to see. Perhaps least observed is its use in giving ourselves perspective about where we excel, where could use improvement, where we’ve been, and where we’re going.
To learn how some people are using LinkedIn to attract employers, get called to interview, and get hired, see the Guerilla LinkedIn Makeover!
Alexis Bonari is currently a resident blogger at College Scholarships, where recently she’s been researching medical school loans as well as calculates student loan costs. Whenever this WAHM gets some free time she enjoys doing yoga, cooking with the freshest organic in-season fare, and practicing the art of coupon clipping.
LinkedIn has quickly become one of the largest and most accessible professional social networks out there, and because of this, it’s imperative that everyone who wishes to maximize their career potential join LinkedIn, set up a profile, and begin networking.
Of course, as with many other social networks, there are unwritten rules of etiquette that you must first figure out and then abide as you embark on your LinkedIn journey. Unfortunately, figuring out these rules and not making mistakes or breaking these rules is rather hard for those new to LinkedIn or even social networks in general.
Below I’ve tried to list a handful of mistakes that many LinkedIn users make, and I’ve tried to incorporate solutions into each section. Please, if you know LinkedIn well, feel free to add to the information here in the comments section. And, as always, happy job hunting!
The following are mistakes many LinkedIn users make and how you can avoid them:
1. Failing to Understand Social Networking Contexts
The biggest thing many LinkedIn users fail to understand is that LinkedIn is simply one of many social networks out there. No matter how professional you try to make your LinkedIn profile, the fact that a crazy Facebook profile or irreverent Twitter account under your name exists could significantly hurt your career chances. Do not ignore the other social networks you’ve joined, because recruiters, hiring managers, and others within the industry are looking at these other sites too!
Solution: Google yourself constantly. Manage your entire online presence. Edit your Tweets, check your photos on Facebook, untag yourself from unpleasant photos and conversations, and watch what you post on whatever forums you’ve joined. Always assume that your LinkedIn account is merely a portal that a potential employer can enter in order to access your entire online persona.
This is relatively simple. I’ve seen so many people fail to upload a good profile photo. I can understand why people would wish to not upload a photo; however, lacking a photo can seriously hurt your chances of getting clicked. Think about a recruiter. He or she is browsing entries; is he or she more likely to click on a photo or a tiny bit of text in the search results page? An updated photo of yourself will assure the recruiter that you are, indeed, human after all, with all your quirks and faults.
Solution: It’s much easier for someone browsing search results to connect with a human face than a bit of text, so upload a photo as soon as possible!
How many LinkedIn accounts have you seen with a bland headline beneath the profile? How many ‘Project Managers’ and ‘Sales Executives’ do you see in that headline? Boring, right? This is a big mistake because users see that the majority of LinkedIn accounts simply list a position title in this field, so they put in their own position because they think that’s what it’s for. Well, the more successful profile headlines are those that say something like “I offer my clients a quick and efficient means of incorporating various security systems into their databases.” It doesn’t have to be complicated. Instead, this statement actively states what you do while also giving your voice a chance to shine. Compare that to “Database Security Specialist” and you can see what I mean.
Solution: Market yourself in one sentence. This one sentence should be active, include the word ‘I,’ and concisely state what you can do for a client or employer.
Finally, you’ll see many LinkedIn users stick with the traditional format as suggested by LinkedIn. They basically enter their resume into the form and publish it. Well, how many resumes have you read that you think are incredibly interesting? I’m going to guess you’ve read no interesting resumes, ever. We’re human; we love to hear a story. So why not give others what they want to here: your professional story. Yes, of course, you can still enter your resume; however, you want to be careful in how much you pull from your resume, especially the language of the resume.
Solution: You don’t need to use resume-speak; instead, use longer sentences and active verbs that describe your story. Use the section in your profile that allows you to write a summary to tell your story, the story that isn’t on your resume. That way users can see both aspects of your career resume and aspects of your slightly more personalized professional story.
This guest contribution was submitted by Pamelia Brown, who specializes in writing about associates degree. She enjoys films by Sergei Eisenstein and drinking Carling lager.
Interviewing recruiters all day can provide you with plenty of anecdotes, as you can imagine. There are lots of benefits to meeting recruiters in person, not least, it’s a fantastic way to analyze what the specific trends are in each market, which sectors are performing well versus those which aren’t particularly. In addition to really…
