FREE Personal Branding and Job Search Ebook by Tim Tyrell-Smith is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

One of my favorite job search and employment portals, Job-Hunt.org, has just released a new FREE ebook, adding to the list of 11 others already available for free download, with no sign-up required.

The ebooks range in topics from personal branding, interviewing, and career reinvention, to salary negotiations, working with recruiters and more.

The newest Job-Hunt ebook, “How To Create A Personal Marketing Plan: The 5 Powerful Steps To Bringing Your Brand To Life“, was written by Tim Tyrell-Smith, creator of the Tim’s Strategy approach to job search and Job-Hunt’s Personal Marketing Expert.

Tim explains just what “personal marketing” is:

“It is the work you do once you’ve created a personal brand. You know who you are and, importantly, know how you are different from others wanting to play the same role in the world.

You have to expose your brand and ideas to people in a way that gets them leaning in. Not turning away. So you have to be smart.”

He points out two universal truths:

1. “Marketing is hard. To do it right, anyway.

2. Marketing takes time. Only in rare cases will your brand become viral overnight (or even over a few months). People who ‘rush in’ are making mistakes. And those mistakes can be costly. Giving you a reputation that’s hard to shake.”

Tim is a wonderfully engaging writer. The ebook is quick to read (only 12 pages) and will give you actionable advice and resources, along with the tools you need to make your promise of value known to the world.

The ebook takes you through 5 steps to create and execute your personal marketing plan:

1. Build a Personal Marketing Hub
2. Learn to Engage with People
3. Start Building Social Credibility
4. Inspire Sharing of Your Ideas and Successes
5. Take a Few Calculated Risks

Download the free e-book now. Tim and Job-Hunt welcome you to share it freely with your friends or networks.

Related resources:

My ebook:  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

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

Online Personal Branding: 5 Key Elements is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

The following is my latest Job-Hunt.org article as the site’s resident Personal Branding Expert.

Do you want to increase your chances to be found by executive recruiters and your target employers?

What job seeker doesn’t?

Most recruiters and hiring authorities source talent by searching relevant keywords on LinkedIn, Google, and other search engines, and then assessing the people those searches reveal by what they find about them online.

If you’re in a job search and have no “online footprint” – that is, a good number of positive, solid search results when your name is Googled – you may be invisible to the very people you need to be positioned in front of.

The better your online reputation, the better you position yourself online, and the stronger your presence online, the more appealing you’ll be to these people.

Take a look at your own online footprint right now. Type your name into a Google search, and see what you find.

• Do you “own” the first several search results?
• Or does it take several pages of results before you get to anything related to you?
• What information will people find about you when they click on those search results?
• Is it what you need them to know about you and your potential value to the companies or organizations you want to work for?

[Note: If you are logged into your Gmail, Google, or Google+ account, Google usually "personalizes" your search results specifically for you, so log out first to see what the rest of the world sees.]

Here are the 5 components necessary to build a strong online brand for your job search:

1. Relevance

You should know, before starting your job search, which companies or which kind of companies you’re targeting, and what information about you is relevant to them and will resonate with them.

Without a clear target, how can you possibly differentiate your personal brand, ROI value and best-fit qualities, and create career marketing communications (online and offline) that will hit home, attract them and clearly distinguish you as a good hiring choice?

Keep your brand messaging relevant to your target, detailing how you can help them solve their current problems, and position yourself on sites that are relevant to and frequented by them.

2. Quality

Be careful what you post on social networks, or anywhere online. Continuously monitor your online presence. Get used to self-Googling regularly (about once a week) to see what exists on the first several pages of search results.

If someone has posted something nasty about you, see about getting it taken down. Adjust what people will find, whenever possible.

Are you finding any “digital dirt” that may disqualify you? Do you have the same name as others who have an online footprint? If so, you may easily be confused with them. That’s bad news for you, if any of them have a sordid reputation. You’ll have to work on building more positive search results to outdistance those of the bad guys.

3. Diversity

You need a good mix of static profiles/web pages and vibrant real-time content. A few online profiles that all contain the same content won’t cut it – change up the information in each one.

• Express your opinions, showcase your expertise and add value by blogging on your own site, commenting on other sites and/or guest blogging on other sites.
• Get busy on social networks like Twitter, Google+, Facebook, etc.
• Contribute to online forums that are open to the public, LinkedIn Group discussions, LinkedIn Answers.
• Publish white papers on relevant sites.
• Put up a profile and post book reviews on Amazon and other online booksellers.

4. Volume

Keep working on building more and more search results for your name and increase your number of diverse and accurate results on the first few pages.

To build up your volume of search results, focus on sites with strong “Google juice” (meaning, sites that Google and other search engines deem authorities because they’re content-rich, have been existence for a long time, and have a strong following, among other things), such as – LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Amazon, and Google itself (Google Profile).

Any activity on strong sites will likely result in those web pages (with your name on them) landing towards the top of your list of search results.

5. Consistency

You should already have done the back-end work of defining your personal brand, built around what will resonate with your target companies. (See my 10-Step Personal Branding Worksheet).

Express that same personal brand message, across all communications channels and social media you decide to use. I don’t mean that you should use the same information over and over. As I mentioned above, mix it up.

Put yourself in the place of people assessing you through your online identity and deciding whether to hire you or do business with you. If your brand message and focus varies from one real-life setting to the next or from one social network to the next or from one website to the next, your target audience won’t clearly see your promise of value to them. You’ll confuse them.

Use the same name or handle across all channels online, so that you’re easy to find and distinguish from others.

Bottom line:

Building your brand online takes planning and effort. It will take time for your hard work to gain traction and give you the kind of online presence that will appeal to your target companies. Get started now, and work on outdistancing your competition!

Related posts:

Does Your Online Presence Scream “DON’T Hire Me”?

Get Personal With Your Executive Brand Statement

How Twitter Helped Me Build My Personal Brand

photo by Vince Alongi

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

Blogging for Executive Jobs: Overcoming Writer’s Block is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

I encourage my c-level executive clients to blog as part of their online brand communications plan.

Blogging is one of the most important marketing strategies I use to build my brand, market my business and attract potential clients. Potential clients find me through my blogging efforts.

Because job search is much like running a business, blogging greatly benefits job seekers, too. Those who blog purposefully are found by executive recruiters and hiring decision makers who are searching for and assessing candidates.

But maintaining a blogsite that gets action takes effort and commitment. What are you going to write about in all those blog posts?

I don’t have too much trouble coming up with ideas, but when I do, I fall back on a favorite strategy — getting inspiration from other bloggers’ posts or other bloggers themselves.

I like to showcase or link to their work, and I do it often. Over the past year, I designated separate posts to some of my favorite job search bloggers. You can see the list in my post about blogger Jason Alba of Jibber Jobber.

Read about why I love this strategy so much in the post at my Executive Career Brand site, One of My Favorite Blogging Strategies.

Related posts:

You’re a C-level Executive Job Seeker and You’re NOT Blogging?

C-level Job Search: Blogging? What Am I Going To Write About?

Blogging and Twitter: How Tweet It Is!

photo by Sean MacEntee

Twitter and My Personal Brand Communications Plan is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

I’ve been actively on Twitter for a few years now and it’s become an important piece in my personal and business branding efforts.

Although Twitter is wildly popular and much has been written about its value, many of my c-suite executive clients and potential clients are still surprised when I promote Twitter to them as a valuable executive job search tool.

Without taking the time to find out more about it, they still think most people are on Twitter for chit chat, tweeting about what they had for lunch, or other trivial matters.

I explain to them that mounting a job search campaign is very much like running a business. I tell them to think of themselves as a company of one — BRAND YOU — and market themselves in the same way. Twitter and other social media need to be in their brand marketing plan.

For me, as an entrepreneur, Twitter is all about getting my brand and promise of value noticed by potential clients and those who can lead me to more clients, and getting recognized as an industry thought leader and expert.

The idea is to get on their radar and stay top of mind with them so that, when they have a need for my services or know someone who may, they’ll reach out to me.

Sounds just like job search networking, doesn’t it?

Read more about my Twitter strategy, which works for job search too, in my Executive Career Brand post, How Twitter Helped Me Build My Personal Brand.

Related posts:

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

Twitter Executive Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet

14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter

Twin Twitter Executive Job Search Tips

photo by josh semans

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

What’s Your Executive Job Search Social Media ROI? is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

If you’ve spent some time on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or other social media channels, you’ve probably wondered if it’s worth the effort – whether you’ll get enough return on your time invested.

As I tell my c-level executive clients, it’s all about determining which platforms you like and are best suited to your needs, narrowing down to just a few, and working them well.

So many of us can easily get consumed and overwhelmed by dabbling in too much social media, and making an impact with none.

Check out my Executive Career Brand post for my social media of choice – the biggest pieces in my online brand communications plan – and a taste of the ROI value of each for me.

Related posts:

LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search

You’re a C-level Executive Job Seeker and You’re NOT Blogging?

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

Twitter Executive Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet

photo by John-Morgan

Executive Job Search: Do You Know How Recruiters Find Candidates Like You? is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

When I first speak with prospective clients, we talk about the new world of job search. Many of them haven’t been in a search for many years. Many have never had to look for a job.

They often don’t understand that the best campaign to land a job today includes different strategies than it did even a few years ago.

Many of the new clients I speak with are surprised to learn that most recruiters and hiring authorities use LinkedIn and other social media to find and assess good-fit candidates more than any other method.

Yet some new executive job seekers are hesitant to put themselves out there, and include social media in their job search toolkit. By ignoring social media, they greatly decrease their chance of being found by the very people they’re trying to attract.

Jump over to my Executive Career Brand blog for a look at some statistics Jobvite compiled on recruiters’ use of social media to source candidates.

Related posts:

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

Does Your Online Presence Scream “DON’T Hire Me”?

LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search

Are Your Target Employers on Twitter?

image by 10ch

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

Twin Twitter Executive Job Search Tips is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

You’ve got a good handle on today’s executive job search.

You know what you need to do to land your next job, and you’ve set about doing it.

You’ve already done the following:

• Compiled a list of 15-20 target companies that are a mutual good fit.
• Researched each company’s current needs and challenges, and how you can help them solve their problems.
• Identified a few key decision makers within each company.
• Started connecting with these key people through cold contact, introductions, LinkedIn and/or other networking methods.

Take your social networking beyond LinkedIn and at least dabble with Twitter. Here are 2 easy ways to use it to accelerate your job search. Of course, you’ll first have to join Twitter and post a relevant key word-rich bio:

1. Search Twitter for your same target list of companies and key decision makers.

• Follow them if they’re there. Listen in on their conversations to get a feel for the corporate culture and for job opportunities, market intelligence and due diligence.
• Follow the people they follow.
• Retweet (RT) them regularly (to get on their radar and stay top of mind).
• Send them an @reply or @mention from time to time, but don’t overwhelm them. Both include that person’s @username, so will show up in the @Mention tab of their home pages. They’ll notice you.
• Direct message (DM) them to make contact, if they’ve followed you back and when/if you’re comfortable reaching out to them.

2. Use LinkedIn’s Tweets Application.

You can choose to display your most recent tweets on your LinkedIn profile. I suggest you be careful with this. I find that not all tweets are LinkedIn-worthy.

Another important feature of this app is that it gives you instant access to the updates of people you are following on Twitter and the power to tweet, reply, and re-tweet — all from your LinkedIn home page.

Related posts:

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

Twitter Executive Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet

14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter

Are Your Target Employers on Twitter?

55 Top Job Search Experts To Follow On Twitter

10 Ways I Use Twitter to Build My Personal Brand

Does Your Twitter Bio Pack an Executive Brand Punch?

Photo by Meg Guiseppi