ProfessionaliBranding Levels

The following is reprinted, with permission of the publisher, from The Panic Free Job Search: Unleash the Power of the Web and Social Networking to Get Hired © 2012 Paul Hill. Published by Career Press, Pompton Plains, NJ. All rights reserved. In this section the author lists how to create a "ProfessionaliBrand" -- your personal "brand" online -- to get the job you want.

Level 1: The Must Level

• Discover your Sustainable Competitive Advantage (SCA)—your unique you. Build your profile.


• Discover your keywords—the words that represent your profession.


• Write your competency-based resume.


• Google your name and/or find any traces of you on the Internet. Determine if damage control is needed. Correct if you can.


• Use your resume to develop your LinkedIn profile.


• Develop a keyword-rich LinkedIn profile.


• Use “Internet crumbs” to your advantage. Include your job title and place of work, and a Web-based e-mail address in all places where your name will show up on the Internet, conferences, professional directories, associations, sports event participation, and so forth.

Level 2: Irresistible Branding Level

• Select your keyword-rich domain name.


• Build a VisualCV.


• Develop your resume Website (iResumePro) with your online competency-based resume.


• Develop an “e-mail resume button” and add it to your e-mail signature.


• Search engine optimize your iResumePro.


• Develop your iVideoResumePro and post it on your Website.


• Institute iBlitz17 (see the section later in chapter) social media strategy: LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter.


• Create back links to your iResumePro by commenting on blog entries and leaving your iResumePro’s URL to increase search engine ranking.


• Set up a CRM system and/or use JibberJobber, or categorize your networks. Tag your connections in LinkedIn or create Google circles. Provide compelling information directly to your networks through e-mail marketing, newsletters, white papers, or industry trends.


• Export your network contact lists from LinkedIn, Facebook, and so forth, and contact them through e-mail with compelling information/content.


• Set up a professional blog on your iResumePro Website. Tell the world what your SCA is by blogging.


• Set up your YouTube channel and post your resume video. Also post your iVideoResumePro on your Website without a YouTube link, because some employers do not have access to YouTube at work.


• Consider using TubeMogul to distribute your videos across different sites and increase your search engine findability.


• Join Web-based communities relevant to your profession or the job you are interested in and become an active commenter or poster (not a pest).

At a minimum, every professional must attain a Level 1 ProfessionaliBrand. You reach the irresistible level once you complete Level 2. Do not be surprised if you begin to get offers before you complete Level 2.

I identify an additional level that is beyond the scope of this book as Level 3. It is what I call the Key Opinion Leader. If you would like to find out more go to www.transitiontohired.com. Of course there are many more initiatives at each level you can take because new sites and tools are mushrooming every day. Evaluate and use those that offer advantages to your ProfessionaliBranding strategy.

Comments

[Jonathan@Friends and Money]

Excellent idea. I know people who have done this and have secured excellent job positions as a result.

[Anonymous Coward]

My brain freezes whenever I read this much marketing gibberish and this many made up words.

[Apex]

I agree with the Anonymous Coward.

There are some things here that are not bad but most of this is persuasion field based (sales/marketing/biz-dev/etc). Doer fields (engineering/nursing/labor/etc) would find most of this to be vast overkill, far from necessary, and sometimes damaging.

We just interviewed a handful of candidates for a technical job at my company and offered to one of them. We got standard resumes, selected good candidates, gave them some "doing tasks" to evaluate them, brought them in for interviews, and made a decision and an offer. Not a single thing from the two lists above was used in our process for any of the candidates we looked at.

These articles are almost always written from the persuasion field perspective. I guess that makes sense. Persuaders persuade and doers do. Doers aren't gonna do most of this and they don't need to.

Frankly if one of our candidates was doing half the things from list #2 above I would be inclined to eliminate them. If they are spending time on that kind of stuff it would tell me they are trying to sell me on themselves in ways that their abilities are not strong enough to do on their own.

I am not sure the persuasion side of the job market fully understands that the non-persuasion side sees the world differently. I have radar for "being sold." If I detect that I am being sold to, you have lost almost all credibility with me and ruined your chances. So if you are going to sell me, you better be darned good. Undetectably good.

[MattJ]

Apex nailed it.

I agree that with him in that I suspect the persuaders don't have the doers figured out. How are they good persuaders if they can't figure out what motivates doers - are they only persuading each other? I immediately rejected 90% of the suggestions in the post and I can't imagine that most of them would be helpful even to persuaders, as Apex seems to grant them. Apparently, as a doer, I don't have them figured out, either. To the point that my brain just wants to poke fun of the things they say on subjects like this.

It would help me for someone to provide a link to a GOOD youtube resume, that actually advanced the applicant's career. I would like to see such an animal, if only to verify its existence.