Since January I have received several dozen senior level referrals from clients, especially one’s in HR administration, who have told their friends about my business philosophy “One Size Does Not Fit All.” (http://www.perrynewman.com/) After working with me they have come to understand that this is not a slick marketing slogan, but a highly effective approach to creating personalized marketing documents and social media profiles in a market dominated by resume mills fronted by job posting search engines.
Unfortunately over 50% of those referred to me have already spent from a low of $399 to upwards of $1000 to get a resume written in a style that they were told by the company’s salesperson 'IS THE ONLY FORMAT' that will land you job offers. After making this very costly investment and seeing minimal results they have a difficult choice to make, live with the mediocrity they paid for or try to get it right without breaking the bank. Thankfully most don't need costly major surgury just affordable personalization.
What is striking is that I (and most people who review resumes for a living) can look at a resume from a resume mill and in less than 15 seconds tell you exactly which one it was purchased from.Is this ESP? No. Its simple; most of these companies use one single style for all their clients to produce a resume that presents a job title, i.e. a CEO, CIO, CFO, Director of Marketing, Operations Manager, lawyer, civil engineer, purchasing manager etc. I think you get the picture.
This is not to say these resumes are not well constructed; and I must admit the wording and sentence structure are erudite and professional. The problem, in most cases, is that every CFO, CIO, CEO resume looks the same and lacks a personal touch.
What I also found strange was when I spoke to these referrals and asked them how they were referred to the service they told me it was from a free resume critique offer they accepted after inputting information to get access to the services executive level job posting/job match search engine.
They told me that after attaching a resume they received an email critique with a nice sales pitch and no guarantee. I then asked a few people to send me the critique, and I registered with a few services myself submitting a resume they wrote under a different name and email address and then noticed all the critiques were boilerplate generic with slightly different words… This is a straightforward assessment of your current resume, and not a judgment of your skills and qualifications… Here is the good news: My first impression of you is that you have an impressive array of skills and experiences. You’re a qualified (widget maker) with a lot to offer an employer. Now, here’s the bad news: Your resume and the content is not up to the standards one would expect from a candidate like you. I saw the same general remarks for a low level candidate with limited skills and experience, a mid-level manager who is mediocre at best, and an executive who was fired from his last two jobs with cause. Sound familiar.
So what can you do to avoid getting a pedestrian product for a king’s ransom?
1: Get a verbal critique of your resume, not just a cursory written email review.
Author:
2: Inquire as to the exact qualifications of the person who is critiquing your resume, and ask for specific examples of what they feel needs to be changed, why, and how they would handle it.
4. Ask how many different styles of resumes they work with, and which ones would be best for you and why.
5: Avoid layers; make sure the person who critiques your current resume is the same person who will write your new resume.
6: Your resume is not like receiving Social Services. You should be the one to choose who writes your resume instead of having someone who you don’t know and does not know you arbitrarily say “we are assigning writer XYX to your case.”
7. Ask if there is a money back guarantee of at least a partial refund if you are not satisfied with the final draft and a free rewrite if you are not getting results after a specified period of time.
8. Have someone you trust who knows you professionally look at the resume and see if it captures what makes you unique and special and then discuss their opinion with the resume writer.
9. If you want someone to critique your resume with you over the phone and tell you if it needs minor adjustments you can do on your own, major revisions, or is good as is, email a copy with your phone # to perry@perrynewman.comPerry Newman, CPC CSMS is a nationally recognized executive resume writer, career coach, and certified recruiter and social media strategist renowned for his ability to produce resume, social media profiles and job search strategies that get results. You can view sample resumes at http://www.perrynewman.com/ and email him your resume at perry@perrynewman.com for FREE resume critique.
Who Are You: a Generic Job Title OR a One of a Kind Executive?
Personal Branding On The Job: 3 Ways To Do It | JobMob
Successful personal branding tactics that existed before social media are now more successful personal branding tactics with social media.
Here are some examples from my own career.
Wherever I’ve worked, the personal brand I’ve tried to build is to be known as someone who is:
- Professional
- Helpful
- Intellectually honest
- Successful
- Getting things done
- Open to Always seeking constructive criticism
In my last job from 2002 to 2006 before I started teaching job search, I was a web development manager and senior project manager at a major media distribution company in France. Although I’m pretty sure I never once used the term “personal branding” or “marque personnelle” during my years in Paris at the company, there were a number of things I did while there to consistently grow my personal brand while providing opportunities for my team members to do the same.
Public projects
Participating in a public project is a great way to make a name for yourself.
For my team of programmers, the major public projects that we came into contact with regularly were the projects surrounding the open-source freeware (free software) that we used in our work. The more popular open-source software projects have large, active communities of people (and not just programmers!) that are continuously working to improve the software and everyone can contribute on a level that works for them.
As we used the software, I encouraged my team to follow those communities and get involved by responding to questions based on our experience with the corresponding software and especially by submitting reports and comments about any software bugs we had discovered.
The more you participate, the more you get noticed. Some people participate so much, they become recognized experts on the software and it eventually leads to jobs at other companies using that software.
In our case though, the open-source software we used wasn’t the main focus of our work, so it was hard to justify investing a lot of time in those communities from a business point of view. The personal branding potential was massive but we mostly couldn’t take advantage of it.
Our main software platform was purchased from a software company just before I started my job, and my team’s first objective was to learn the new system and take full control of it. This was harder than usual because we were one of the first European companies to buy this software so in many ways it felt like we were on our own. There actually were other companies using the software but we weren’t organized together in any way, so my boss and I pushed for the software company to hold a user conference for all the European companies that had bought their software.
User or industry conferences
Not only did we push for the software company to have a user conference, we made sure to have an on-stage presentation at the one-day event, which my boss gave. Our presentation – I helped him create it and he credited me in kind – was about the success we had in reaching our first objective mentioned above of expertise running the new system.
Giving a presentation about our achievements at this first-ever industry user conference immediately catapulted us to the forefront of the community by default, since, like us, the other user companies weren’t previously aware of who was having success with the software.
However – as we had planned with our contact from the software company but unknown to the crowd – after my boss’s presentation, I stood up in the audience. Expanding a little on what my boss had said, I explained how we wanted to create a community around the software like the open-source communities we were already active in, and then listed all the benefits for everyone involved while adding that not only were we ready to get started NOW, but we even had some resources at disposal for the community.
I couldn’t have hoped for a better reaction. We had clearly touched a raw nerve.
Business communities
Before I was even done speaking, heads were nodding around the room and people had begun yelling out suggestions. And when I was done, representatives from almost every company in the room came over to our table, and this was right smack in the middle of the session while the conference was still going on and not at the end of the day. They were that excited to join the initiative.
After all, it was a no-brainer for them- someone was offering to make their lives easier for free, and after seeing how much thought and effort we had already put into the idea, they wanted us to lead this new community, which we were prepared to do and eventually did.
As community leaders, new and potential members automatically came to us first. As demand grew, we even considered launching paid consulting services.
Conclusion
Leveraging your achievements to lead a popular initiative is a great way to grow your brand for an entire community.
I originally published a version of this article on the terrific Personal Branding Blog.
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25 Personal Branding Tips You Can Do in 5 Minutes | JobMob
Here are some ideas of quick personal brand-building tips you can start using right now.
- Create a Yodio, recording yourself telling a story about an image. Put it on your blog, or better yet, propose it as guest content to a brand-related blogger.
- Take a quick survey of passers-by on the street, introducing yourself as you go. Ask a question that tugs at their emotions while relating to your niche.
- Start an industry-related petition.
- Ask a question on LinkedIn Answers, WikiAnswers or another Q&A-type site.
- Answer a question on LinkedIn Answers, WikiAnswers or another Q&A-type site.
- Contact a small, industry blogger with feedback or an article topic suggestion.
- Call a local school, association, community center or company to offer a free lecture/workshop on your topic of expertise.
- Make a video of yourself answering a question and upload it to YouTube.
- Make a screencast showing step-by-step how to deal with a common problem in your industry, and upload that to YouTube.
- Call in with an answer OR a question to a relevant radio show, analog or web-based.
- Start a thread asking a question in a popular online forum, chatroom, Facebook group or mailing list.
- Update your avatar across your preferred social networks.
- Share an article with someone who really needs it.
- Post an insightful comment on a leading blog’s most recent article.
- Register your own domain name (I recommend Namecheap), and redirect it to your LinkedIn profile until you have your own website.
- Post an update on whichever social network you focus on most, such as Twitter/Facebook/LinkedIn.
- Update your email/forum signature.
- Add applications to your LinkedIn profile to show off your achievements.
- Contact a famous person about interviewing them for your or someone else’s blog, podcast, tv show, etc.
- Start a public Twitter List of favorite impressive people in your field.
- Make sure your major online profiles are all using the same tagline and other branding information.
- Create a Facebook Page for your personal brand.
- Reach out to someone you’d like to meet by sending a note of appreciation and a question about a recent success of theirs.
- Ask some of your online followers/subscribers/friends if they have a question for you.
- Stumble and review an article on Stumbleupon, then leave a comment on the article saying you did so.
I originally published this article on the terrific Personal Branding Blog.
If you found this article useful, you’ll also enjoy 3 Ways To Build Your Personal Brand On The Job Or On The Job Search.
Rebuilding Your Network | EmploymentDigest.net
As the economy warms up, more of your contacts are on the move — and going places that could be right for you. How do you tighten a network that’s gone slack?
People have a bad habit of letting their networks go stale when they land new positions. They’ll certainly stay in touch during the job search; after all, networking is a great way of finding new opportunities. But once they’re back on the job, they drop the active networking that helped them land it in the first place.
LinkedIn, Facebook and other business networks offer some ongoing connection, but they don’t provide personal touch and top-of-mind awareness of an active “career tribe.” That’s why I coach all clients in transition not only to build an effective tribe but to manage it actively — because you never know when the next shoe will drop or the next opportunity will arise.
In the current recession, your network may have gone cold on its own. With more of your colleagues unemployed and fewer able to help their networks advance, many people stopped trying to network and lost touch. As the economy rebounds, job seekers will have to rekindle those relationships, too.
Job seekers often tell me they feel awkward reconnecting with former colleagues, coworkers and mentors they haven’t contacted since their last job hunt. Of course, I can slap them on the hands and say, “Naughty, naughty. You didn’t keep yourself connected the way you should have!” … but that doesn’t solve their dilemma. Therefore, let’s snuff out guilt — which, if kept alive, will ruin any efforts to reconnect anyway.
Here are a few effective ways to re-ignite a group of friends and business relationships.
Admit you lost touch: It’s weirder not to acknowledge the rhinoceros head in the room than to acknowledge it — so don’t gloss over the fact that you haven’t reached out in ages. Chances are, the person on the other end of the line is just like you; most people don’t keep their career tribes active and vibrant. Therefore, begin by stating the obvious … but in an Everyman kind of way:
“Gosh, it’s been ages. I don’t know if you’re like me, but I get so busy with all that’s going on with work and family that staying in touch with people that matter to me takes a back burner. It’s not right, and I intend to correct that moving forward because, as we both know, relationships are everything.”
Don’t make it all about YOU: Yes, you are connecting with your contact now because you’re looking for clients or a job. However, the worst thing you can do is immediately jump into what you want or need from him. Instead, you need to rebuild the relationship by demonstrating interest in him.
“So, is now a good time to talk, or could we grab a coffee? How are you? What’s been going on in your world? How are the kids/husband/pets/projects?” Draw on your knowledge of your contact to get him talking about himself and what he’s up to. Getting your contact to tell you stories about his life, career and exploits builds “relationship equity.”
Have a research project: At some point, the point of your call will come up naturally. I would offer it up before you’re asked. But my No. One rule in career transition is, “The best way to get a job is not to look for one!”
Sounds ironic, but you’ll always get further meeting more people faster when you connect based on reasons other than your need for a job. So create something worthwhile that your contact on which your contact could advise you other than your resume or job search. Are there new developments at the cutting edge of your industry about which she may have thoughts? Which players in your field do you want information about? Your inquiry doesn’t need to be formal; nevertheless, it does need to feel like you’re researching a topic, not prospecting for jobs.
I recently helped a social-network newbie set up her first profile up on LinkedIn, which created a built-in opportunity to network in the name of research. The woman used her status as a LinkedIn newbie to reconnect with her contacts and ask them how they used the service. Once in touch and talking, she parlayed the connection into some greater research projects in her industry. For her, networking was the research project.
Wait to be asked: People aren’t stupid. You need never flat out say to them, “I’m looking for a job.” If you have a solid reason to call for their opinions and advice, you’re building relationship equity. After all, everyone wants to feel like the “expert,” and people love to give advice. If you’ve handled the first three steps gracefully, the person on the other end will probably ask, “So, are you in the market?” That’s what you want: them asking you. This gives you the opening you need to reply, “Oh, well, yes, one reason I have the space to reconnect with helpful folks like you is because I was recently downsized. … But I want to make a smart move this time, which is why I’m focused on researching these issues. Of course, if you know others you think I should speak to, I’d be grateful if you can direct me to them.” This more subtle approach will generally net you a more open and willing connection than if you tried to say hello after five years and immediately asked for job-search help. Re-establishing relationships based on warmth and mutual interest is far more comfortable and effective than requesting job leads. The power of relationships can truly amaze you if you use them wisely. And their benefit is never one sided. The advice, input and connections your contacts offer you today will always benefit them eventually. The universe reciprocates … but you gotta get out there and make your contributions. Taking the first step to reconnect is a big contribution.
DARRELL W. GURNEY, executive/career coach and 15-year recruiting veteran, supports folks to make profitable transitions or create thriving businesses. Author of “ Headhunters Revealed!” and a personal- and business- brand strategist, his Backdoor Method for networking has helped individuals expand careers and new client circles. Listen to his interview of best-selling “What Color is Your Parachute?” author Richard Nelson Bolles at www.CareerGuy.com/program
Movin' On Up: From Good Employee to Great Boss - 9 Tips to Get You Promoted
It takes going above and beyond to get to the next level. So, check out these nine steps to get promoted.
Work where there is opportunity to grow. You can’t move up quickly if there is nowhere to go. So, before you accept a job offer, make sure you find out if there are advancement opportunities. If you already have a job, talk to your supervisor about creating a career path that will lead you in the right direction.
Be the best you can be. After you have accepted a position with an employer, don’t immediately bombard your supervisor with questions about being promoted. Serve your time, pay your dues, and be the best employee you can be. Coming in on time and staying until 5 p.m. does not make you an overachiever. So, ask your co-workers if they need help with any of their projects once yours are completed. Offer assistance when your manager’s load gets too heavy. Show that you are a team player, and be flexible with your work schedule.
Speak up. Don’t be afraid to take ownership on projects you’ve completed or to present your ideas and solutions. You don’t want to have a “look at me” attitude, but it’s OK to keep your boss informed of the projects you’re working on and the ideas you have. This shows initiative and demonstrates you have the abilities, skills, and drive you need to get ahead.
Network with co-workers. Networking doesn’t stop simply because you have a job. Make it a point to meet as many people as you can in your company. Don’t limit yourself just to the people in your department. Many companies offer career paths in multiple areas and departments. And, “who you know” can be important at work when it comes to decisions involving promotions.
Schedule meetings with your boss. Once you have put some time in at your job, consider scheduling some one-on-one times with your supervisor. Take this opportunity to proactively discuss how you are doing in your current position and possible career paths for your future. This is your chance to build a relationship with your boss, address your desire for a promotion, and find out what you need to do to make it happen.
Continue learning. Whenever there is an opportunity to learn a new skill, regardless of whether it’s included in your current tasks or assignments, sign up and attend a conference, webinar, or night class that could benefit you and your team. Continue to build to your skills repertoire. This will build your value to you as an employee and show your employer that you’re willing to put in the extra effort to be the best at your job.
Volunteer for new projects. If your boss asks for volunteers to work on a new task, raise your hand. But, make sure you have time to complete the assignment on top of your normal deadlines first. You don’t want to over promise and then under deliver. If you have time to complete the task, offer to work on as many extra projects as you can. This is a great way to broaden your skills.
Search for a mentor. It’s always a wise decision to search out people who you would like to emulate in your career and ask them to be your mentor. But, before you approach the subject of a mentorship, make sure you’ve established a relationship with your prospect. This is beneficial to you and your prospective guru. It gives you both an opportunity to find out if you’re compatible and allows you to determine whether or not you’re asking the right person to advise you.
Find other employment. If you’ve exhausted all the steps above, growing your skills, expressing interest in advancement and becoming an indispensable member of the team but still have not received a promotion, then it might be time for you to look for other employment opportunities. But, before you jump ship, make sure you’re not just being impatient. After all, timing is everything! If you still feel it’s time to move on, make sure you have another job lined up before you go.
Climbing the career ladder can be difficult at times. There are bumps and snags along the way, but if you follow these nine steps and keep a positive attitude in the process, you could just find your way into the corner office sooner than you think.
reCareered: Question Of The Week - How should I let my network know that I'm looking for work?
This week, a reader asked if he should use a direct email campaign for his job search. While there are many career professionals who like this approach, I find it to be self defeating, risking more harm than good. Here's why.
On alternate Fridays, I'm posting a job search question from one of our readers. This was a question posted in response to my posting on Linkedin Answers “Candidates - What's your most difficult job search question?”
M.S. shared a question about his own job search, and asked:
"What approach I should use in the messages I send? Is it best to be direct or indirect in the messages I send to business owners or executives? For the direct approach, I could say that I would love to hear about positions they might have where I could put my e-marketing skills to work. At the worst I will just find that there isn’t much of a response."
My thoughts and experiences are going to be different than those of most career coaches, outplacement professionals, recruiters, college placement offices, and "rules of thumb". Most of these sources will advise candidates to take a direct approach. Typical advice would be to craft an email, stating that you are in an active search mode, possibly attaching your resume, and asking for help or referrals.
While those approaches worked 9 years ago, when email was still fairly new, it's less effective today - and can cause you to damage relationships unknowingly. I'll sum up the points below by asking in reply - Do you think that spamming your contacts is a good idea? Will it generate the response rate that you want? Will spamming your network help or hurt your relationships?
There are a number of differences between today's job search environment and that of 10 years ago that cause a direct approach to be ineffective:
- There are far more job seekers today: Not only are there more unemployed, but there are many passive job seekers also - as many as 60% of the workforce by some reports. Most of your competition spams their network - because "everyone" recommends it.
- Your network is already inundated by email: The people you are trying to reach get hundreds of emails per day. They can't possibly read all of them, and can only respond to a small percentage. The people you want to reach have jobs to do.
- Proliferation of spam: Spam today is more than just ads for Canadian pharmaceuticals, insurance, and penny stock tips. As our email boxes fill to overflowing, business professionals react more unfavorably to spam. resenting the time unsolicited emails take from their day.
- Backlash against spam: Over-messaged recipients can get upset due to unsolicited emails and messages. As our inboxes overflow, we've gotten used to being asked for permission to message first, and quickly grow impatient with emails that don't provide us value. Those are the emails that get deleted, or worse ... sent to spam or replied with "Please remove".
- iPod & Blackberry nation: As more professionals use smartphones as their primary email reader, especially for personal emails, attention span for non-urgent emails have shortened as our inboxes explode. If it's not valuable to us, we tend to delete first, ask questions later.
- Sending blast emails demonstrates What's In it For Me (WIFM): Most of your readers won't find value in what you want, or to quote M.S. "I would love to hear about positions they might have where I could put my e-marketing skills to work."
- "The Update email": This is the email we all get, often from people we barely know, or who are social network connections, that give us the whole history of their job search. Most recipients don't care. However, if you restructured the email to tell me about the problems you've been solving, how you are created value, or the value you are creating freelancing or at volunteer organizations - you have a much better chance of getting attention.
Fortunately. there are better alternatives. These can work as well for an accountant as a marketing person, from entry-level to executive. Use the power of social media in the way it was intended - to engage in discussions, rather than spam. Here's some ideas of how you can utilize your social network to engage in job search discussions:
- Create a newsletter or blog: Use a newsletter or blog to provide value to your readers, give them ideas, demonstrate the value you can provide by describing past projects and the problems you solved - show them WIFT (What's In it For Them - see http://recareered.blogspot.com/2010/03/job-seekers-tell-your-readers-wift.html).
The more you provide value, the less your messaging is viewed as spam, the fewer times the delete button is hit, and the more likely you'll be recruited as a great fit to fix problems just like the ones you described.
