When someone Googles your name, what does he find? When you have your own website — a social resume — you can help control your online identity. [Read more…] about Do you need a social resume — a personal website?
How having your own website helps you
I always think one of the most frustrating aspects of job search is believing you’ve “done everything,” but aren’t finding an opportunity. I’ve never met a job seeker who actually has “done everything,” though, which I think is good news! Most people are very focused on out-dated tools and spend a disproportionate percentage of their time doing the same thing, over and over, without different results.
This month, the Career Collective (a community I co-coordinate with my colleague Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter) addresses the question of how to use social media in a job search. (Please click through to the links I’ll add soon at the bottom of this post to the other responses to this question.)
There are so many great ways to use social media in your search, most of which I address in my book, Social Networking for Career Success.
There’s no doubt social media tools offer an underutilized opportunity to:
- Help you connect with new people and keep track of contacts.
- Easily learn new things.
- Share your expertise and expand your brand.
LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook all provide easy-to-use, free tools to get-in-touch (and keep-in-touch) with people who may be interested in learning more about you and what you have to offer. However, I think the best, and most important tool the majority of job seekers do not have is a personal website, or social resume.
Why have your own website?
- Hiring managers will Google you. What will she find?
- A personal site is a way to control how your name appears online.
- Statistics show your online presence matters, and that employers are looking for personal and professional data about you.
- NOT putting up your own site only gives people an incentive to look deeper in the web for information about you. Take a look at these sites to learn what the “deep web” knows about you: pipl.com, Polymeta.com.
- Managing a site is important for career insurance and professional development. Showcasing your expertise online (even if it is in a new field) helps demonstrate what you have to offer, even when you aren’t looking for a job. An online presence can grow and change along with your career and help attract people to learn more about you. This could result in opportunities to speak at conferences or events, or even invitations to apply for jobs down the road.
- Having a website suggests you have some technical savvy and understand how to use online tools to communicate. That, in and of itself, is an important skill many employers value. It’s known as “social proof.” You may say you know about technology on your resume, but actually using it to showcase your own information goes a long way to prove you have what employers want.
Especially if you are transitioning to a new job or an experienced job seeker who needs to overcome age discrimination, having an up-to-date online presence and maybe even a viable blog helps show prospective employers you’re willing to learn and are perfectly capable of keeping up with technology.
In my book, I suggest starting out using WordPress.com to try out an online presence. It’s a great resource, and it’s free. However, there are limitations to free tools — not the least of which is you don’t really “own” that online real estate. With some know-how, or an investment in someone who does know how, you can have your own site. If you’re lucky, you can even have “YourName.com,” which will help you rank high for your name in search and help direct people to find the information you want them to find about you.
I hope you’ll visit my site, GetASocialResume.com, to learn more about what you’ll want to include in your social resume. If you don’t want to figure out how to do this yourself, I can help. With a relatively small investment, I can offer you an online presence you’ll be proud to use as a hub for your social media activity, and help you create a site to tell a compelling story describing your background and experiences.
The following are posts from other Career Collective members answering this question
Make Your Career More Social: Show Up and Engage, @WalterAkana
You 2.0: The Brave New World of Social Media and Online Job Searches, @dawnrasmussen
How to Get a New Job Using Social Media, @DebraWheatman
Social Media: Choosing, Using, and Confusing, @ErinKennedyCPRW
How to Use Social Media in Your Job Search, @heatherhuhman
Updating: A Social Media Strategy For Job Search, @TimsStrategy
Your Career Needs Social Media – Get Started, @EliteResumes @MartinBuckland
We Get By With a Little Recs from Our Friends, @chandlee
Expat Careers & Social Media: Social Media is Potentially 6 Times more Influential than a CV or Resume, @expatcoachmegan
Social-Media Tools and Resources to Maximize Your Personalized Job Search, @KatCareerGal
Job Search and Social Media: A Collective Approach, @careersherpa
Social Media: So what’s the point?, @DawnBugni
Tools that change your world, @WorkWithIllness
HOW TO: Meet People IRL via LinkedIn, @AvidCareerist
Effective Web 2.0 Job Search: Top 5 Secrets, @resumeservice
Jumping Into the Social Media Sea @ValueIntoWords
Sink or Swim in Social Media, @KCCareerCoach
Social Media Primer for Job Seekers, @LaurieBerenson
Why you need your own website – and how to get one!
Do you believe you need an online presence to help you land a job — or to help you manage your career? I spent 45 minutes last week trying to convince a career-changing friend she needed HerName.com. She is finishing an advanced degree and will be looking for opportunities in a teaching specialty. She can’t understand why it is important to have an online presence, and she made some good points:
- I’m going to get a job because my professor recommends me to a colleague; it doesn’t have anything to do with having a website.
- I’m not comfortable having information about me online that just anyone can find.
I tried my go-to reasons to explain why her own site was a good idea:
- Even if your professor recommends you for the job, it’s likely the hiring manager will also Google you. What will she find?
- A personal site is a way to control how your name appears online.
- Statistics show your online presence matters, and that employers are looking for personal and professional data about you.
- In fact, while you may think you have “privacy” online, NOT putting up your own site only gives people an incentive to look deeper in the web for information about you. Take a look at these sites to learn what the “deep web” knows about you: pipl.com, Polymeta.com.
- Managing a site is important for career insurance and professional development. Showcasing your expertise online (even if it is in a new field) helps demonstrate what you have to offer, even when you aren’t looking for a job. An online presence can grow and change along with your career and help attract people to learn more about you. This could result in opportunities to speak at conferences or events, or even invitations to apply for jobs down the road.
None of this persuaded her. Finally, I came up with one last point…Something I’ve written about, but hadn’t thought to bring up during our conversation:
- Having a website suggests you have some technical savvy and understand how to use online tools to communicate. That, in and of itself, is an important skill many employers value. It’s known as “social proof.” You may say you know about technology on your resume, but actually using it to showcase your own information goes a long way to prove you have what employers want.
Finally! She replied…”I can see how that would be important.” Noting technology in the classroom is key, and knowing how to use it could be useful, she acknowledged the “social proof” argument was more persuasive than anything else I said.
Especially if you are transitioning to a new job or an experienced job seeker who needs to overcome age discrimination, having an up-to-date online presence and maybe even a viable blog helps show prospective employers you’re willing to learn and are perfectly capable of keeping up with technology.
Maybe you, like my friend, are skeptical. You can’t envision how and why having an online presence will help you get a job, manage your career or become known as an expert in your field. Since I spend so much of my time keeping up with job search strategies and researching tools job seekers and careerists need to use, it’s so clear to me that having YourName.com is crucial to your professional identity and to managing your career.
That’s why I created a product/service to help people (even the skeptical ones) secure and manage their own websites. I’m giving it away for a steal (a colleague told me I should be charging $1000+). Think about how your investment can help you move in the right direction for your career and visit my new site to learn how to get a social resume: http://www.getasocialresume.com/.
photo by nyuudo
You need a social resume. Get one here!
You’re a job seeker or a small business owner. You know you need an optimized online presence, but it’s too important to go it alone. Today, I am launching a new product – a social resume or “YourName.com.”
When we are finished, you will have a website with a custom URL and an online “home” to let employers or customers know what you offer. Having a website helps you control what Google knows about you.
Microsoft found, “79 percent of United States hiring managers and job recruiters surveyed reviewed online information about job applicants. Additionally, 70 percent of United States hiring managers in the study said they have rejected candidates based on what they found.” When you have your own site, you seize some control over what people find when they google your name.
Let me help put YOU in the driver’s seat to steer your reputation from a position of strength!
YOUR SITE WILL:
- Link you to a community of colleagues, experts and potential mentors.
- Provide opportunities to expand your network, instigate two-way communication and meet new people from around the world.
- Help you further define your message and potentially become known as a subject matter expert.
- Serve as a 3-D portfolio of your work.
- Influence how Google and other search engines index your name, and therefore what people find when they search for you.
Learn more about how to get your social resume.
steering wheel photo by NateBW
What does Starbucks’ new logo have to do with your job search?
It’s all the buzz in the Twittersphere – Starbucks, the legendary coffee company – is changing its logo. As you can see in the image, the most recent transformation (bottom/right) leaves off the Starbucks name and seems to try to disassociate it from its coffee roots.
A Reuter’s article quotes Starbucks‘ Chief Executive Howard Schultz as saying, “Even though we have been, and always will be, a coffee company and retailer, it’s possible we’ll have other products with our name on it and no coffee in it.”
It’s not unusual for brand loyalists to revolt when a company makes a major change like this (for example, GAP recently ditched its new logo due to pressure on social media channels). But a new logo without the company name? That is an interesting move.
The Reuters article quoted James Gregory, chief executive of brand consulting firm CoreBrand:
“I think it’s nuts,” he said. “What’s it going to be — the coffee formerly known as Starbucks?”
The new logo probably will not hurt cafe sales in the near term because most Starbucks customers are enthusiasts, Gregory said. But, he said, a nameless logo was a bad fit for Starbucks products sold by grocery stores and other retailers.
“There you’re dealing with people who aren’t enthusiasts. You’re looking at something that’s almost generic, and it’s not shouting out as something that is Starbucks.”
THAT (bolded) is the quote that really grabbed me, and convinced me to jump on the bandwagon and write about this issue. (Which, admittedly, as many on Twitter have noted, is not a matter of life and death.)
If you’re a typical job seeker, you can’t do what Starbucks is doing — go generic. They are banking on the fact that enough people recognize their logo and brand that they do not even need a name to go with it. Is that what you are doing? Maybe your resume and job search materials are okay if you already know the person you need to meet. (Akin to a Starbucks loyalist shopping in a grocery store who sees a new product, with the nameless logo, but automatically makes the association that it is a trusted brand’s item.)
Going generic is a big gamble, as Gregory noted in his comments. It might work for current customers/people who already are “sold” on you, but, unfortunately, job hunting today is more about impressing the people who DON’T know you already. The people who are NOT already your fans. What are you doing with your materials (and your networking efforts) to impress them?
This situation is a great reminder to job seekers and everyone planning to manage a successful career: look at YOUR materials (they are, essentially, your logo). Look at your resume, LinkedIn profile, social networking bios — are you generic? If you have not already built a name for yourself to the point that employers are knocking on your door, you cannot afford the equivalent of a logo with no name. (It’s possible that it’s not even a good idea for an otherwise very established brand like Starbucks; only time will tell.)
Stay tuned to the blog for tips and tricks to help you stand out online and in person! (And maybe a blog about how Starbucks may be trying to do the equivalent of a career change — and what you can learn from that!)