Use Your Online Brand To Get A Job

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Kathy Gwozdz

You have been reading a ton of articles lately, including ones from us, that traditional resumes are dead or dying. If this is true, how do companies know what you can and can’t do? Resumes are still an important part of getting a job, but they are by no means the “be all, end all” to making a great impression. By creating a prominent online brand, companies will find you.

There are several things to keep in mind when creating your brand; each of them equally important.

Focus Around Your Goal
What kind of job are you looking for? The answer to this question will be the foundation of your personal brand. Once you you figure this out, target companies and influential people in the industry.

  • Make a connection with specific companies you wish to work for.
  • Like their page on Facebook
  • Follow them on Twitter
  • Add them on LinkedIn

Engage with these companies, and find out what roles they have open

Know The Industry
Use tools such as Google Alerts and Social Mention to keep up with the latest news about your industry. Read blogs written by industry experts. Commenting on those blogs is a good way to attract your own followers and get them to visit your blog.

Own Your Name
Buy your name as a URL using a registrar like GoDaddy. Not only will this keep someone else from having your name’s website, but it will make it easier for companies to find you. From there you will be able to host your personal blog, post your resume and portfolio and link to your social networks.

Try creating a short video resume. People are more likely to watch a video than read an entire resume. Keep it to around five minutes, and hit the highlights of your career and experience.

Get Social
We talk a lot about getting social, which is increasingly necessary in today’s job market.

Set up accounts using your name (if your exact name is not available, add an initial or a number) on:

Facebook

Most people like to keep their Facebook profiles private, for family and friends only. However, with the creation of the BranchOut app, Facebook has become a hotspot for companies looking to fill positions.

Stay active, keep your profile professional and make it public.

LinkedIn

This is the number one place companies and executive recruiters go to fill roles. Having a LinkedIn account is as important as having a resume—if not more so. Fill in as much information as possible from your job history to education, and join industry-related groups to keep tabs on industry news and make professional connections.

Again, get active and keep your account professional and continually updated.

Twitter

Twitter is the most used network to engage directly with companies. Tweet relevant industry related articles. Create lists of targeted companies to make it easier to engage with them.

Quora

This is a very popular Q&A site with a large professional base. Share your knowledge by answering industry related topics, building your credibility with potential employers. You will be surprised how much feedback you can receive and who is interacting on topics. You could easily find yourself engaged with industry leading executives and experts – people who may just be looking to hire someone like you.

Using these tips will help you create your online reputation. Remember, it is not just about your resume anymore, it is about what you are doing online.

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Perfecting Your Personal Elevator Pitch

Posted on May 4, 2012 by Kathy Gwozdz

You’re on the job prowl and your competition has the same or similar qualifications and credentials as you…so how do you stand out? The ability to quickly market yourself to potential employers is key in today’s fast-paced lifestyle.

Can you sell yourself in less than two minutes?

The “elevator pitch” was so named because a successful pitch should never last longer than 60 seconds, the average length of an elevator ride in New York City. Elevators move fast and attention spans are short. So whether a meeting is planned or spontaneous, you need to be prepared to quickly and easily explain who you are and to capture their interest.

To make a great first impression in any professional setting, develop and practice your self-introduction.

  • Have a clear message and goal. You do not need to share your life story, but highlight a few key milestones from your experience or work outcomes. While most people do not remember exact figures, statistics will make an impression.
  • Focus on your audience. Be prepared to tailor your message to best suit the person/people you find yourself speaking with. Highlight your skills that best fit their industry – not necessarily your standard go-to milestones.
  • Be sincere. You want to come across as naturally likeable, not creepy, desperate or unprepared.
  • Smile. It makes a positive impression and will help you relax at the same time.
  • Make direct eye contact and speak clearly. Showing your ability to stay cool under pressure goes a long way to proving you can handle that high stakes job you’re aiming for.

Making the most out of a short period of time could be all you need to gain a job lead. If your pitch is successful, the person you are speaking with will be asking to exchange contact information in a matter of minutes.

Congratulations! Your next step is to follow up.

Stay tuned to the Millennium Search blog to learn how to follow up on a successful elevator pitch.

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6 Resume Mistakes You Can’t Afford To Make

Posted on April 18, 2012 by molly

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced in their March 2012 report that there are currently 5.3 million long-term unemployed people in the U.S. This figure is virtually unchanged from the previous month, meaning nearly 43% of the unemployed sector has been without a job for more than six months. That is a lot of competition when applying for a job.

To ensure that you make the cut, you need a carefully crafted resume, not one that ends up in the trash because of these six mistakes that are easy to make but imperative to avoid.

Typos

These scream inattention to detail. An employer doesn’t want someone who glosses over important details. If you can’t review your own resume for spelling errors and typos, how can they have confidence in your ability to intelligently represent the company in your reports, presentations and email communication?

The Never-Ending Story

Having a multi-paged resume is acceptable when you have lengthy job history that relates in each instance to the open position. However, you do not need to tell your life’s story within each job. Use a Twitter mindset to compress your most important qualities and contributions within your descriptions. A resume that looks like an essay is likely to be skipped rather than scanned.

Unrelated Experience

Don’t make it a challenge for employers to determine your relevant experience. Customize your resume for each application to leave out unnecessary details that don’t highlight skills for the job at hand.

Presumptuous References

It looks pretentious rather than courteous to provide your references up-front. Employers treat references in a variety of ways. Let them dictate how many they would like and how and when they want them.

Self Centered Focus

A resume that is filled with all of the things you’ve done and how awesome you are is not as helpful to an employer as one that tells how very specific abilities you possess can make them awesome.

Unintentional Information

Consider what your personal email address says about you before listing it in your contact information. It may be witty to your circle of friends, but a potential employer might not take slacker@webmail.com seriously. Set up a no-nonsense address focused on your name and use it for all job-seeking opportunities. It will also help keep responses to your applications from getting lost in the shuffle when they go to a dedicated address.

Finally, your resume will be reviewed many times by potential employers and executive search firms. Make yourself stand out.

What other resume mistakes could make or break the candidate? Share your examples, horror stories and pet peeves.

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Why Nine to Five Workers are Things of the Past

Posted on April 12, 2012 by Sandy

As the song goes, “workin’ 9 to 5” in an office used to be the norm, but now it is a thing of the past. Around the world, one in five workers telecommute frequently and 10 percent work from home every day. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the United States, 24 percent of employed people worked from home during work days in 2010.

The world is evolving as technology grows, and soon the standard will no longer be physically going into the office. The future of work is exporting business internationally, but 34% of firms say the biggest obstacle in expanding is setting up a physical office in a foreign country. Welcome to a new age of the business world, where people are conducting business virtually.

The virtual business world is linked by technology. Teams of workers from various locations across the world can now collaborate in real-time to work on the same projects. Advancements in social media and other Internet applications, such as Skype, allow for deals and transactions to take place between businesses in various parts of world.

Virtual business has many advantages:

  • Unlimited Talent
    • Companies are not limited to hiring local employees in their area; instead, they can hire the best talent from around the world to create a unique team.
    • For example, the base of IBM’s business strategy is to unite cultures, languages, professions and perspectives. As a result, they have designed a program specifically for the hiring of international students, giving them ideal opportunities to make career advancements with IBM.
  • Cost and Time Effective
    • Businesses save time and money because they do not need to invest money in office space and commutes. Video conferencing and other collaboration tools significantly reduce travel times and costs.
    • Alternatively, companies can use flexible workspaces such as Regus. Regus has offices you can use all over the world whenever your company requires that presence, a secretary who will forward your calls to your cell phone and conference rooms you can use as needed.
    • A study conducted by Corporate Executive Board discovered Volvo reduced travel costs by 50 percent for their engineering team and by 45 percent for their product support team meetings through strong utilization of virtual tools.
  • Easing the Language Barrier
    • According to a Regus study, today only 48% of firms demand local language fluency. Translation services ease language barriers. While these do not match being able to communicate in a client’s or co-worker’s native tongue, they permit communication at a high level.
    • Language translation companies offer many services such as document translation, website translation, multilingual publishing and software localization. Large companies such as Marriott, Compaq, The Home Depot and HP use language translating services.

While face-to-face communication is still important, people need to learn to adapt to global competition and a more dynamic marketplace. To avoid falling behind, businesses and their workers should step up their efforts to expand their virtual horizons.

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Asked For Your Facebook Password? Just Say No.

Posted on April 4, 2012 by Amish Shah

By now, everyone has heard the news. Employers are beginning to ask applicants and interviewees for their passwords to Facebook and other top social networks. Companies are claiming it is a way to gauge your personality, your ethics and your morals—in a detailed way that was not possible before the advent of social media sites.

Know Your Rights

This is a blatant violation of individual privacy. On an application, you are not required to fill out race, gender, marital status or sexual orientation, and it is illegal for an interviewer to ask you. If they go through your Facebook, all of this information is readily available.

Facebook has weighed in on the issue, calling it “distressing.” Facebook recently amended its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to make it against company policy to share or solicit your account passwords. This is a good move by Facebook, but the proposed social networking user protection amendment introduced March 29 in the U.S. House of Representatives did not pass. If it had, employers would not be allowed to ask for passwords.

Protect Yourself Online—Just In Case

You can bet that top recruiters and HR departments are going to research you on social media sites. That is a major part of their job, and you will not be able to stop that. But you can keep your profile private and make sure you look professional in it.

In college, you are now taught to keep your profile private and to avoid posting any pictures or comments that could place you in a negative light. However, many people do not know that there is a way to make sure everything on Facebook associated with your name (i.e., a tagged picture, a comment on your status, etc.) can be viewed by you first and then accepted or declined. Doing this will allow you to better control what appears on your site. After all, being tagged in a less than flattering picture you do not remember can be damaging to your hiring potential.

Here is how you set up your approvals on Facebook:

  1. Log in and go to Privacy Settings
  2. Click on Timeline and Tagging
  3. From there you can edit:
    1. Who can post on your timeline
    2. Who can see what others post
    3. Who can see what you have been tagged in
    4. Review posts that your friends tag you in before they appear on your timeline
    5. Review tags that friends add to your own posts

Why Saying No Is Hard, But Important

If you are interviewing for a position, more than likely you are in real need of the job. Knowing that competition is fierce and that the cards are likely stacked in the employer’s favor, will you be able to stand up for yourself and say no if asked for your Facebook password? Sadly, many people will succumb to this invasion for fear of losing the opportunity.

In a world where privacy needs to be valued and protected, be prepared to stand your ground. State that you have nothing to hide, but you have the right to maintain your privacy online in the spirit of Equal Opportunity Employment.

Have you been asked for your Facebook password or asked to sign into your account while someone stands behind you? If so, let us know how you handled the experience.

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