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Facebook Cost Me My Career!

Facebook Types – The Drunk, originally uploaded by TheGrossUncle.

While Facebook may not be one of the networks or tools that you use in your career search, employers and recruiters are certainly using it in their search for the top candidates.

Take a few minutes to review your profile and consider these tips so you don’t ever have to say that Facebook cost you your career!

Clean up your act. Before you add anything, screen your profile for anything that could be questionable in the eyes of the employer and consider removing it. While Facebook is a social network where you and your friends should be allowed to express yourselves and your personalities, you don’t want any pictures, videos, wall posts or any other content on your profile to taint how you’re perceived by someone new, especially if that someone might be considering you for an opportunity. – Chris Perry, CareerRocketeer.com

Add more depth than a regular resume. A public Facebook profile allows the candidate to provide a media-rich introduction to him or herself before a phone or face-to-face interview ever takes place. Photos and even videos can introduce the hiring manager to the candidate and subtly suggest why the candidate is qualified and the best for the job. Images of the candidate in professional clothing and professional settings, videos of the candidate giving a talk or performing a professional service, etc. can all help to convince a hiring manager that the candidate is one who should be considered seriously as a future employee. – Heather Huhman, ComeRecommended.com

Plan your status updates. Most people just put random thoughts or events on their updates. But by carefully crafting your updates, you can paint a picture of who you are for that prospective boss or buyer.

Don’t get caught up in the games. Facebook has lots of fun features like Mafia Wars and surveys, but you can look like you are a kid without any sense of discretion by blending that with your more professional side in such a public forum. – Drew McLellan, The McLellan Group

Keep professional and personal as separate as possible. Facebook makes this easy by allowing you to set up a Fan page. You can always use your profile as your personal page (be sure to restrict what non-friends can see). Set up a Fan page that clearly states who you are and what you do, and use that to build your personal brand. – David Mathison, BetheMedia.com

Special thanks to everyone who contributed to this wealth of career search insight!

Chris Perry, MBA is a Gen Y brand and marketing “generator,” a career search and personal branding expert and the founder of Career Rocketeer and Launchpad.

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Putting the reader benefit into your Personal Brand

If you read the bios of some pretty successful people, you’ll see why truly effective personal branding during job search can be such a bear. Here’s how it often sounds:

“Bob Smith is the Vice President of Really Important, Co., leading five divisions nationwide.”

“Jennifer is the author of Business Book.”

“Marc holds a Bachelors degree from Columbia and a MBA from Harvard University.”

Ooh, we think. Impressive.

And so as we go out to find our new jobs, oftentimes our resumes start to smack of hyped-up corporate bio.

We list titles, awards, education. In short, it’s all about credentials. “See where I’ve been before? Isn’t it great?”

When what the recruiter is looking for is less where you’ve been and much more what you’ve done, and what you can do for them.

Let’s take an example. Imagine you need a sales pro and you need them to be able to run on their own with little guidance. You get two resumes:

“Terri has sold B2B technology solutions for 10 years.”

or…

“John has delivered 20%+ sales growth for each of the past five years.”

Which would you call?

The fundamental difference here is that Terri’s bio plugs a credential, while John focuses on the reader benefit. John makes his statement about the benefit that his employer received. And if it’s a benefit that the new employer wants, they’ll be interested.

So here are some examples of mini-makeovers to focus on reader benefit in our branding and job search messages:

Before: “Allison has five years experience in insurance brokerage, with three years supervisory experience.”

After: “Allison has successfully landed five new clients in the past two years, doubling her book of business.”

Before: “Jamie is a driven, competent communications professional, with strong skills in direct marketing, writing for web, and multimedia content development.”

After: “Jamie has written, edited and produced print and online campaigns totaling $1 million revenue annually.”

Or…

“Jamie has successfully maintained key client relationships for years through her excellent work and relationship building skills.”

So, look over your branding messages. Are you speaking in credentials? Or are you connecting with what the reader really wants?

Kristi Daeda shows mid- to senior-level professionals how to get better jobs faster. Her blog, Career Adventure, shares advice on job search, management skills, leadership, personal branding and more to help savvy career adventurers make it to the top. She invites you to find new opportunities through her ebook, 51 Places to Find a Job.

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10 Ways to Write a Standout Resume

2605794078_cfdc780f87Save a recruiter’s weary eyes. Write a fresh, unique, straightforward and easy to read resume, and you’re much more likely to get it read. Here are ten tips on how to keep your resume professional and effective.

Prove every word. Lots of resumes will claim that the candidate is “team oriented” or has “excellent communications skills.” So many that most readers don’t believe it anymore. If you want to make the claims, back them up with evidence. Write accomplishment statements that demonstrate your soft skills, like the fact that you’ve presented at industry conferences or facilitated team building events that produced business results. If you can’t prove it, you may want to skip mentioning it. Besides, they’ll judge your communications skills the minute they get you on the phone.

Put the reader on the scene. Help them taste the ripe, dripping orange or see the sunset, crimson fading into violet behind the silhouette of an Alpine forest. It’s how a fiction writer draws the reader into the scene, and you too can use detail to help the reader see, hear and experience the work you’ve done in the past. Offer enough concrete description that they can imagine themselves in your shoes.

Own your impact. If you delivered results, stand up and shout it. Words like “facilitated,” “coordinated,” “managed,” and “functioned” sound like you took a back seat while the rest of the team were at the wheel. Being part of a winning team is an accomplishment of itself. Talk about the teams results, share your part of the big win, and take credit where it’s due.

Keep it simple. What are the essentials to understanding the situation and your impact? Describe your work according to the CAR method (challenge, action, results) without getting into the minutiae. You can give additional context when you get to the interview.

Ditch the adverbs. Many adverbs dilute the power of your words. Look for any word ending in “-ly” and ask yourself if it’s necessary to maintain the meaning of the sentence. If not, use that red pen and mark it out.

Axe passive voice. An employer wants to know what you did, not what happened to you. Resume statements should start with an action verb (”delivered,” “developed,” “achieved”). Most of your work can be rephrased to show the action you took. One that is harder is “was promoted.” Good thing that’s the only time what happened to you is an accomplishment.

Pique their interest. If you can write an accomplishment that shows that you delivered impressive results, and leaves them with the question, “how did she do that?”, you just may get an interview so they can learn your solution to the problem. Think of what you can do to leave them wanting more.

Eliminate corporate speak. If it would show up on a Corporate Bingo game board, leave it off your resume.
Alright, you may not be able to avoid using “customer service” but other words, like “synergy” and “transparent” you should be able to skip. In fact, if you Keep it Simple like in rule XX, this one shouldn’t be a problem. If you find your resume sounding more like a technical manual and less like the engaging, successful person that you
are, corporate speak is often to blame.

Use white space. Ample white space–the margins and breaks around your text–makes your resume look more professional and polished, as well as easier to read. Many are tempted to try to jam in that extra sentence or two, and end up sacrificing the reader’s first impression for that content.

Use reader-friendly formatting. Bullets, indenting, bold, etc. all help the reader scan and process the information on the page. Use the tools available to you to make it easy on them, and highlight the areas of the document that you think are worthy of notice.

Kristi Daeda is a Success Coach and creator of Career Adventure, a blog which helps professionals in the pursuit of their inspiring work. To receive her free report, 51 Ordinary and Extraordinary Places to Find a Job, sign up for her free Career Kick Start newsletter.

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Keep Polishing Your Personal Brand

polish away, originally uploaded by Darwin Bell.

Personal branding has always been out there, but it has become a better defined and an increasingly popular concept over the past decade.

It is the essential first step in your career search process, helping you identify your own unique and differentiating value and communicate it memorably and consistently online and offline to employers and recruiters. Today’s economic recession and job market have opened many professionals’ eyes to the importance and effectiveness of personal branding throughout their whole career as an ongoing part of their continuous professional development.

Just like with interviews, when you’re seeking job opportunities, you begin to get increasingly better at presenting yourself and effectively answering questions posed to you by the interviewers; however, upon employment, your stop practicing and your interview skills become rusty.  This is why career experts suggest that you schedule periodic informational interviews with fellow professionals both within and outside of your organization as part of your career development in order to stay prepared for future interview opportunities should they arise. Maintaining and updating your personal brand online and offline are not only healthy and necessary for effective self-understanding and self-presentation, but also set you up well whether you are seeking employment or you are positioning yourself for promotions or other opportunities within your organization.

So how do you stay on top of your brand and keep it polished?

1.    Develop or redevelop your own one-or-two-word personal brand and supporting personal brand pitch and practice saying it as the answer to questions like “Why should we pick you?” so that it is flows naturally and confidently and effectively presents yourself.

2.    Update all of your online profiles/websites and career outputs, including your resume, cover letter, email signature etc. with recent professional experience, education and achievements and most importantly your personal brand.

3.    Make sure that your actions and achievements are consistent and support your personal brand claim both inside and outside of work.

4.    Seek formal and informal feedback from fellow co-workers, family members and friends on how you and your actions are being perceived by others.  Compare that to your own perception of your performance, as well as your personal branding goals and make adjustments or updates as necessary.

5.    Stay alert and aware of new technological changes with respect to how you present yourself, how you engage in networking and how you search for and pursue new career opportunities and set time aside to learn about and take advantage of new professional networks, platforms and tools.

By periodically polishing your personal brand, you will come across more confident, more professional and more memorable to those with whom you interact and work on a consistent basis.  More importantly, you and your personal brand will be ready to “shine” when the need or opportunity present itself to pursue another job or more responsibility.

Chris Perry (@CareerRocketeer) is a Gen Y Brand and Marketing Generator, a Career Search and Personal Branding Expert and the Founder of Career Rocketeer, the Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.

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Brand Camp Video #2: Social Media & You: Tips for Success in your Career (Scott Monty)

I’m pleased to bring you the second video from the 2008 Brand Camp University Personal Branding 2.0 Conference, with Scott Monty Director of Social Media at Ford talking about Social Media & You: Tips for Success in your Career.  His presentation includes his now famous quote “What happens in Vegas – Stays in Google.”  He has some excellent information to share.  Sit back and enjoy.

Thanks to Portage Media Solutions for producing the video.

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