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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Resumes show what you have done, while your activity on social media sites show what you are doing. Not only does it show what you are doing, but it shows your expertise and passion for your industry.

Let’s take a look at some of the key takeaways:

Get Social!

LinkedIn

Today, 80 percent of companies use LinkedIn to find and screen potential candidates. LinkedIn offers an employer an in-depth look at an individual. With one click, a hiring manager or executive recruiter can see your skills, education and work experience. This can instantly qualify or disqualify you for a job. Top recruiters are looking though profiles every day to find the perfect person for each position.

Facebook

While still remaining a personal networking site, more and more recruiters are moving to Facebook. What you do on Facebook gives people an idea of your personality and professionalism. What’s more, apps like Branchout are enhancing Facebook’s stronghold as the best overall place for online professional networking.

Twitter

Instead of writing on a resume that you are an industry expert, show them with your tweets. Tweet about industry related topics and give your opinion.

Quora

If you are not on Quora, get on it! Quora is a Q&A website. Follow topics that you are interested in and give your opinions. If you are a PR person and there is a question about how would you handle a crisis, answer it thoughtfully. Good answers will grow your network, and potential employers will see you as knowledgeable in your field.

Get Creative!

Consider creating an infographic resume. Infographic resumes are visually appealing and allow employers to visualize a candidate’s career history, skills and education. It is important to understand that substance triumphs over style and the “info” should never be overtaken by the “graphic.”

Create an online portfolio. This way a potential employer or recruiter can see your work by clicking on a link. Create a video resume and upload it to YouTube; this will shows your creative side and is more interesting than just words on a page or screen.

Get Going!

Now more than ever, it is imperative for job seekers to reconsider their traditional paper resumes and build their professional online presences. If you are not using these tools, it shows employers you are behind the times.

Millennium Search CEO, Amish Shah, was quoted in the article entitled, “Your Reputation Is Your Résumé” in MIT’s Technology Review recently. The article, written by Ted Greenwald, talks about the change in the job search environment. Now, it isn’t as important to have a strong résumé, but having an equally strong presence on the correct social media networks is a must. Shah mentions a former client who would not even look at a candidate if they didn’t have at least 100 connections on LinkedIn.

This shift in job searching gives the younger generation a better opportunity to find jobs by expecting them to do what they do best: network.

To see what else Shah had to say and to read the article in its entirety, go to: http://www.technologyreview.com/business/39785/page1 ]]> http://msearchllc.com/blog/2012/02/amish-shah-discusses-the-new-age-of-job-search/feed/ 0 http://msearchllc.com/blog/2012/02/six-ways-for-passive-candidates-to-stay-active-in-their-job-search/ http://msearchllc.com/blog/2012/02/six-ways-for-passive-candidates-to-stay-active-in-their-job-search/#comments Mon, 13 Feb 2012 18:35:40 +0000 Mark http://msearchllc.com/blog/?p=841 Continue reading →]]> You have a job so you are set, right? Wrong! Given the uncertainties of today’s economy and job market, does anyone truly have 100% job security?

The goal is to become a passive job seeker. This is someone who is currently working and not necessarily looking for something new—but would consider a great opportunity if one comes along. Top recruiters are always looking for the best candidate to fill open positions, and often the perfect person already has a job.

Becoming a passive candidate also makes it easier to get a new job if you suddenly lose your current one.

Here are somethings to keep in mind for as a passive job seeker.

1. Keep your social media networks up-to-date.

Whether you are an IT person or a teacher, it is important that you stay current with your social media. This is how recruiters and employers are going to find you. That being said, keep your profiles and messages professional. There is nothing worse than a a recruiter or employer checking you out on Facebook and seeing all your pictures are of you partying.

The most important of these networks is LinkedIn. Keep your resume and contact information visible and current.

2. Position yourself as an industry expert.

Create an industry specific blog that is constantly updated, join and participate in industry specific LinkedIn groups and post interesting content on Twitter and Facebook. This make you look like you are an expert, and by doing research you will learn more about your industry. Employers like to hire experts, and recruiters are constantly looking for them as well.

3. Get involved in your industry’s top associations.

Join professional groups and organizations that are specific to your industry. If you are in public relations and you are not in PRSA, you should be. Joining these groups, staying active and becoming a leader looks will make you stand out from the crowd. You are also more likely to hear about “hidden” opportunities. And you will cultivate a great network for mutual referrals and recommendations.

You can find these groups by asking around, or use Meetup.com to search by industry-related keywords.

4. Always network!

For recruiters today, social media sites like LinkedIn offer a new way to find the ideal candidates for our clients. LinkedIn is a great way to make your resume interactive. Unlike Facebook, LinkedIn gives you the chance to highlight your professional experience while growing your network.

Recruiters, hired by your “dream company,” are on LinkedIn all day looking for people to fill positions! Help make it easy for recruiters to find you by enhancing your profile with these top five essential items.

1-Beef Up Your Summary

Your summary will serve as a cover letter to a potential recruiter or employer. This section allows you to brag about yourself. Give your background and what you want to achieve. Recruiters will go here first to get a glimpse of who you are. Use keywords to make it easy to find you. For example, if you are a marketing professional, use industry buzzwords like “SEO,” “SEM,” “AdWords,” “Branding,” etc. If you have certifications, fit them into this category as they may be keywords that a recruiter is searching for specifically. You should also repeat these in the Skills section.

2-Include A Complete Resume

Having a current resume on your profile allows recruiters to look through your experiences and education without needing to contact you. Offering a resume as an optional download makes you stand out as well. Fill your resume with keywords for the position you are looking for, and make sure your job titles and lengths at each position are clearly listed. If there are any gaps, try to fill them with relevant projects (e.g., March-June 2008: Continued Studies).

3-Get Recommendations

Ask for recommendations from a few of your past and current clients, colleagues or direct supervisors. Having these “public” references gives you the opportunity to highlight consistent work talents and ethics and to display your ability to build professional relationships. For example, if organization and timeliness are consistent strengths, an Interviewer will glean this insight from multiple references. It’s a chance to shine! Quick Tip: If you plan to use these recommendations as references when actively applying for a job, it is a good idea to reconnect with these contacts and give them notice that they may be contacted by John Smith with SoAndSoCo so that they are not completely caught off guard.

4-Include Your Contact Information

If you are actively looking for a job, provide a method of contact. Every day that goes by trying to contact you is a day someone else is ahead of you for the job. Provide several ways for recruiters and potential employers to get in touch with you, and actively check and respond to any messages.

5-Use a Professional Picture

Including a profile picture is important. Remember, this is not Facebook. Your profile picture should be professional. It is best to use a head shot you’d be comfortable sharing with your boss. Profile pictures make you stand out and show effort: they are an important part of profile completion.

Link In, Update Your Profile And Stand Out

When looking for a new job, use your LinkedIn profile as a tool to land your dream job. Don’t get overlooked with an incomplete profile. Use these five tips to stand out among the crowd and watch your career opportunities open up!

I am going to give you some tips on how to use the big three sites, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, to find your next job.

Facebook

44% of job search activity happens on Facebook. Facebook is used for networking, which is a great way to get a job. Your friends or their friend (or friends of their friends) may work somewhere that is hiring. Post something on your wall about looking for job, and if you have a good network, chances are you will get comments letting you know who may be hiring.

Also, Facebook creators have developed an app called Work For Us. This app allows companies to post their current job openings on their Facebook fan pages. This is good news for job seekers using Facebook because all you have to do is upload a resume.

Twitter

Follow the right people, because you never know who might read your tweets. With that being said, tweet relevant information about the industry you are trying to get into. Keep up-to-date on industry trends and technology, and add your insights on these topics to attract attention.

Also, follow industry-related hashtags, recruiters in your field and job posting accounts where you live or want to live, i.e. @charlottejob and @jobslosangeles. Keeping up with these will allow you to see job postings.

LinkedIn