Build Your Executive Personal Brand Online Without a Blog is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Think that your online identity doesn’t factor into executive hiring decision-making? Well it does. See my post Does Your Online Identity Scream “Hire Me”?

If you’re in executive job search now, or contemplating it, your personal brand and promise of value to potential employers need to be evident and far-reaching online.

Most recruiters and hiring decision makers are searching for and assessing top candidates by what they find about them online. If you’re not there, you’re missing opportunities to position yourself in front of them and capture their attention.

There are many, many ways to establish and extend your presence online. Read about 10 good places to build your online footprint at Executive Career Brand.

Does Your Online Identity Sabotage Your Executive Brand Reputation? is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

When was the last time you Googled “your name” and looked at the content on the web pages for the first 3 or 4 search results? These web pages can make or break first impressions of you.

Whatever recruiters and hiring decision makers sourcing and assessing top talent, or potential customers, read about you on those web pages may be your first introduction to them.

What does the content reveal about you? Is the information up to date and relevant? Will it still resonate with your target audience, whether you’re job hunting or business-building?

I’m a frequent self-Googler, regularly checking to see what lands on page one of search results for my name. Usually the same ones come up – my blog/website, LinkedIn profile, VisualCV, ZoomInfo profile, my other website, an article or two on prominent websites, one of my Twitter accounts, maybe a well-placed blog comment or two, and my Google profile with photo nicely anchored at the bottom of the page.

Sounds like I’m doing a good job tending my online identity, right? Not really. I was guilty of not doing exactly what I caution my clients to do. I wasn’t diligent in keeping the information on all those web pages fresh and brand-reinforcing, as my focus changed.

My marketing strategy includes updating my LinkedIn profile at least once a week, posting to my blog at least twice a week, and tweeting several times a day. I revisit my Google and Zoom profiles regularly. Aside from my personal VisualCV, the rest of my page one results were things I couldn’t change.

Wait a minute! What about my personal VisualCV? It routinely lands at the #2 or #3 spot. I frequently update my company VisualCV, but that one almost always falls to page two.

I was horrified when I finally looked at the personal version. The thing was so out of date, it was negatively impacting my brand message and didn’t convey the right impression. I don’t think I had actually looked at it closely for nearly a year, and meanwhile my business focus and target client base had shifted.

I can only imagine how many lost sales my oversight may have cost me.

As soon as I had the several hours I knew it would take to spruce up my VisualCV, I completely revamped it. Luckily, this was a search result I had control over and could easily fix.

Don’t let it happen to you.

Self-Google regularly, but it’s not enough to look at the number and quality of search results for your name, you have to regularly look at the content on those web pages. Make sure the first several search results for “your name” are updated and brand-evident.

Chances are you have a LinkedIn profile, maybe some other social networking profiles, and presence on various other sites. Are you updating the focus of each of these as your job search or business focus changes? They may not resonate with your target audience any more.

Update and realign any of the web pages you can access.

If, heaven forbid, you have digital dirt out there that you can’t fix, you’ll need to run damage control. Start building up more and more positive search results so the negative ones will be pushed down to lower pages, eventually becoming ineffectual.

For strategies to build up brand-powered results and bury the bad ones, see my series of posts, Best of Online Brand Identity and Social Media.

Blog Commenting: Build and Brand Your Online Identity and GQ (Google Quotient) is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Make it easy for recruiters and hiring decision makers to find you online.

Google Quotient is your visibility or rank on Google and other search engines — the number of search results associated with “your name”. The more accurate, on-brand search results for you, the more likely you’ll be visible to the very people you need to be directly in front of.

I’m working with a Senior Vice President/Legal Counsel for Boards of Directors who is looking at a career transition early next year. Before we began working together, I Googled her name, as I usually do with prospective clients, and found very little about her online. The few search results I did find didn’t provide any compelling information.

We talked about the importance of having web presence so that people can find the information about her she wants them to find. But she’s resistant to losing her privacy and leery of exposing personal information. Her hesitancy is certainly understandable, but in the new world of executive job search, having a strong online footprint is critical.

As we’re working together, I hope to convince her to at least transform the resume we’re working on into her branded LinkedIn profile, an essential for any executive, especially in job search.

Even if she doesn’t get busy leveraging all that LinkedIn has to offer, her profile will be a valuable search result for her name, and should land on the first page of results for her. Download 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.

Here are some other places to set the foundation to build on your GQ and own at least page one of search results for “your name”.

If you have your own website or blog, you’re way ahead of the game. But if you don’t and if you want to add more juice to your own blogging efforts:

♦  Create a Google Profile with your branded resume and career biography. One of the nifty things about the search result for your Google Profile – it appears on the search page with your gravatar (tiny photo), if you’ve uploaded a photo with your profile. Very eye-catching! See Google Profiles Powers Up Your Online Personal Brand Identity.

♦  Create a VisualCV with your resume, bio, multi-media, and interactivity. See A VisualCV Belongs in Your Personal Brand Toolkit.

♦  Set up full profiles on other social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and others. Come back to them and get active when you can.

Comment on Blogs

One of my favorite strategies in my own GQ-building toolkit is commenting on blogs relevant to my niche, especially those that have good link weight.

Google loves blogs. Your participation on blogs that Google loves will result in powerful search results for your name. Blog commenting, when done well, has a huge ROI for building visibility and credibility for your personal brand and niche expertise, with relatively little investment of your time.

Tips to do it well:

♦  Find the right blogs for commenting – those your target audience is writing or reading. The more relevant Google ranks the blogs you comment on, the higher up in the queue your comments will land in your search results. Check Technorati and Alltop. Try Googling industry experts and relevant keyword phrases to find blogs. For those interested in Venture Capital blogs, see 100+ Top Global Venture Capital Blogs.

♦  Set up Google Alerts for relevant key word phrases, industry terms, company names, industry leaders’ names, subject matter experts’ names, etc. Google will email you when a blog post or anything else is published online with those words. You’ll find out quickly when something new shows up. See Why Google Alerts Is One of My Favorite Personal Branding Tools.

♦  Sign up for RSS feeds and/or email subscriptions to relevant blogs, so you’ll know when they publish new articles.

♦  Look at the blogrolls of your favorite blogs for others you may want to add to your list.

Leverage blog comments

♦  You MUST fill in a website or web page with your comment.

Don’t leave this blank. The URL you include will be hyperlinked to your name in the comment and lead people to all the brand-reinforcing info you need them to know about you.

If you don’t have a blog or website, put in a link to your VisualCV, Google Profile, or online portfolio. You can use a link to your LinkedIn profile, but people may not be able to view the entire profile. If you have a blog or website, the backlink from a site with good link weight boosts your site’s relevance in Google’s eyes.

♦  Write comments with substance – more than just telling the blogger what a great post it is.

Choose a piece of the post to address that will allow you to contribute your own take on the blogger’s viewpoint or subject matter. Bring up a point relative to the topic that the blogger didn’t mention. Add to the conversation while positioning yourself as a subject matter expert.

♦  Try to be a first-responder.

Your comment will stay at the top of all comments that follow it. More people are likely to read your comment and click on your hyperlinked name to find out more about you. Respond quickly with a blog comment when you get a Google Alert for a relevant blog post.

♦  Think twice before you hit “submit comment”.

Whatever you have written will be out there in the blogosphere forever. Be sure your comments won’t negatively impact your brand reputation.

♦  For the long term, develop a manageable strategy for routine blog commenting on as many blogs as you can handle.

The Payoff

Think about it. Commenting on the right blogs is almost like being a guest blogger on them. It’s an opportunity to be found on blogs you know your target audience is reading, and, piggybacking off the website’s own strong GQ, has the added benefit of boosting your GQ with a valuable search result that should land within the first several pages of results.

Everybody wins with good blog commenting. Bloggers love the attention and well-written comments that drive the conversation. You’ll love your ever-expanding search results. You’ll improve your writing skill. You’ll make valuable connections with the blogger, other readers, and (hopefully) hiring decision makers.

Another bonus – The very fact that you routinely comment on blogs positions you as someone who is social media savvy and stays current with their areas of expertise. Your target audience will notice.

Related series of blog posts:

Best of Online Brand Identity and Social Media

4 Super Fast Strategies to Build Online Executive Branding is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Transform your high-impact, branded executive resume into page one Google search results for your name – practically overnight.

The situation: Your online presence is nonexistent or anemic. You know a Google search for “your name” will not impress anyone, let alone recruiters and hiring decision makers searching for top-level talent with your qualifications. You know you need to have at least one full page of accurate, on-brand search results that pertain to you. And you need it right away.

You don’t have time to start and nurture a blog or website. You don’t even have time to get set up as a guest blogger or write book reviews on Amazon. But you do have a great branded resume, or at least a pretty good one.

Need help building a great executive resume? See Think Like an Executive Resume Branding Expert.

Here are 4 things you can do with your resume to yield super quick search results for your name – maybe not overnight, but fast. Set aside a few hours and you should be able to get all this together:

1.  Build a branded LinkedIn profile with your resume.

Cut and paste everything in your resume into the appropriate places on LinkedIn.

• Add a good-looking professional photo
• Create a powerful, searchable professional headline
• Personalize your LinkedIn URL
• Add a link to your VisualCV (see below)
• Lead the summary section with your executive leadership brand
• Pop in your professional experience.

DONE! You can worry about getting active on LinkedIn a little later, but don’t forget to come back to it and leverage all LinkedIn has to offer.

2.  Build a basic branded VisualCV with your resume.

Cut and paste everything in your resume into the main VisualCV column. Add photo, headline, leadership brand, and professional experience, as you did with your LinkedIn profile.

Once you’re done, go back to your LinkedIn profile and add a link to your VisualCV.

Revisit your VisualCV later and make use of all the multi-media features to fully flesh it out.

3.  Build a Google Profile with your resume.

You get the drill. Cut and paste your resume (and some of your bio, if you have one) into a Google profile and add photo, headline, etc. Also add links to your LinkedIn profile and VisualCV.

Fill in the “Interests” query to generate chemistry for you and your personal brand.

A really nifty thing about Google Profiles is that when it shows up in your search results, it will sit at the bottom of the first page of your results with your photo. Now that’s attention-grabbing!

4.  Start commenting on relevant blogs with good link juice.

Google loves blogs, so your participation on blogs that Google loves will result in immediate search results for your name. Blog commenting, when done well, has a huge ROI for personal branding with very little investment of your time.

• Find blogs your target audience is reading. 
• For the long term, develop a manageable strategy for routine blog commenting on as many blogs as you can handle.
• Use your Google profile URL for your website URL (unless you have a website) when you log in to post a comment.

For more on the value of commenting on blogs and how to do it, read 3 Tactics to Put Your C-Level Executive Resume to Work Building Your Online Brand Identity (look at tactic #3).

When you have time, expand your online presence with other social networking sites (Twitter, Facebook, etc.) and content-building that reinforces your personal brand.
 

Related posts:

My Best of LinkedIn Tips and Resources

A VisualCV Belongs in Your Personal Brand Toolkit

Google Profiles Powers Up Your Online Personal Brand Identity

Best of Executive Resume Branding Tactics and Advice is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

My blog readers have asked me to help them sort through all the posts I’ve written on executive resumes and come up with a “best of” list. Here you go:

The Truth About Professional Executive Resume Writers

Along with creating vibrant career marketing communications that differentiate you and resonate with your target audience, executive resume experts offer a wealth of valuable job search knowledge and personal support.

7 Hot Tips to Build Personal Branding Into Your C-level Executive Resume 2.0

A really great resume generates chemistry with personal branding and differentiates your unique promise of value from everyone else’s. Extend the value of your executive resume by moving it online.

Top 10 Secrets of a Great Senior-level Executive Resume

The critical elements for your executive resume to do its job in the new world of senior-level executive job search.

Thinking of Copying an Executive Resume Sample For Your Own?

Create your own targeted resume. Personalize and brand your resume with a personal brand message differentiating your own unique combination of key attributes, pivotal strengths, and passions.

6 Big Reasons You Can’t Write Your Own Great C-Level Executive Resume

Nearly every C-level executive who comes to me has no idea how to strategically position their promise of value in their executive resume to get the attention they deserve.

C-level Executive Career Biography or Resume, Which Comes First?

A brand-solid executive career bio and resume work together as the foundation for your online identity, positioning your unique promise of value over others.

Think Like an Executive Resume Branding Expert

My 3-part series outlining the strategies you need to get under your belt to craft a top interview-generating, brand-driven executive resume.

1. Understanding the Importance of Personal Branding in Your Executive Resume

2. Building in Personal Branding and Your Value Proposition

3. Putting Together Your Executive Branded Resume

Above the Fold C-Level Personal Branding

Take a look at your executive resume, LinkedIn profile, VisualCV, and other career marketing communications. What has immediate impact? What do you notice first? Do your brand and value proposition hit home at first glance?

Whatever sits at the top of your online and “paper”  marketing communications will seal the first impression you make on anyone reading them.

3 Tactics to Put Your C-Level Executive Resume to Work Building Your Online Brand Identity

If you’re like most of the top-level executives I work with, the last time you were faced with a job search, the Internet didn’t critically impact the way you went about landing your next gig. The world of executive job search has changed a lot in just the past few years.

Is the Executive Resume Becoming Obsolete?

Is the traditional executive resume dead? Do I still need a resume? Are LinkedIn and VisualCV the new resume? Questions like these are floating around a lot lately, among executive job seekers and colleagues of mine in the careers industry. The answer is “maybe”.

My Resume Stinks: Top 10 Executive Resume Mistakes

If you’re getting little or no response with your resume, then you’re probably right, it does stink. And just when you got used to what an executive resume was supposed to look like, everything changed.

7 Deadly Signs That Your Executive Resume Needs To Go To Rehab

Is your executive resume in bad shape and you can’t deny it any longer? If it’s so bad you’re afraid to use it or if you’re using it and getting little or no response, your resume probably needs professional help.

Executive Resume Branding Secrets: What Contact Information to Include

Since most resumes these days are not delivered by regular mail and your privacy and security come into play with Internet use, the issue of contact information has shifted.

Executive Resume Branding Secrets: Lead Your Achievement Statements With the WOW! Result

To capture attention and drive home your promise of value to your next employer, follow my suggestions when crafting bulleted statements describing critical contributions you’ve made to past employers.

Objective Statements on Executive Resumes Are So Yesterday

The purpose of your resume is to ignite interest in you and compel hiring decision makers reading it to interview you. When crafting your resume, write for the reader. They don’t care what you want from the company, they care what you’ll do for the company.

How to Vet the Best Executive Resume Writer For You

I may not be the right resume writer or careers professional for you. I offer step-by-step advice on how to source and qualify someone who will be a mutually good fit.

My 3-part series:

1. Where to find the best executive resume writers and career strategists.

2. Assessing qualifications for your executive resume writer.

3. What questions to ask when talking with your potential executive resume writer.

And 2 more, just for fun …

Some of the Funniest Resume Bloopers I’ve Ever Seen

Jacob Share at JobMob has put together a list of 150 ridiculous mistakes that job seekers make on their resumes, cover letters, and applications, culled from various sources.

More of the Funniest Resume Blunders and Bloopers

I went back to JobMob and grabbed some more funny examples of what not to do with your resume.

Best of Personal Branding Strategies, Lessons, and News is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Because personal branding is wrapped around so much of my work with clients, I blog about it constantly. Narrowing this compilation down to a manageable list was difficult. In fact, I couldn’t do it, so I’ve broken it into two posts. More will follow next Friday.

What Is Personal Branding?

The misconceptions about personal branding abound. The key to grasping the concept of personal branding is to understand the beauty of it — you already have a brand. It’s up to you to define and crystallize your own brand to resonate with your target audience.

10 Steps to Uncovering and Building Your Authentic Personal Brand

More and more C-level executives today understand that, in the new world of work, online and offline personal branding is the key to positioning them for their next best job and career advancement.

7 Hot Tips to Build Personal Branding Into Your C-level Executive Resume 2.0

A really great resume generates chemistry with personal branding and differentiates your unique promise of value from everyone else’s. I explain how to brand your “paper” resume and transform it into high-impact online profiles and e-branding opportunities.

Personal Branding Quiz: How Strong Is Your Executive Brand?

Are you a Mega-Brand, Super-Brand, Up-and-Coming Brand, or a Potential Brand?

4 Super Fast Strategies to Build Online Executive Branding

Transform your branded executive resume into page one Google search results for your name – practically overnight.

Google Profiles Powers Up Your Online Personal Brand Identity

Google pumped up the personal branding value of Google Profiles with the transformation into a photo-included customized listing in search results for your name. This is a big deal for personal e-branding!

Why Google Alerts Is One of My Favorite Personal Branding Tools

I encourage all executives, whether in a job search or for ongoing healthy career management, to leverage Google Alerts to build a strong brand-reinforcing online identity and connect with the very decision makers they’re probably trying to get in front of.

Above the Fold C-Level Personal Branding

Take a look at your executive resume, LinkedIn profile, VisualCV, and other career marketing communications. What has immediate impact? What do you notice first? Do your brand and value proposition hit home at first glance?

Whatever sits at the top of your online and “paper”  marketing communications will seal the first impression you make on anyone reading them.

Being Authentic in Your Executive Personal Brand Statement

Throughout my 20 years in the careers industry, I’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing and inspiring C-level executives.

The ones I love working with most are those who really get the concept of personal branding and are fired up by how it can help position them for job search success and career advancement.

Does Your Online Photo Send the Right Personal Brand Message?

Think about it, along with your personal brand statement, your photo (if you post one) is likely the first thing people will see in your online profile and elsewhere. Be very selective before publishing one and using it across all media. Your photo can either attract your target audience or turn them off.

What Did You Do For Your CEO Personal Brand Last Year?

Can you remember all the things you did last year that benefitted your companies and the people you worked with? If not, it’s time to reflect on contributions you made that will define your unique promise of value to your next company, before you forget the details.

Top 10 Trends for 2009 C-Level Executive Job Search & Personal Brand Management

With the crushing recession and today’s highly competitive top-level executive job market, differentiating your unique brand-value promise online and offline has become the best way to position yourself above the rest.

I explain what every top-level executive needs to be working on just to keep pace with their competition, in job search and overall healthy career management.

6 Essential Strategies To Land Your Next Great C-Level Executive Job is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Does your executive job search strategic game plan need re-tooling?

Many of my C-suite clients are baffled by how to find a job today. They don’t know what to do, what not to do, what to do first, and how to focus their efforts.

So much has changed since the last time they looked for a job because the world of executive job search has changed. The rise of social media, the state of the economy, and personal branding all deeply impact landing a C-level job today.

What worked for my clients just a few years ago, may not be a reliable approach today. In the past, they alerted a few select recruiters, or were found by recruiters, or a job just fell into their laps – easily sliding into a new opportunity. They may not be in demand in the same way now.

Recruiters are feeling the same pinch as the rest of us. With fewer assignments coming their way, it could take a while for them to make a match for you. Keep your toe in the water with recruiters, but don’t put all your eggs in that one basket.

So what’s a high-performance, top executive to do these days to land a great job? Take a proactive diverse approach, embracing the new Job Search 2.0 and networking strategies. It’s important, too, to position yourself as someone who understands the current Internet-driven world of work and communications.

Here my 6 essential executive job search strategies with suggestions on how to work them:

1.  Personal branding to differentiate and strategically position you.

There are so many misconceptions about what personal branding is and what it can do for you. For an understanding of the whole picture, read 10 Steps to Uncovering and Building Your Authentic Personal Brand.

In a nutshell, your brand is all about your reputation and what is authentically “you” – the passions, key personality traits, core strengths, and motivated skills everyone knows you for and relies on you to always deliver.

Incorporating all these components, you’ll create a crystal clear personal brand statement, unique to you, that differentiates your promise of value from your peers and resonates with your target audience. Another benefit of branding is that it generates chemistry for you and indicates good fit to decision makers assessing whether to hire you or do business with you.

With an understanding of your brand reputation and your personal brand statement in hand, you’re ready to move on to creating your branded personal marketing materials and positioning your unique promise of value online and offline.

2.  Portfolio of career marketing communications for your personal brand toolkit.

♦  An executive resume, career bio, covering letter or email message, and reference dossier are must-haves. They should be formatted for online and offline use.

♦  Create a brand-charged e-mail signature with a concise, compelling tagline. See Power Up Your Email Signature With Personal Branding.

♦  Because your resume should be no longer than 2 pages and, like most C-level executives, you have many career success stories and achievements that evidence their brand value. You’ll need various supporting documents.

These may be a Leadership Initiatives Profile, Achievement Summary, One-page Networking Resume, Performance Milestones, M&A Chronology, Product Launch Chronology, Project Management Highlights, Technology Skills, Training & Certifications, Speaking Presentations, Publications, Patents, Commitment to Community Service, etc. Name the document to fit the content and target.

3.  LinkedIn profile and strategy – find and be found by decision makers searching for top talent.

In my Q&A with Jason Alba, LinkedIn expert and author of “I’m on LinkedIn – Now What???”, he said:

If you do NOTHING else, you need to have a LinkedIn Profile and strategy … Your competition (probably younger) is participating in social environments like LinkedIn, and many recruiters depend on LinkedIn to find talent.  If you aren’t there, you aren’t being found, but your competition is. 

Also, doesn’t it make sense to understand the current landscape?  Not having a LinkedIn profile or strategy kind of tells me you don’t really care about the current landscape … so what other current things are you going to be behind on?

♦  Create a branded profile and optimize it for hiring decision makers to find you when they’re searching for top talent.

♦  Leverage all that LinkedIn offers to tap into the hidden job market. Search for and connect directly with decision makers or their circle at companies of interest to you.

4.  Tap into the hidden job market with targeted industry and company research.

Merely posting your resume to online job boards will probably get you nowhere. Do some research to track down decision makers or “warm leads” at companies of interest to you. In your research, identify some specific challenges those companies may be facing that you’re uniquely qualified to manage and turn around.

♦  The places and ways to research companies online are endless, including: Hoovers, Zoominfo, Jigsaw, and OneSource. Try Googling company names and relevant key words.

♦  Do plenty of READING: relevant blogs, newspapers, white papers, etc.

♦  Hang out (online and offline) where your target audience does so that you can learn about them and position yourself in front of them.

♦  Network into decision making circles through LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and other online social networks.

♦  Search LinkedIn “People”, “Companies”, and “Groups”. If you already have names of decision makers, look for their profiles. If you don’t have a person’s name, search by company for top-level people.

For more research strategies, see How to Target and Network into Hidden C-Level Executive Jobs.

5.  Networking strategy – it worked for you in the past, but you may not know all you need to know about networking today.

As a top executive, you’re probably well-versed in how to network. If you’ve neglected your network for too long, need some reminders on how to do it well, or need help with online networking, read Top 10 Tactics to Build a Vibrant Executive Network.

6.  Online personal branding-building and online brand identity management.

As part of healthy executive career management these days, a strong on-brand web presence is essential. Surveys show that the majority of recruiters and hiring decision makers search online when they’re vetting candidates like you. If you’re not there, they won’t find you.

Conversely, if they find digital dirt about you, they will probably skip right over you and move on to someone who is digitally pristine. Make sure there are plenty of accurate, brand-reinforcing results when they Google “your name”.

See my blog post Is Your Online Identity Sabotaging Your Executive Job Search?

Building a brand-solid online foot print is a long-term, ongoing process, but the first three strategies below yield surprisingly quick results:

♦  Create a multi-media rich VisualCV to house all your career portfolio of documents and other relevant materials. See A VisualCV Belongs in Your Personal Brand Toolkit.

♦  Comment on relevant blogs that carry good link weight. In 3 Tactics to Put Your C-Level Executive Resume to Work Building Your Online Brand Identity, the third tactic outlines how to do this well.

♦  Create a Google profile with your photo and benefit from a page-one, interest-generating search result for your name that includes your photo. More information in my post Google Profiles Powers Up Your Online Personal Brand Identity.

♦  Get busy on other social networking sites, especially Twitter. Not sure what to do with Twitter or whether it offers value? See Resources To Get the Best Out of Twitter.

♦  Start your own blog and/or guest blog on relevant blogs.

♦  Start your own website and begin building web pages showcasing your promise of value and loaded with relevant key words to help hiring decision makers find you when they’re vetting candidates.

♦  Write book reviews of relevant books for Amazon and other online sellers.

♦  Write articles and/or white papers and get them published online.

For more specifics, see The 10 Best (Mostly Free) Ways to Google Up, Expand Your Online Network, and Nurture Your Personal eBrand

If you start getting a handle on these essential tactics, you’ll be well ahead of your competition, most of whom aren’t taking advantage of best practices for today’s job search landscape.

 
Related posts:

In Executive Job Search? Don’t Call a Recruiter, Think Like One

Get the Best Out of LinkedIn for Your Personal Brand, Networking, and Executive Job Search

Above the Fold C-Level Personal Branding is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Take a look at your executive resume, LinkedIn profile, VisualCV, and other career marketing communications.

What has immediate impact? What do you notice first? Do your brand and value proposition hit home at first glance?

Whatever sits at the top of your online and “paper”  marketing communications will seal the first impression you make on anyone reading them. If you fail to capture attention and generate some chemistry with what hits eyeballs first, you may lose the reader for good.

You may not be aware that, with an overload of C-level and senior-level candidates to assess, recruiters and hiring decision makers may allow only 10-15 seconds to determine whether or not you make the cut.

Assume that they may look no further than the top half of your resume and/or the top of your LinkedIn profile (whatever lands first on the screen), so be sure your compelling personal brand message is immediately apparent.

Keep this in mind — whatever lands above the fold should be powerful enough to stand alone as your personal brand value calling card.

If you can instantly draw them in, you may be able to entice them to read the whole document or profile. So, doesn’t it just make sense to leverage this prime real estate to best position your personal brand message?

By the way, if you’re a senior executive and you’re not busy on LinkedIn, you’re missing out on golden opportunities to penetrate the hidden C-level job market, by connecting directly with decision makers (or their circle) at the companies you’re targeting.

You’ll have to decide just what on-brand information reflects the best you have to offer and position it above the fold in your marketing communications, but I offer the following suggestions.

I’m assuming that you’ve already worked on your personal brand and come prepared with on-brand personal marketing materials. If you need help with branding, see my post 10 Steps to Uncovering and Building Your Authentic Personal Brand:

Getting a Competitive Advantage With Your Executive Resume

♦ Add a brief tagline under your name.

♦ Add a link to your LinkedIn profile with your contact information.

♦ Generate chemistry by leading your resume with a personal brand statement that crystallizes your promise of value.

♦ Insert 2 or 3 bulleted standout contributions you made that were major achievements. Lead these concise, value-driven statements with the WOW! result first.

♦ It’s okay to bring forward critical information that would otherwise land on page 2 of your resume. For instance, if you have an MBA or other relevant certifications or training, don’t hide it on the second page. The reader may never get there!

Making the Cut With Your LinkedIn Profile

Take a look at your LinkedIn profile. If you don’t have one yet, take a look at mine. What sits on your screen when you open it up, without doing any scrolling down? Are you taking advantage of what you can do here to promote and evidence your personal brand?

♦ Add a key word-rich tagline directly below your name. You can pack quite a punch with the allowed 120 characters.

♦ Keep working on building your number of contacts and brand-reinforcing recommendations.

♦ Add links to 3 web pages. This is a perfect place to link to your VisualCV, if you have one, or website, or blog. Don’t have any of those? You can link to anything about you online. Maybe you published an article or white paper? Maybe a standout contribution or accomplishment was written about online?

♦ Regularly refresh the “What Are You Working On?” feature that sits just below your name. Whatever you post will fade away in about a week, so keep up with it. This spot affords you a great opportunity to stay top of mind with all your LinkedIn connections because, each time you refresh your answer, they’re notified of your latest project.

♦ Personalize your LinkedIn public profile URL, by replacing the meaningless mix of characters with “your name”, as I did: www.linkedin.com/in/megguiseppi

♦ Lead the “summary” section with your personal brand statement and whatever you placed above the fold in your resume.
 

Related posts:

Get the Best Out of LinkedIn for Your Personal Brand, Networking, and Executive Job Search

Think Like an Executive Resume Branding Expert

A VisualCV Gets the Job For a Global Pre-Sales VP is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

Eli Neumann hadn’t looked for a job in 20 years.

Understanding the mind-boggling changes to the executive job search landscape over just the past few years, he chose an innovative approach to introduce himself to recruiters and hiring decision makers. He created a multi-media rich VisualCV and emailed a link to select search firms and contacts.

An interview on ReadWriteWeb briefly chronicled Eli’s experiences using his VisualCV.

He found that even though he sent each of the companies his VisualCV and his text resume, almost all of his meetings were conducted using the VisualCV.

Eli knows that the use of a VisualCV instead of a paper resume had a tremendous impact on their perception of him before any meetings started. He said that after viewing his VisualCV “folks start the conversation with a far better understanding of my background on the business and personal level.”

Along with career history, his VisualCV includes a chart, an audio podcast about his sales strategy, a collection of the maps of all the countries in which he’d done business, and photos of his hobby – underwater photography.

When asked if he thought these added features moved the needle compared to a LinkedIn profile or a PDF, his answer was,

Absolutely! It created enthusiasm in different ways. Some people started off asking me about underwater photography and of course shark feeding, and rapport was created, something that rarely happens with a text resume. There were a number of people that had obviously opened up the metrics deck and were clearly impressed with the approach I take in leading and measuring organizations.

Summing up how to leverage using a VisualCV in executive job search, he said:

Prepare your CV with all those assets that help explain all facets of your personality, innovative and creative sides. Build this with content that amplifies your successful professional work model.

Related post:

A VisualCV Belongs in Your Personal Brand Toolkit

3 Tactics to Put Your C-Level Executive Resume to Work Building Your Online Brand Identity is a post from: Executive Resume Branding

If you’re like most of the top-level executives I work with, the last time you were faced with a job search, the Internet didn’t critically impact the way you went about landing your next opportunity.

The world of executive job search has changed a lot in just the past few years.

Did you know that top-level executives are routinely Googled by recruiters and hiring decision makers vetting candidates?

If you have any presence online, you’re making a first impression before you find them and submit a resume. But if they can’t find you online, or if they find anything that discredits you, you won’t be in the running.

Let’s say you’ve been savvy enough to work on your personal brand and put together a great brand-solid resume. If your only job search strategy is finding places to send out your resume, you could be missing out on landing a dream job. You’re neglecting the tactics that can put you in front of decision makers.

But if the very thought of having to incrementally build a solid online footprint is too overwhelming to consider, or if you don’t have the time to build an expansive web presence, here are some FREE relatively quick-fixes to get you in the game:
       
1. Join LinkedIn and leverage its networking resources.

Create your branded LinkedIn profile by cutting and pasting your resume and adding a compelling tagline next to your name at the top. Then get busy taking advantage of the search features, “Answers”, etc.

To learn more about using LinkedIn, check out my posts in the LinkedIn category and especially, Get the Best Out of LinkedIn for Your Personal Brand, Networking, and Executive Job Search.

2. Create a VisualCV as your online career portfolio.

House all your brand communications – Executive Resume, Brand Bio, Achievement Summary, Reference Dossier, etc. – in one multi-media rich online destination, easily accessible to anyone with one click. They won’t have to open email attachments.

Find out more in the VisualCV category, and especially my post, A VisualCV Belongs in Your Personal Brand Toolkit.

3. Comment on relevant blogs.

This relatively painless and little-used practice can be surprisingly powerful and gets you involved with blogging – one of the very best credibility and brand-building practices. Blogging also opens you up to a forward-thinking community you may not otherwise connect with and can position you as a subject matter expert.

If you’ve chosen the right blogs, your compelling comments will position you and your brand value directly in front of the very people you want to attract. Here are some tips to do this well:

Finding relevant blogs for commenting:

→ Go to Alltop.com and Technorati.com to source relevant blogs by category. Don’t forget to look for recruiters blogs.

→ Go to CEOExpress.com to find major publications and more resources.

→ Google the names of industry thought leaders and experts to see where they’re blogging.

→ Do a Google search of relevant key words for your industry or field and your areas of expertise.

→ Set up Google Alerts for various key word phrases. Google will send you an email when these phrases are published online and lead you to the site. Set up an alert for your own name, too, to track when you show up online.

→ Take a look at the blogrolls on any of the relevant blogs you come across for other blogs to take a look at.

When you post comments:

→ Keep your comments brief (1-2 paragraphs) and on-topic. 

→ Add something new to the conversation that will help position you as a niche expert. 

→ Although bloggers love to read “Terrific post!”, offer more than just kudos.

→ Link back to your VisualCV or LinkedIn profile as your website. The right people will be directed to the brand communications you want them to see.

Your takeaway?

Submitting your branded resume to job boards and search firms isn’t enough at the C-level to get you into a great job these days. Invest the modest amount of time it will take in these 3 tips to start building a vibrant and accurate online footprint, so you’ll be found when decision makers search online for candidates like you.

For more suggestions on building a solid online brand identity:

The 10 Best (Mostly Free) Ways to Google Up, Expand Your Online Network, and Nurture Your Personal eBrand