Executive Job Search and LinkedIn: Do I Need a Photo on My Profile? is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Whether or not to include a photo on LinkedIn and other online profiles continues to be debated among career professionals.

My c-suite executive clients are typically over 50. They’re understandably concerned about ageism. A photo could indicate age and leave them open to discrimination.

Often, posting a fully completed LinkedIn profile is their first foray into online job search and career marketing . . . the first time they have considered putting a photo of themselves “out there” and exposing their image to the world.

If you’re like many of them, you worry that your LinkedIn photo may red-flag you for discrimination – age, weight, ethnic background, etc.

But think about this. NOT having a photo can be a red flag, too.

You may have reasons not to include a photo, but I encourage you to include one. The benefits far outweigh the pitfalls.

Find out why HAVING a photo on LinkedIn is important, in the post on my Executive Career Brand site, Does My LinkedIn Profile Really Need a Photo?

Related posts:

LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search

My free e-book: Executive Branding and Your LinkedIn Profile: How to Transform Your Executive Brand, Resume, and Career Biography Into a Winning LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn: Best Tactic for Undercover Executive Job Search

29 Biggest LinkedIn Mistakes

photo by nan palmero

How To Land A C-level Executive Job in 2012 is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

If you’re like most of my c-suite clients, it’s been several years — maybe more than 10 years — since you were thrust into a job search or considered a career move.

You figure all you need to do is find a copy of that old resume of yours, dust it off and update it to send to the recruiters who helped you in the past.

Then you can sit back and let them do all the work, right?

But things have changed drastically in the past several years. Jobs aren’t as likely to just “come to you”. You may not be in demand with recruiters the way you were in the past. These days, such passive tactics can sabotage your job search and keep you from ever getting into a good-fit job, or prolong landing that job. You need to develop a proactive plan to uncover opportunities yourself.

Okay. So you’ll use job boards, too. After all, you think, job boards are a big part of job search in the digital age.

Not so. Only an estimated 3-5% of jobs are filled through job boards. If you spend more than a minimal amount of time there, you’re wasting a lot of precious effort.

Most jobs are not posted or advertised anywhere. They exist in that nebulous “hidden job market” that can only be uncovered through purposeful networking.

Landing an executive job takes work. There’s a lot to pull together before you’re ready to cast a far-reaching networking strategy. Here’s what you need to have and do, along with links to relevant blog posts I’ve written on each topic:

1. A specific career target and list of 15-20 (or more) target companies that are a mutual good fit, as far as size, location, industry, culture, and environment.

Without a clear target (type of job and industry), your resume and other career marketing materials will be too generic, and won’t help qualify you in the minds of those assessing you or attract them to you. And, if you can’t succinctly describe what kind of job you want, you won’t be able to explain to your network how they can help you.

Don’t worry that these companies may not be advertising jobs anywhere. You’re going to network your way into their hidden jobs, remember?

The Biggest Executive Resume Writing Mistake

How To Tap Into Hidden C-level Executive Jobs

2. Research each target company and the industry

This takes time, but your research will help you determine why your target companies need your help, provide you with those all-important relevant keyword phrases to use in your career marketing materials, and help you with due diligence in assessing companies.

Research Your Target Employers

3. Target contact list for networking

Determine which people at your target companies are key decision makers or close to their inner circle. Also look for employees, vendors, customers and others associated with your target companies. Find them on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc. and follow, like, or connect with them there. Join the LinkedIn Groups they belong to and make yourself and your expertise known.

4. Personal branding designed to resonate with your target companies

Uncover and differentiate the strengths and personal attributes that make you the best-fit candidate. Create an executive brand positioning statement to be used in your career marketing materials (resume, bio, LinkedIn profile, etc.), to transform into an “elevator pitch” to introduce yourself when networking, and to answer the “Tell me about yourself” question when interviewing.

10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand

10 Things to Love About Your Executive Brand

5. Branded career documents – Executive Resume, Biography, Case Studies, Leadership Initiatives Brief and other supporting documents

Use the research on your target companies to help you create brand and ROI value messaging that will clearly differentiate your good-fit qualities and expertise over your competition.

How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Resume in 10 Steps

HOW TO: 8 Ways to Use Your Executive Biography

6. LinkedIn

Your 100% complete (according to LinkedIn’s criteria), branded, keyword-rich LinkedIn profile will help recruiters and hiring decision makers at your target companies find you on LinkedIn, as they source and assess talent. If you’re not on LinkedIn, you’re probably invisible to these people.

Also, LinkedIn offers all kinds of tools for networking with people who can help you with opportunities and leads, and position yourself as a subject matter expert and good-fit candidate.

LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search

7. Google Profile

Use your career biography and pieces of your resume to flesh out a Google profile, which has become a close second in importance to LinkedIn profiles, as a valuable page one search engine result for “your name”.

8. Recruiter relationships

Recruiters are certainly important. Source a good number of them who specialize within your niche, send them your resume, let them know what you’re looking for and stay in touch.

You can find recruiters in Kennedy Information’s Directory of Executive Recruiters, the “Red Book” which lists over 10,000 recruiters at thousands of search firms

Build Winning Relationships with Executive Recruiters

9. List of references

Be sure your references are prepped in advance to know what kind of position you’re seeking, and what information they can provide to best position you.

10. Online brand-building communications plan

Work on building relevant, diverse, on-brand results that consistently support your credibility.

Include static web pages (online profiles, personal website, etc.) and social networking/real-time content (Twitter, Google+, Facebook, blogging, writing book reviews on Amazon, etc.).

Executive Brand Online Reputation Management: Relevance, Quality, Diversity, Volume, Consistency

11. In-person and online networking strategy

Your ultimate goal is to networking towards hiring decision makers at your target companies. Use your list from #3 above, and also connect with other employees at your target companies.

If you can get a referral from an insider, you greatly improve your chances of landing a job with that company. Pull everyone you know into your network (you never know who may be able to help you), along with a good number of recruiters who specialize in your niche.

How to Build a Powerful Executive Network

12. Interview preparation

Prepare and rehearse your answers to expected questions. And be ready with the questions YOU should ask, based on your company and industry research. Be ready for the “Tell me about yourself” query and have a salary negotiation strategy.

Prepare to Ace & Brand Your C-level Executive Job Interview

13. Thank you notes

Don’t forget to follow up each time you have an interview, with each person you’ve spoken to. This gives you the opportunity to restate your interest in the company, and to stay top of mind with key decision makers. Hand-written, snail-mailed thank you notes have the most impact.

The Power of Thank You Notes

14. Job search management and tracking system

You’ll need some way to keep track of all your connections, meetings, informational interviews, etc.

JibberJobber is an excellent web-based tool that will help, and basic membership is free.

Additional resource:

My ebook will provide many more specifics on launching a successful executive job search campaign.

23 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search and How Your Brand Will Help You Land . . . A practical guide to executive branding, marketing your ROI value and navigating the new world of job search

photo by o5com

C-level Executive Networking: What NOT To Do is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Every job seeker should know by now that networking is the best way to land a job. If you don’t know and embrace this, and you’re in a job search, you’re probably looking at a protracted one.

If you do know this, then you’ve been working hard to expand your network toward the key decision makers at your target companies and those people who can help you in your job search.

But you may not be going about networking in the best possible way.

Many of my c-level executive clients have expressed annoyance that they’re constantly tapped for advice … a “few minutes” … a lead … or a favor by people they don’t know, or only know of through several degrees of separation.

They are the people who are at, or very near, the top of the totem pole at their companies – the key decision makers. The ones job seekers (and others) are trying to network their way towards. A few minutes of their time is like gold.

Because they’re in such demand, they often hesitate getting involved with social networking and building an online presence. A number of my clients have said that, although they know they have to be on LinkedIn, they don’t want to open themselves to more requests for their precious time.

Are you a c-level executive? One of these in-demand people that so many aggressive networkers want a piece of? Then you should understand more than anyone that, when you approach the top executives at your target companies, you need to gently network your way towards and around them.

I’m in a similar situation. I guess because I’ve been around for about 20 years in the careers industry, and have a fairly strong presence online and on various social media, people I don’t know personally, never spoke with or communicated with, or never heard of at all, reach out to me all the time.

All too often, they want something from me, so I’ve become selective about how I respond. In some instances I don’t respond at all … for some I’ll gently explain that I’m not able to respond to all the request I get … for some I’m all on board and eager to get to know the person, and help them if I can.

Don’t get me wrong. I have happily mentored many people over the years, just as I have been mentored. But I can’t mentor everyone who asks, or even give half an hour of my time to everyone who asks.

Here are the kinds of first approaches that completely turn me off:

With an invitation to connect on LinkedIn:

• I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn – using the thoughtless default message LinkedIn provides, and nothing else … no personal message.
• Will you take a look at my profile and let me know what you think of it?
• I’m looking for an XYZ position in the (fill in the blank) industry. Can you introduce me to anyone who can help me?

Direct emails from others in the careers industry with whom I’ve never communicated, or I may not know at all:

• Please help me promote my new book (or product)
• Can we set up a time to talk about how you built your business using social media?
• I’m just starting my own career services business. Can you tell me how you did it?

Where did they go wrong?

Their first communication was a request for a favor – to someone they don’t know at all, or just barely know. They didn’t practice “give to get” networking. They didn’t give me a reason for connecting with them.

Maybe they only wanted that one favor and weren’t interested in long term networking with me. But I could be setting myself up for an endless one-sided relationship, with someone constantly “picking my brain”, and offering me nothing in return.

What should they have done to make a positive connection?

Don’t just tell me how I can help you. Tell me how we can help each other.

Give me a reason to want to connect with you, get to know you and help you. Tell me how you know about me, why you want to connect with me and why cultivating a relationship with you might be beneficial for me, too.

When you reach out to me, or anyone you intend to ask a favor of, don’t make your first communication the request for that favor. Build the relationship a bit before you expect something in return. Healthy networking requires balance and reciprocity.

Related posts:

How to Build a Powerful Executive Network

Executive Job Search: The Old Way (Networking) Still Works Best

How To Write a LinkedIn Invitation to Connect

photo by ricki888c

10 Steps to Bullet-Proof Your Executive Career is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

(This article was originally posted on Quintessential Careers as part of the fourth annual Job Action Day initiative, celebrated this year on November 7.)

What many job-seekers today don’t understand is that staying employed is very much like running a business. You need to think of yourself as the CEO of your own start-up company — BRAND YOU — and continuously market, network and strategically position yourself, just as a business does.

To ensure you’re ready for the many inevitable shifts and moves your career is likely to make over your work life, adopt a start-up mentality, whether or not you’re currently facing a job search.

Finding a job and staying employed today — two separate challenges — require more effort and strategic planning than ever before.

Maybe you think that finding a job in the digital age means posting your resume to as many job boards as possible, then sitting back and waiting for the interview offers to come flooding in.

If that’s how you spend most of your job-search time, you’re setting yourself up for failure, and building a false sense that you’re working hard on finding a job.

The fact is, most jobs are not posted on job boards. The majority of jobs that are filled are not advertised anywhere and not posted on a job board. Yet, most job-seekers pay attention only to that small percentage of jobs that are advertised and visible. The rest are part of the “hidden job market.”

What is the hidden job market?

• Positions created to accommodate specific candidates, once they connected with and spoke with companies’ hiring decision makers.
• Existing positions that open up when an incumbent is replaced with someone better.
• An open position that isn’t advertised outside the company. Only insiders know about it.
• Jobs that, for whatever reason, are not advertised or visible, and can only be uncovered and accessed through networking.

But understanding where to find jobs won’t bullet-proof your career. Understanding how to stay employed will.

As crucial as networking is, along with understanding where to find jobs, these strategies alone won’t bullet-proof your career. Understanding how to stay employed will.

Gone are the days, for the most part, when you could expect long-term employment (5-7 years or more) with the same company. Employer loyalty rarely exists these days. No job is permanent and everyone should expect to be in perpetual passive job search.

Savvy careerists continuously market themselves, always anticipating job transition. Career situations can change at any time, and everyone must be prepared.

Flexibility is key. Some viable strategies include temp-to-perm and portfolio careers (multiple part-time jobs or consecutive short-term consulting positions, including temporary jobs, freelancing, and self-employment). Creating income security, instead of job security, is the new wave.

As Quintessential Careers’ Randall S. Hansen said:

“Portfolio careers are usually built around a collection of skills and interests, though the only consistent theme is one of career self-management. With a portfolio career you no longer have one job, one employer, but multiple jobs and employers within one or more professions.”

Dive in Right Now, With this Checklist:

1. Define your personal (or career) brand.

Personal branding is a method to uncover and differentiate the personal attributes and hard strengths you possess that outdistance your competition for good-fit jobs with your target industry and employers. Branding is no longer optional. Employers want to see hard skills linked to your softer ones — indicating who you are, what you’re like to work with and how your strengths and expertise will translate to a strong bottom line for them.

I’ve written a 10-step personal branding worksheet that will help you.

2. Get your resume, biography and other career documents together as the foundation for all your personal marketing (or Brand You) communications.

Gone are the days when all you needed to land a job was a one-size-fits-all resume outlining your comprehensive skill sets and qualifications. These days, you need to first have a clear career target so that you can build your career marketing documents around content and messaging that showcase your ROI (Return on Investment) and resonate with a specific audience.

3. Move your Brand You communications online with LinkedIn and other social media.

Being on LinkedIn and having a strong online presence are also not optional. You may not feel comfortable putting yourself out there, but without an online identity, you may be completely invisible to recruiters and hiring decision-makers who source and assess candidates through LinkedIn and other search engines. Transform your portfolio of career documents into a LinkedIn profile that’s a magnet for these people.

Beyond LinkedIn, build a diverse online footprint across multiple channels, monitor it regularly for “digital dirt” or incorrect information, and make adjustments when possible. Show that you’re social media savvy by networking through LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and others.

4. Keep your network alive . . . always!

A vibrant, far-reaching network is career insurance. Your real-life and social networks need to be ever-primed for you to tap into for new opportunities, introductions, and hot leads, and help you penetrate the hidden job market. You need to practice “give to get” networking, being there for your network so they’ll be willing to reciprocate.

Put your online and offline brand communications to work in all your networking efforts.

5. Improve or add relevant skills and stay educated.

Job seekers with up-to-date skills are much more attractive than those who haven’t kept up, which means learning industry-relevant skills as well as the new social-media skills.

6. Work on developing a back-up or side career.

Think additional income stream to supplement your “real” job and possibly pump up to full-time, if you lose your real job.

A beloved hobby or favorite pastime could become a money-maker. Maybe you’re handy around the house and can hire yourself out to help people with their “honey-do” lists, or odd jobs. Maybe you’d go for a part-time job in retail, healthcare, restaurant, or business services.

Other options could include teaching or substitute teaching, consulting or contract assignments, and home-based work or telecommuting work that could include technology, sales, office support, bookkeeping, personal services, and more.

Now you’ve done the backend work, and you’re ready for the inevitable. When you’re laid off, forced into another job search or choose to transition:

7. Get clear on what kind of job you want, who your good-fit target employers are, what their needs are right now, how you can help them and who their key hiring decision-makers are.

8. Work on circumventing the gatekeepers at your target companies and connecting directly with the key hiring decision-makers, where they hang out online and offline.

9. Cultivate relationships with several executive recruiters who specialize in your niche.

10. Prepare to brand and “own” your job interviews.

Final Thoughts

Launching a targeted personal marketing campaign, with purposeful networking to uncover the goldmine of hidden jobs, and strategically positioning yourself, leads you into the huge pool of unadvertised jobs.

Related posts:

Today’s Executive Job Search Toolkit

How to Build a Powerful Executive Network

LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search

My Job Search Email Is Missing! is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Have you ever sent an email in your job search, or at any time, and never heard back from the addressee?

Did you assume they received it, and didn’t have time to respond, or didn’t want to, or just decided to ignore you? Did you find yourself getting angry that they didn’t have the courtesy to respond?

Maybe your email never reached its destination. Maybe the addressee never even knew you tried to reach them.

It happens more than you may think. It’s happened to me many times, when I’ve been the sender and the receiver. Nothing was in anyone’s spam filter. The email was just gone.

Read about how to use missing emails to your advantage in job search from Susan P. Joyce, an online job search expert, in my Executive Career Brand post, When Job Search Email Goes Missing.

Related posts:

Get Your Executive Brand Into Your Email Signature

How To Land an Executive Job in 2011

Executive Job Search: The Old Way (Networking) Still Works Best

photo by Sean MacEntee

The Personal Branding LinkedIn Group is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

For about a year I’ve been managing the Personal Branding subgroup of the Job-Hunt Help Group.

Along with job seekers at all professional levels, membership includes many Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategists besides myself, and other esteemed careers industry professionals.

Come join us. It’s your opportunity to start, contribute to, and learn from the experts in discussions about branding to accelerate job search and healthy career management.

Membership is growing steadily, but we’re always up for new voices jumping in with questions and advice on best practices on all things personal branding.

I only ask that you keep your contributions free of self-promotional materials. We just want to stick to the topic – and not be bothered by pitches.

Related posts:

LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search

Power Your Executive Brand with LinkedIn Groups

29 Biggest LinkedIn Mistakes

How Recruiters and Employers Find Candidates on LinkedIn

How To Stay Motivated in Your Executive Job Search is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Things can be tough in this job market. You may not have steeled yourself for a protracted job search, which is the unfortunate reality for many – especially for senior and c-level executives.

Through the first month or two, you’re pumped up and determined, working hard at making the right connections, and doing everything you know you need to do to land a good-fit job.

But after several months, some painful rejections, and waning hope, things start looking bleak. You may lose momentum and slowly cut back your efforts.

Here are two ways to help you keep at it, moving forward:

1. Join a job search support group. You’ll be among people going through the same ups and downs, who will share techniques that work and those that don’t. They understand what you’re feeling in a way that your family and friends may not be able to. Check out Job-Hunt.org’s list of over 800 networking and job search support groups by state.

2. Research job search strategies. Google things like”executive job search”, “executive networking”, “executive interviewing”. Try a new technique. My ebook covers the job search basics and will be helpful.

For 14 more tips, hop over to my Executive Career Brand post, 16 Ways to Stay Motivated in Executive Job Search.

photo by pedro.desousa

Executive Branding & Job Search Ebook PRICE CUT! is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Many people look forward to catching up on reading over the summer. Light novels and other diversions are popular.

But if you’re in a job search, or think you’re headed there, summer is a great time to strategize your search, do some career planning, and actually get a foothold and gain some traction.

Your target companies may be hiring this summer . . . and they may be looking for candidates like you.

To entice you to buy and read my ebook this summer — and learn some basics on how to navigate the complex world of today’s executive job search — I’ve reduced the price. Read about and purchase my ebook here.

The ebook will help you pull together all the pieces:

• Targeting
• Branding
• Career Communications — executive resume, biography, and other career documents
• Storytelling
• Online Identity
• Online Reputation Management
• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Blogging
• Social Networking
• Social Media
• Networking
• Interviewing

Along with taking a little time to recharge from your job search efforts, devote some of your reading time this summer to accelerating your search by learning how to better manage it.

Happy reading! Happy summer!

Related posts:

Chapter 1 of My Ebook: 23 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search

Why I Wrote My Executive Branding and Job Search Ebook

10 Things I Learned Writing My Ebook

The Executive Interview: Don’t Forget to Say Thank You is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Are you in the habit of sending hand-written thank you notes after interviews, and to anyone who helps you move toward achieving your career goals?

Maybe you don’t realize that very few job seekers — somewhere around only 5% — take advantage of this little-used strategy for staying top of mind. If you join that small group of courteous and smart people, the benefits to you can be significant.

Clients have told me that thank-you notes were the deciding factor in landing a new job. The decision was down to the wire. My clients sent thank you’s, the others didn’t. The people hiring them said they were so impressed by the effort that it tipped the scales in my clients’ favor.

Read more about how thank you notes can help you in my Executive Career Brand post, The Power of Thank You Notes.

Related posts:

Prepare to Ace & Brand Your C-level Executive Job Interview

How to Build a Powerful Executive Network

Best Executive Job Search Tips for 2011

photo by onebelladesign

New World of Executive Job Search: Networking Still Works Best is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Is this what executive job search in the digital age means to you?

Spending most of your time posting your resume to as many job boards as possible, then sitting back and waiting for all the interview requests to come in.

If you’re like too many executive job seekers I speak with, and this is your plan, you may be sabotaging your best efforts. You’re going about it all wrong.

Remember how you got your last job? Most of my c-suite clients tell me that the job came to them when they weren’t even looking, Or, when they were looking, they put out a few feelers to recruiters they used in the past and to people they knew within their target industry. “Putting out feelers” is networking.

Read about how the old and new ways to network come together to help you land your next great gig, in my Executive Career Brand post.

Related posts:

How to Build a Powerful Executive Network

How To Tap Into Hidden C-level Executive Jobs

LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search

Twitter Executive Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet

photo by ricki888c