If you want to build your personal brand, establish an online presence, and be in the right place at the right time for your job search, then you have to utilize social media. The big 3 social media sites are LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. While LinkedIn is focused more fully on business, and Facebook leans toward the social, Twitter lands somewhere in the middle. Nearly 75 million people visited Twitter in January 2010.

Twitter relies on “tweets,” which are posts of 140 characters or less. They’re short, but frequent. Life moves fast on Twitter. But then, the world moves fast and this is a way to keep up. And yes, while some tweets are huge time-wasters (some of us don’t want to know what someone else had for breakfast), there’s quite a bit of useful information you can gain from following the right people. It’s both a way to research and a way to network.

Read more…

Online social media is a fantastic tool for job hunting. The Big 3 (LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter) each have their own unique style that you can

what will employers find when they search your name online?

utilize in different ways for your job search. But while you’re working these sites to land the perfect job, employers and recruiters are looking for you, too. And if you get their attention in the early stages of the job interview process, they’re going to be actively searching for more details about you. According to one survey, 70% of hiring managers and recruiters have rejected an applicant based on what they found online. Have you Googled your name lately to see what they’ll find out about you?

You can manage your online identity to control your reputation and your image in the job market in these 5 ways:

Read more…

Your personal brand is nothing more (or less) than the image you project to others. It’s the whole (although abbreviated) picture of who you are and what you do–professionally. Online, it’s the sum of the parts. A large (maybe the whole) purpose of creating and maintaining an online brand is so that people who don’t know you (employers or potential clients/business partners) can find you, evaluate whether they want to meet you/work with you/recommend you. And that’s why it’s a big deal.

Be the candidate who stands out from the crowd.

Your online brand is your first impression for people, job leads, or opportunities that you might miss if it’s not everything it could be. And, it’s definitely a piece of the puzzle for those who have met you in person and are looking to find out more. If you don’t think a hiring manager is going to look around online for more information about you before they make the offer, you are seriously misguided.

So, what can you do to make sure your online brand identity is a strong recommendation for why someone should hire you?

1. Use every opportunity to establish a presence. Although LinkedIn is my favorite online networking site, you should also incorporate Twitter, Facebook, Visual CV, and others. (One article says that you should “cybersquat as much social real estate as possible” to both strengthen your online brand and to combat social identity theft.) Make absolutely certain that every site provides a professional profile with dynamic words that describe who you are and what you do.

Read more…

What’s keeping you from getting the job?

It could be the same thing that trips up others: you don’t understand (yet) that the job search is a sales process.

It doesn’t matter what career you are involved in: to get the job, you have to sell yourself to the hiring manager. That means that you’re the product. You’re trying to get the hiring manager to pay you a salary to do work (or, to buy the product to get a benefit).

Watch the video and I’ll tell you how to change your thinking so that you understand the job search as a sales process, and how to understand your role in it. Then, I’ll explain how that breaks down for you in terms of your job hunting strategy, your elevator pitch, and ultimately, how successful you are in your quest to land the job.

Read more…

A career coach can be a job seeker’s best friend.  Just as a coach trains an athlete to improve and achieve more, a career coach can help a professional focus and hone skills that will help him or her reach a higher level of success.  A targeted approach to career coaching involves taking a candidate and setting him up for success in the job search–either as a transition into a new career area, an entry-level candidate, or to give a good candidate a powerful leg up in a very competitive job market.

As a career coach, I often get questions about it like:

• “What’s my best strategy for getting a job in this economy?”
• “I’ve been downsized.  What do I do?”
• “I am currently in pharma sales, but used to work for XYZ Company selling radiology equipment.  I would like to get back into medical sales or medical device sales, but nobody wants to hire someone from pharma.  How can I make the transition?”
• “I would like a professional to review my resume and cover letter. “

Customized career coaching can help.

Most people only need about an hour, so it’s not a big commitment.

How can it help you?  Basically, I have years of experience in sales, building successful sales territories from the bottom up, sales managment and recruiting, and I use all that experience to offer you an objective, informed opinion on your personal situation. It can be as broad as a personal branding strategy, or as focused as a resume review.  It’s effective, and it’s efficient.  You can learn:

• How to write your resume so that it highlights YOUR best qualifications
• How to ace your interview–I can ask you questions and give you immediate feedback on your answers and style
• What you should include on your brag book and 30/60/90-day plan–with specific ideas for your own situation
• Which job offer you should take–discuss pros and cons with someone who knows the industry and has no agenda
• How to negotiate salary–everyone is afraid of this one, but it’s not that hard
• Which follow-up techniques to use to make a great impression
• How to build your personal brand so that you get farther faster
• Figure out why you’re not getting offers even though you’re qualified
• How to get an interview if you’re having trouble–how can you contact that sales manager?
• Anything you need to know about sales career success!

Want to know what others say about how I’ve helped them?  See my LinkedIn page.

It’s tough in the job market right now, and you need every advantage you can get.  I would love to help you.  Click here for more information.

Peggy McKee

When searching for candidates, recruiters often conduct internet searches…through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and sometimes, just a basic Google.

If you’d like a chance to be contacted, here’s a piece of critical advice:

Read more…

I get a lot of great comments from my readers (which I love).  One of these was a response to MySpace Killed the Candidate…critical job interview tip, in which I told the cautionary tale of one of my candidates leaving too much information on her MySpace page and losing a job opportunity:  avoid such issues by setting your social networks to private, and be careful who you accept as a friend.

Still, there are things to keep in mind:  like, how much of your stuff automatically gets shared when you interact with a new application?  And…even if you are vigilant about keeping up with your privacy settings, your friends can inadvertently share your private information with third parties very easily.  Mary Madden has a great discussion of issues like these in Securing Private Data from Internet ‘Zombies.’ There’s also a great stream of comments to go with it.  I highly suggest you read it.

Read more…