VisualCV Blog

Are You Your Own Personal Brand Manager?

by Chris Perry

Your answer to this question should be “YES!” unless, of course, you are Oprah or any other global personality brand who can afford an entire marketing team to manage your image and reputation.

We should all be taking charge in creating, establishing and managing our own personal brands online and offline.  Once you have begun to establish your personal brand, managing it can be a piece of cake. 

If you are active online with blogs and social networks, managing your brand can be as simple as Googling yourself and using Google Alerts and Trackle to stay updated on any new mentions or publications of your name, your personal brand, your websites, your blogs, your articles and more.  When offline, managing your brand can be as easy as carefully reviewing your performance evaluations at work and/or seeking consistent feedback from family, friends, supervisors and other career stakeholders to make sure your personal brand communications are being effectively transmitted and correctly received.

As I continue to surf the net for new articles about or related to personal branding and personal brand management, I have been amazed at the number of voices against these concepts.

Here are just some of the questions and comments I have come across from such voices:

1.    “People are not brands, because people are not products.”
2.    “Who cares about your personal brand?”
3.    “Personal branding is narcissistic.”
4.    “Are you so unsure of who you are that you must reaffirm yourself via internet tools?”
5.    “Why is it so important to make sure your online image appears the way you want it to?”

While I respect and understand where each of these points is coming from, I must reinforce the importance of personal branding and personal brand management in response to each one.

1.    It is true that people are not products. However, often we choose one product over other similar products because of its brand (a.k.a. its unique and differentiating value) and how that value fulfills our need in a given situation.  This holds true for people, as well.  Each person has a unique and differentiating value, or personal brand, that fulfills an organization’s need in a given situation better than other similar people.
2.    We should all care about our personal brands because our personal brands combine our strengths, our personalities, our reputations, our values and our goals all into one communicable, unique and differentiating value that we bring to the table. 
3.    Personal branding isn’t narcissistic unless taken to the extreme. Promoting your strengths and your unique and differentiating value to your career stakeholders is healthy and important for your own self-fulfillment and achievement in life. As more and more professionals brand themselves, it is essential that you establish your own personal brand in order to stand out in your job search and career development.
4.    Keeping track of your personal brand and online reputation with simple online tools does not make you less confident.  The internet is a vast and ever-evolving platform on which it is much easier to miss “fires” threatening our personal brands and reputations.  Therefore, we must fight fire with fire to stay on top of everything and protect our reputations and our investment.
5.    Your online image is just a part of your overall image and personal brand.  If you invest time, energy and even money into your own personal development and image offline, it makes sense that you will want your online image to match.

Personal branding is simply creating, establishing and communicating a unique and memorable value and reputation, and personal brand management is the consistent upkeep and maintenance of this value in the spheres in which you choose to exist and be active, both online and offline. 

Brand managers establish and protect the value that your favorite chosen brands of products deliver, so be your own personal brand manager and protect all that you have to offer!

Chris Perry is a Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.  Learn more on Chris’ VisualCV.

Working with a Career Professional

By Laura DeCarlo

Career professionals come in all shapes and sizes, with different levels of experience, qualification, and recognition. So, how do you pick one that you can be confident will be a good match for you?

There are several factors to consider in finding a career professional:

Industry Certifications
What to look for:

• A credential that can be verified through a credible organization such as CDI. It's always a good idea to make certain that the individual holds the credential they claim to have and that it is from a reputable (and real) organization. Avoid the scam!
•  A credential that requires continuing education requirements. Especially in industry specialties such as resume writing, you want to know that a professional is continuing to expand their qualifications to stay abreast of industry changes.

Service Model
It is rarely a good idea to make a buying decision based on a Web site alone. Be sure to speak to the professional and ask questions such as:

• How does your process work? (You want to know whether it is face-to-face, on the phone, through questionnaires, etc.) There is no one method that is right, but it must feel right for you.

Be careful of guarantees: A money-bank guarantee can inspire confidence but it is not the only mark of a qualified professional.

References & Testimonials
One of the best ways to determine how successful a career professional will be is by reviewing client testimonials and contacting references.

Expertise & Specialty
A professional doesn't have to specialize only in your field to be able to provide you with the expertise you need. Be sure to ask if the professional has experience in your field, look for samples on their Web site (if you are seeking resume services), and watch what they say to gain a sense of their comfort zone with your field.

Industry Recognition
Use www.google.com to search for the name of the career professional. Put the first name and last name of the individual in quotes such as "Tom Jones" and then review the listings. Are there any about this individual such as quotes, books, a blog, articles, committees, or industry awards? The professional's online identity can tell you a lot about how involved, recognized, and up-to-date the professional is in the careers community.

Product Samples
Not all career professional specialties can furnish samples such as coaching, recruitment, and outplacement. In fact, probably the only professional who will have samples available are resume writers.

Expect to be able to view JPEG or PDF samples on the web, or printed samples in the office (for professionals who offer face-to-face service).

Find a Career Professional
You can find a wide variety of CDI career professionals using CDI's member search feature. Professional specialties that you can search for include:

• Career Coach
• Career Counselor
• Career Researcher
• And more!

You can also search by industry certifications, area of expertise, zip code (U.S.) proximity, state (U.S.) or country (international).

You will also find a number of valuable how-to resources and tools in CDI’s Job Seeker section. Visit www.careerdirectors.com and click on Job Seekers.



Laura DeCarlo offers 17 years of expertise in resume writing, career coaching and career management as Executive Director of A Competitive Edge Career Service, LLC and President of Career Directors International, an innovative association of career professionals. Learn more on Laura's VisualCV.

Tweet Your Way to a New Job

By: Abby Gutowski

The United States unemployment rate was pushed to a 26-year high of 9.5% this June. With 9.5% of the U.S. population out of work, job seekers are turning to less traditional forms of job searching to find hot leads. The good news? Due to budget cuts, potential employers are using non-traditional avenues, like Twitter, to find employers as well. With plenty of job-seeking buzz flying around the Internet, these days a simple “tweet” could be your ticket to pull ahead of the competition. Especially for intern and entry-level job seekers, the greatest value Twitter has to offer in your job search is networking far beyond what you could typically do in person.

Getting Started is easy. If you don’t already have one, start by opening an “employer friendly” Twitter profile. In the “settings” section of your account, showcase your experiences in a short job pitch bio and enter your LinkedIn or VisualCV link in the Web site section so potential employers can easily review your experiences. Developing your personal brand is an important component to your credibility on Twitter.

Build Your Network by following businesses you’re interested in, your local chamber of commerce, influential contacts in your industry, and recruitment twitter profiles such as:
@BigShoesNetwork
@microjobs
@CareerHelper
@indeed
@jobshouts
@simplyhired
@CAREERALISM
@thejobsguy
@HeatherHuhman

There are also intern recruitment profiles:
 @thinkintern
@InternAlert
@FindInternships

In addition, use services like the Twitter Yellow Pages to search by keyword for friends in your industry or geographic location.

Start tweeting about your industry news and where your job search is taking you. The more you tweet about what you know and where you’d like to be, you’ll generate followers that are interested in what you have to say or are willing to help you in your search. The key to building a following is to remain interesting to your current followers so they “retweet” your messages and more people discover you.

Follow hashtags about job searches. Hashtags are a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to tweets. Many people use hashtags to discuss a topic they’d like others to search and respond to. Job seekers can follow the hashtag #TweetMyJobs by searching the hashtag at search.twitter.com. Here you’ll see a stream of open positions from people who have tagged the tweet as a job. View and apply to the jobs you’re interested in and begin following new recruitment profiles. Other hashtags to follow are #jobs, #job and #career.

Abby Gutowski is the public relations manager at Weidert Group, Inc., a Northeast Wisconsin based marketing strategy and communications firm. Her career focus includes PR and social media planning and execution, but she is also an advocate for student and entry-level PR career development. Abby currently manages the intern program at Weidert Group, Inc., presents career development sessions to UW-system student groups, and will be a panelist on Comereccommended.com’s discussion “Interns & Entry-Level Employees: How to Recruit & Retain Them…For Less” on July 22.

Dumbing Down your Resume: A Do or a Don’t?

By: Bev Weinstein

Recently a job seeker asked, “How can I express through my resume (digital or traditional) that, although I may seem overqualified for a position, I am invested in the opportunity and not just looking for a pay check?”

In a market with more candidates than jobs, a willingness to be flexible on title and salary is more and more commonplace. So how do you position yourself as a genuinely interested and qualified candidate versus someone that’s overqualified, needs a job and will jump ship when a better opportunity comes along?

A lot of candidates turn to “dumbing down” their resume, omitting certain experiences, and even changing past job titles. While they might get more call-backs with a skinnier CV, there are other ways to handle this issue while remaining honest and staying true to the experience you do possess.

 For some expert advice I turned to the Cable and Telecommunications Resources Association (CTHRA), a nonprofit organization with 1,500 members representing over 100 companies. The following is some great advice from a sampling of their members:

CTHRA: We have two pieces of advice. First, abandon a traditional resume format focused on titles and promotions, and instead create a resume that highlights significant accomplishments and experiences. Emphasize your span of control, impact on the bottom-line and contributions to the overall health and growth of the organization. We believe a bio format helps focus the recruiter/hiring manager on the relevant skills and qualifications and frees them from focusing merely on level or title.

Next, leverage your cover letter (if using a print CV) or your online resume to:

1. Call attention to the credentials you have that match the description of the position;
2. Specify that your prior experience will allow you to have a greater impact on the organizational goals sooner than less experienced candidates;
3. And explain that you are seeking more than a job title and detail the characteristics that you admire in their company: financial security, potential for upward mobility, reputation, health and welfare benefits, etc.

Q: Should an applicant downgrade his or her former job title(s) on a resume, say from an SVP to a VP?

CTHRA: Never put anything on your resume that isn’t true. You’re working to prove to a potential employer that you are honest and trustworthy. The last thing you want is to lose credibility by being caught in a lie.

Keep in mind that most hiring managers recognize that titles are indicative of an organization’s culture and they tend to vary from company to company. So a VP title in a smaller company may be equivalent to a director title in a larger organization.

If you’re applying for a VP level position in a similar profession and recently held a SVP or higher position, focus attention on your skills, qualifications and contributions instead of the title.

Q: If your resume lands you an interview with the hiring manager, should the candidate bring up the issue of being overqualified?

CTHRA: No. We advise candidates against using the word overqualified in an interview to avoid appearing arrogant and a poor fit for the job. Also, imagine if the hiring manager has doubts about the person’s qualifications, but the candidate starts talking about being overqualified. Then the candidate comes off as presumptuous. It’s best to simply avoid using the word at all.

Bev Weinstein is a media virtuoso and career advice guru. She is the founder and president of Markham Media Executive Search, one of New York’s premier recruiting firms, and a career advice columnist on MediaPost’s MediaDailyNews.com. Check out the columns and ask your own questions on http://dearbev.com Check out a recent column in which Bev recommended VisualCV as her number one recommendation for online resume creation here.

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