Executive Career Brand » Executive Career Management

Best Kept Secret to Optimize Your LinkedIn Profile

Meg Guiseppi — Mon, 20 May 2013 14:33:28 +0000

Executive recruiters and hiring decision makers at your target companies search LinkedIn using relevant keywords to locate good-fit candidates.

Your LinkedIn profile offers several choice locations to insert the right keywords to help elevate your search rankings – or Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – and the likelihood you’ll be found and considered by them.

The professional headline and summary section are two prime examples.

But there’s another powerful, and often overlooked, above-the-fold spot to add in a keyword phrase.

Your LinkedIn profile URL.

Take a look at your existing profile URL. To find it, go to “Edit Profile” under “Profile” in the drop-down menu across the top of your profile. Just below your name, headline and profile photo (if you’ve posted one), you’ll see your LinkedIn URL.

Is it a mishmash of letters and numbers like this?

www.linkedin.com/in/john-smith/5/224a/123/

If you have a common name, such as “John Smith”, that is the kind of default URL LinkedIn will assign to you, to distinguish you from all the other John Smiths.

With 200+ million users on LinkedIn, unless you have an UNcommon name, you’re NOT likely to capture the following URL:

www.linkedin.com/in/yourname

But see if such a URL is available.

If not, another option is changing your URL to include “yourname” with an appropriate short keyword phrase, such as the following:

www.linkedin.com/in/johnsmithbiotechexecutive

This not only distinguishes you from others with your name, but also helps boost your keyword recognition in LinkedIn searches – as well as on Google, Bing and other search engines.

Here’s how to personalize and optimize your LinkedIn URL:

Still in “Edit Profile” mode, click on the blue “Edit” link next to your existing LinkedIn URL.
Scroll down a bit and look for a graphic box in the right-hand sidebar that says “Your public profile URL”.
Under “Your current URL”, click on “Customize your public profile URL” to make the change. You’re allowed up to 30 characters for the URL.

Once you’ve changed the URL, don’t forget to go back and change it wherever you’ve used the old one, such as:

Your email signature
Your digital resume and/or other digital career documents
Your Google+ profile and other online profiles
Your social networking sites.
Your website and/or web pages.
Your LinkedIn badge, created for your website and/or web pages.

Disclaimer: At this writing, after searching LinkedIn’s Help Center, I found nothing to suggest LinkedIn won’t allow customizing your profile URL in this way. But there’s no guarantee this won’t change.

Related posts:

29 Biggest LinkedIn Mistakes

How To Write a LinkedIn Invitation to Connect

Best LinkedIn Tips: Find LinkedIn Groups to Join

photo by Steven Depolo

10 Blogs for Job Search, Personal Branding and Career Help

Meg Guiseppi — Mon, 06 May 2013 14:26:41 +0000

Prompted by the theme for this month’s Career Development Carnival, a showcase of the best blog posts from career experts, I’ve compiled a short list of excellent blogs and websites for job seekers and careerists.

By no means the only ones I read regularly – and not necessarily my top 10 favorites – the following sites are ones I come back to frequently and always find value in reading. I hope you do, too.

I often tweet these blogs, and they also inspire many of the blog posts I write.

There are actually 12 in my list. Two of my favorite writers run two sites.

Not only focused on job search, careers and personal branding, the sites I’ve chosen also speak to marketing, social media, leadership, technology and personal development.

In no particular order, other than starting with the blogs/sites of a few colleagues of mine, here’s my list:

1. Susan P. Joyce’s Job-Hunt.org and Work Coach Cafe

2. Hannah Morgan’s Career Sherpa

3. Jason Alba’s I’m On LinkedIn – Now What??? and JibberJobber Blog

4. Drew McLellan’s Drew’s Marketing Minute

5. Forbes Work in Progress – Career talk for women

6. Wall Street Journal’s At Work Blog

7. Harvard Business Review Blog

8. Marketing Profs Daily Fix

9. Social Media Today

10. LinkedIn Blog

To find out which blogs other career professionals suggest you read, check out this month’s Career Development Carnival on Lynn Dessert’s blogsite, Elephants At Work, the week of May 13th.

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graphic by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com

Who is an Executive?

Meg Guiseppi — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:26:11 +0000

This may seem like an odd question for me to pose, and to write a blog post about.

But apparently there’s confusion on the part of some executive job seekers as to whether they’re actually “executives”.

Here’s something that happens to me all the time.

Job seekers at the Director, Executive Vice President or even General Manager level (clearly executives by most any definition) will reach out to me to see if I’d consider working with them, even though they’re “not yet at the executive level”.

I’m baffled every time.

Unless the definition of executive has shifted over the years, for all my 20 or so years as a job search professional, I’ve considered someone to be an executive when they manage others and have decision-making authority.

This doesn’t necessarily mean being “a suit”. Even some CEOs (unquestionably executives) don’t wear suits.

Dictionary.com lists its first definition of the noun “executive” as:

“A person or group of persons having administrative or supervisory authority in an organization.”

The late Peter F. Drucker’s seminal book on management, The Effective Executive (1967), was quoted in Fast Company’s article last year, Who Is an Executive?

“I have called “executives” those knowledge works, managers, or individual professionals who are expected by virtue of their position or their knowledge to make decisions in the normal course of their work that have impact on the performance and results of the whole.

What few yet realize, however is how many people there are even in the most humdrum organization of today, whether business or government agency, research lab or hospital, who have to make decisions. For the authority of knowledge is surely as legitimate as the authority of position. These decisions, moreover, are of the same kind as the decision of top management.

The most subordinate, we now know, may do the same kind of work as the president of the company or the administrator of the government agency, that is, plan, organize, integrate, motivate, and measure. His compass may be quite limited, but within his sphere, he is an executive.”

What do you think?

When does someone who has been contributing for several years and adding value to a company or organization get to call herself an “executive”?

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photo by Horia Varlan

Personal Branding and Executive Job Search Book — Second Edition

Meg Guiseppi — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 13:30:11 +0000

I’ve just completed the second edition of my ebook,

23 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search and How Your Brand Will Help You Land . . . A practical guide to executive branding, marketing your ROI value and navigating the new world of job search.

Updates to the content reflect the ever-changing nature of social media and job search in the digital age.

I paid particular attention to the two chapters on LinkedIn. (The colloquial chapter titles in the book are things clients have actually said to me or asked me.):

“I set up a LinkedIn profile a while ago, but I never finished it or did anything with LinkedIn.”
“How will recruiters and employers find me on LinkedIn?”

If you can find time to use only one social network, it has to be LinkedIn.

LinkedIn and most other social networks have gone through major changes since I wrote the first edition of the book in 2011. To improve the user experience, they periodically tweak existing features and functionality, and roll out new features, while eliminating others.

Want to get a handle on social networking and how to land a job in the new world of executive job search?

Click here to read about, purchase and immediately download 23 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search and How Your Brand Will Help You Land.

The New C-suite Jobs

Meg Guiseppi — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:49:35 +0000

The digital age, the new economy and the new world of work are ushering in a new wave of c-suite roles.

Some sound silly and overly touchy-feely:

Chief Listener
Chief People Officer
Chief Happiness Officer

But these, and others, are emerging and may be here to stay.

Or at least until the next best thing comes along, in response to future corporate and workplace needs.

Signaling the new trend, in February LinkedIn Jobs ran this listing:

Chief Human Resource Officer- A new “C” suite role Job at An Architectural Engineering Consulting Firm

Last year in The Atlantic, Deepak Advani, IBM’s VP of Business Analytics Products, suggested the need for a Chief Analytics Officer (CAO), to lead a consolidated center for analytics:

“A big advantage of having a centralized analytics group is that it can ensure that the enterprise is operating from a standardized set of reports, dashboards, and models, which can drive greater alignment and faster decision-making across the enterprise.”

Geoffrey Colon, VP of Social@Ogilvy, noted in an article in The Futurist last summer:

“New job title creation happens every few years as technological shifts force changes in work functions.”

He anticipated the following new roles will shake up the C-suite:

Earned Media Officer – S/he will push earned media impressions and engagement, exploiting the fact that earned media is the dominant marketing model moving forward.

Chief Content Officer – Working closely with community managers, s/he will embrace established and emerging social media when publishing content for the brands they manage across all channels.

Open-Source Manager – S/he will work internally and externally with open-source talent to share best practices and find the best solutions.

Chief Linguist – S/he will stay on top of the latest social media lingo and shorthand expressions, to best communicate with the company’s customers.

Chief Data Scientist – S/he will replace the chief marketing officer or the chief digital officer, both of whom typically lack the analytical skill to understand how to manage the emergence of big data.

In a Forbes article early last year, C Is For Silly: The New C-Suite Titles, Jeanne Goudreau noted that some top organizations have already embraced the trend for new titles at the top executive level:

Kodak and Dell — Chief Listener
Facebook — Chief Privacy Officer
Coca-Cola — Chief Administrative Officer, Chief Sustainability Officer, Chief Scientific and Regulatory Officer, and Chief Quality and Product Integrity Officer
Microsoft — Chief People Officer
IBM — Chief Information Officer
Xerox — Chief Strategy Officer
New York City — Chief Digital Officer

The article included a photo slide show of six other new c-suite titles now in circulation:

Chief Internet Evangelist
Chief Happiness Officer
Chief Knowledge Officer
Chief Customer Officer
Chief Innovation Officer
Chief Observance Officer

In the same article, Peter Cappelli, a University of Pennsylvania management professor, said:

“Big companies are more likely to take these titles “seriously” with resources and infrastructure, but small businesses may have more leniency and ability to be creative.”

I’m a CMO But I Need Help Writing My Executive Resume

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photo by TooFarNorth

7 Things Successful Executive Job Seekers Know

Meg Guiseppi — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 13:44:57 +0000

Job search for executives — and the c-suite, in particular — doesn’t look or work the way it did even a few years ago.

Steep competition and the digital age have made an impact.

Whether you’re getting ready for a career move or stuck in a protracted, daunting job search, getting on the right track is critical.

Want to know what those who land faster these days know?

1. Writing your executive resume is NOT step one.

The biggest mistake executive job seekers make is writing their resume with no clear career targeting. That is, not determining at the start of their job search which companies offer them a good mutual fit.

Think about it. The purpose of a resume is to qualify you as a potential candidate – both in personal character and in skill sets – and to make people reading about you feel compelled to want to meet you and learn more.

Recruiters and hiring decision makers assessing you through your resume (or LinkedIn profile and other career marketing materials) don’t have time to sift through irrelevant information. They need to quickly and clearly see your ROI value to their company.

How can you write about what makes you a good fit for a company, if you haven’t chosen target companies, don’t know what challenges they’re facing right now, and can’t align your qualifications with their pressing needs?

Step one in executive job search is targeting several companies and researching what you can do for them right now to meet their needs.

2. Relying entirely on executive recruiters limits your possibilities.

Yes, you should source and work with several recruiters in your niche, and position yourself online to be found by them when they’re sourcing candidates. They may be recruiting for your target companies or know about opportunities that will be a good fit for you.

But remember that recruiters work for the client companies that pay them, not job seekers. They don’t match opportunities to your qualifications. They match job seekers to job opportunities.

3. Branding helps you land.

By digging deep and defining your unique combination of key personal attributes, passions, strengths, talents and values, personal branding helps you communicate your good fit BEYOND your target employers’ requisite qualifications.

These days employers have their pick of the cream of the c-suite crop. So many others like you are likely to fit their requirements down the line. Communicating only how you offer the same, full range of expertise as everyone else doesn’t distinguish you and give you an advantage.

Sameness doesn’t sell you. Differentiating the value you offer OVER your competitors is an imperative in today’s job search. Branding helps you differentiate yourself.

Branding also helps you communicate your good-fit qualities for your target companies, when you network and interview.

4. LinkedIn, social networking, social media and online presence are no longer optional.

To be part of today’s global marketplace, you need to be at least somewhat active with social media. Being social media savvy can be a qualifying skill set.

Recruiters and hiring decision makers at your target companies use social media to connect with their network and source candidates. They’re hanging out on sites like LinkedIn (most especially), Twitter and Facebook. If you’re not there, you may not connect with them. And your activity on social media provides them social proof that you are who you say you are.

You are being Googled by people assessing your fit as a candidate. If there are little to no search results when “your name” is searched, you may be passed over in favor of those with a stronger online footprint. Job search success means showing up . . . on Google. You need to be visible online to be found.

Work on creating a realistic social media routine, that includes regularly self-Googling, to monitor the search results the world is finding for “your name”.

5. Job boards are mostly a waste of time. Networking gets the job.

Trolling the job boards, and posting your resume to as many as possible is not a very successful job search tactic. It’s estimated that fewer than 5% of job seekers land jobs through the job boards. Networking lands something like 80% of executive jobs.

Networking to connect with hiring decision makers at your target companies, leads you into the hidden job market:

Jobs created to accommodate specific candidates, once they connected with and had dialog with companies’ hiring decision makers.
Existing positions in which an incumbent is replaced when someone better comes along.
An open slot, waiting to be filled, that isn’t advertised outside the company. Only internal people know about it.
Jobs that, for whatever reason, are not advertised or visible, and can only be uncovered and accessed through networking.

6. Treat your job search like you’re running a company of one.

Whether or not you actually set up a consulting business to hire yourself out — which may be a great option for you — your job search is a full time sales and marketing job for BRAND YOU.

You need to create a solid game plan to promote your business (that is, BRAND YOU) in the digital age, and hold yourself accountable to carry out daily goals. Part of your job, in finding a job, is to learn about the new job search itself, so you’re prepared to understand all that needs to be done.

7. Avoid employment gaps by volunteering.

Executive job search at the c-level can take a long time. Close gaps in your resume by showing that you’ve been actively engaged in relevant work. Work is work . . . whether or not you’re paid for it.

Make it a habit careerlong to stay involved with your favorite non-profits and charities, providing support in your areas of expertise. Everyone wins!

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photo by StockMonkeys.com

Social Proof: Where Online Presence Meets Personal Branding

Meg Guiseppi — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 17:51:43 +0000

In executive job search, social media and social networking matter.

Are you an executive job seeker who resists having an online presence?

Maybe you’re concerned about privacy issues.

Maybe you just don’t want to put information about yourself “out there“.

Unfortunately, perhaps, the days when you could hide your head in the sand are over.

Did you know that an estimated 90% of employers used social networks and social media – known as “social recruiting“ – to find, assess and validate talent in 2012?

Executive recruiters and hiring decision makers seek “social proof” to confirm you are who you say you are, and to learn more about you.

Social proof – your social media activity and the information that resides online about you – is a personal marketing strategy that lends credibility to the claims you’ve made about yourself verbally, and in your executive resume and other career materials.

Hiring professionals know that job seekers are less likely to fudge or exaggerate in their LinkedIn profile (and other online profiles) than they are in their paper or digital career documents (resume, biography, cover letters, etc.).

We all hesitate, and rightly so, to post anything online, for all the world to scrutinize, that is less than true, and can be outed by colleagues, employers or others who know better.

People assessing you as a job candidate will turn to the Internet, and Google “your name” to find supporting evidence that corroborates your personal brand and your career claims.

They want to find plenty of relevant, diverse search results for you to help them determine your good fit. The more on-brand results they find that align with their needs, the more persuasive your candidacy is to them.

Be aware that discrepancies between the documents you provide employers and what they find about you online can red-flag your candidacy.

Having a vibrant, far-reaching online presence is no longer optional.

Social proof helps position you as a good-fit hiring choice and as an up-to-date social media-savvy executive who knows how to operate in the digital age.

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photo by DonkeyHotey