We have a tradition of attending the State Fair of Texas in Dallas on opening day each year with some family friends. By far the best day to go. Next best is the Oklahoma and Texas game held during the Fair each year at the Cotton Bowl since 1929.

Both days give you a unique look at Fair Park, which is a National Historic Landmark, and boasts the largest collection of art deco exposition buildings in the United States. 

These are a few of the photos we took while there on Friday, September 26th, 2008.

Labels: branding, Family

Image via Wikipedia

I'll admit that I have always wanted the ability to turn invisible.  Always.  Probably one of my earliest wishes.  I still wish this on a daily basis.  Think of all the things you could see and do if nobody knew you were there!  Way better than flying or super strength.

But if you are a job seeker, either active or passive, this is the last thing you should wish for, really.  I touched on this in my previous post, "Which is Worse, Bad Brand or No Brand?".  And it bares further exploration. 

Believe it or not I still run across people who are afraid to list any public info on social networks, etc.  However these same people will often upload a resume to a job board containing their full address, phone number, etc.  Makes no sense to me. 

If you are truly afraid of identity theft, telemarketers, or any number of other valid concerns then you should be on top of everything that is available about you on the Internet.  You are likely not quite as invisible as you think. 

If you think that anonymously posting extreme opinions or lewd comments on blogs or forums gives you that invisibility power, think again.  Many of the sites on which you post have ways to trace you.  And if you have ever registered for anything with your real email address, but didn't use your real name, try checking out Spokeo to see how transparent you can be, or not be.

 Web Worker Daily has some good thoughts on keeping your personal brand clean and safe in this article.  These steps will help you get a handle on how your are seen on the web.

The benefits of beefing up your online profile are numerous.  If you are a job seeker, they are essential.  Sure, submitting resumes to want ads still pays off occasionally.  But you should spend some of that time carefully crafting a profile online that steers potential employers directly to you.

Start with something easy like LinkedIn and maybe Facebook.    Gear your profiles here to give a full picture of your successes and capabilities.  Think of your target audience as someone for whom you would like to work (wow, proper grammar sounds strange sometimes).  This minimal effort will be a big difference in your favor over another job candidate who is "invisible".

Believe me when I tell you that when a recruiter or hiring manager goes looking for you (or someone like you) while seeking candidates for a job opening, or more info about a specific candidate they are considering for a job, and finds nothing, it's not a good thing.  Although it sounds fun to to be invisible, if you are looking for a job, you want to be as visible as possible.

Ask Kevin Bacon (Hollow Man), Jessica Alba (Invisible Girl), or Daniel Radcliffe (Invisible Cloak); they will likely tell you that it's fun to play at being invisible.  And they all probably wish they could really disappear at times.  But when it comes to being considered for a job they likely want as much positive info available as possible.  They want to be seen and found.  -CF

Labels: branding, careers, jobs, Social Networking

Image by Zach Inglis via Flickr

Employer friendly online profiles should be in your bag of tricks.

Is your online persona a feature rich sales tool or a barren dessert where only cactus might live?  And who wants to hire a cactus?

A recent CareerBuilder.com survey shows us that 22% of hiring managers are checking out job candidates via social networks.  Of those, one-third (34 percent) reported they found content that caused them to dismiss the candidate from consideration.

But 24% said they found content that helped to solidify their decision to hire the candidate.  This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.  The link above has all the details.

But my question is one that is not addressed in this survey.  What do hiring managers and recruiters think about candidates who have no online profile at all?  In my experience,  when an employer is seeking additional info to help make up their mind, no profile is far worse than a good profile.  Obviously a bad online personal brand is worse still.  But no brand at all is a close second.

Think about it.  If someone who has influence on whether you get hired or even considered for a good job has decided to take the extra step of doing some online research, they are far more likely to have a positive reaction to a strong social networking presence that paints you in a good light than to finding that there is no info at all online to help them in their decision.

Those candidates who choose to believe that staying under the radar and not participating in the modern methods of networking and communication are selling themselves short and are risking a negative reaction from nearly a quarter of the hiring managers out there.  If there is even a chance that someone who may hire you someday is on the fence about that decision, then you should take steps now to create a solid online persona for yourself.  It will help in other aspects of your business networking.  And it's fun.  So rev up your profiles, start a blog, get with the program! -CF

Personal Branding Roundup
Alison Doyle - Hiring Managers Are Checking You Out
Ryan Moede - Resources on Personal Branding
Bill Vick - Is Your Career LinkedIn?  and
Ethan Horowitz -  Social Networking Sites Become Vital Tools in Job Searches

Labels: branding, Social Networking, web2.0

I found an interesting discussion thread on TechRepublic surrounding an article by Toni Bowers called Hiring manager: Step away from the Facebook!  about a job candidate who was sent a friend request for Facebook from the corporate recruiter with whom they had just interviewed.

I don't really care one way or another about the recruiter's motivation.  Either they were brilliant and it was a great test to see what the candidate has on their Facebook page, or to see how the candidate would react, or the recruiter was just plain silly.  There is general outrage on the article's thread about how these social networks should remain social.  Only a few clear heads touted the "that's life in the here and now" mantra.

My response was typical:

Labels: branding, careers, Social Networking

Your Brand In a Nutshell (Personal Branding Statement)

Yahoo HotJobs' has a nice piece by Joe Turner of JobChangeSecrets.com on Four Ways to Improve Your Resume.

Number 3 is, you guessed it, your Personal Branding Statement.  Joe suggests a 1 sentence description that shows how you are unique from other applicants.

I would recommend adding your personal branding statement to your LinkedIn profile, your blog, etc.  These are the other places that a good recruiter might find you when performing in a candidate search.

Joe also makes a good point here about keywords in your resume.  Again, the same applies to your LinkedIn profile, etc.  There is more about this in my article on Best Modern Resumes.

Bottom line, great article that any job seeker should read. -CF

Joe Turner

Four Ways to Improve Your Resume

Labels: branding, Resumes

I'm not sure these are actually secrets.  And there isn't much  detail about actually mastering your personal brand in this article.  Probably the author expects to get paid for more details (And why not?).  So these may not be the "top 10 secrets".  But branding expert Brenda Bence has some good points in this article that everyone should keep in mind when crafting a personal Brand. 

Chiefly, decide and remember the nature of your target audience.  And don't fake it. 

I would add that deciding isn't that tricky.  If you are looking for a job, your target audience should be those with whom you would want to work.  If you are looking to expand your business network then your target audience should be prospective clients, etc.  See?  Nothing to it.

The article is also a darn good example of how to work some popular keywords into your text.  Sir Richard Branson, Barack Obama and Suze Orman?  Pretty good personal brands.  -CF

Brenda Bence

The top 10 secrets to mastering your personal brand

One page or two? Functional or Historical? What is the best Brand of Resume for me?

This week Jonathan Schneider, owner of The AFTERLIFE creative design firm, posed a question on LinkedIn asking what is the best format for the modern resume. There were many great answers. But the overriding opinion was that a resume needs to be detailed and historical and you shouldn't worry about how many pages it takes to make it so. This was my answer:

This is a great question. I have been recruiting I.T. pro's, Creatives, and Executives for many years. I tell them all the same thing. The key is in getting the resume in front of the person who will make a hiring decision. So unless you have a personal relationship with that person, someone has to first "find" your resume. That could be the hiring manager, an HR person, or a recruiter.

For most people, submitting your resume to a want ad tends to be kind of a black hole. So your resume has to have enough info to get a decently high search ranking wherever it is posted. Don't have a posted resume? That's okay, LinkedIn ranks very high in search rankings if you have the proper key words worked into your profile.

For the resume proper, 1 page, 2 pages? The answer is put down as much as it takes to get your job history down. Give detailed descriptions for the last 10 or so years, then list the companies and job titles beyond that.

Just putting down the names of the companies and a title for all jobs won't do. When scanning a resume (and that's usually all that happens) the reviewer generally looks for:

1)keywords that apply to the job for which they are hiring
2)job titles
3)specific duties as they apply to the job
4)job history
5)overall tenure

Functional resumes are nice, but won't tell the whole story. Many companies have a specific profile by which they like to hire. You can't get that from a functional resume. Put the functional part up front in your summary and accomplishments. Then list the job history as stated above.

A designed resume is fine. You at least want a resume that looks professional. But many times, the resume that ends up in front of the hiring manager has been stripped of that formatting. If you want to show off your design abilities then list a link to your web site. This is highly recommended for creatives.

Don't tease with only minimal info. But don't list a whole page for one job either. 1 or 2 solid paragraphs and some bullet points is good. Talk of your specific duties. Okay, you were an Art Director. But that means different things in different companies. Were you in charge of photo shoots? Did you do any broadcast work? Do you do hands on design?

You want your resume to serve two purposes. Get you noticed and found, and tell your story. Key words and specifics. Make sure your story is told well and you'll make the cut if you are right for the job.
Hope this helps.

LinkedIn: Answers: More questions and debate on modern résumés.

Labels: branding, Resumes

 
There is a recent article in the NY Times (courtesy of Yahoo) about using social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace) for job hunting.  While it does a great job of discussing the networking benefits, it does not discuss optimizing your personal profiles to best promote your expertise and maximize your exposure to potential employers. 

The benefits of optimizing your social network profiles (your personal brand) are at minimum two-fold. 

• It allows you to showcase your expertise in conjunction with your personality in a way that posting your resume to a job board will not.  Job boards are less and less effective.  And I have always believed that the best way to find a job is through networking.  So take advantage of the platform social networks offer.
• You can aid your current job or business while passively trolling for another one.  Add links to your company, your blog, your other sites.  Links increase your Google search ranking.

On LinkedIn you should have basically your resume in your profile showcasing your jobs and accomplishments for the last 7-9 years.  Make sure you are hitting the highlights.  And provide a solid summary laced with keywords that a recruiter might use to search for someone with your skills.  Ask and answer questions about your industry and show off your knowledge.  This site is all about networking and self-promotion, so be confident and get connected. 

On Facebook you should connect with current and old friends, classmates, former colleagues etc.  This is not a place to show off your resume.  But you can link to your LinkedIn page, your blog, your company, etc.  And it is a solid networking tool.  You can also add info about what you do in a more limited format.

MySpace is most casual.  Really good for keeping up with family and friends.  Also good for adding links back to your other pages.  Remember all this cross-linking improves your search-ability.

On all these sites you must be careful about being too casual about what you say, post, and do.  Think of the personal brand you are putting out there (and believe me, recruiters and HR personnel will find it, private or not).  Whether for the benefit of finding a new job, or promoting your current one, ask yourself, "Would I hire me?"

The-Social-Network-as-a-Career-Safety-Net

Labels: branding, careers, Social Networking