Check out the latest addition to Job-Hunt.org‘s list of 12 (and counting) free job search ebooks on topics ranging from personal branding, interviewing, and career reinvention, to salary negotiations, working with recruiters and more.

Tim Tyrell-Smith, creator of the Tim’s Strategy approach to job search and Job-Hunt’s Personal Marketing Expert, authored the newest ebook, “How To Create A Personal Marketing Plan: The 5 Powerful Steps To Bringing Your Brand To Life“.

What is “personal marketing”?  Tim explains:

“It is the work you do once you’ve created a personal brand. You know who you are and, importantly, know how you are different from others wanting to play the same role in the world.

You have to expose your brand and ideas to people in a way that gets them leaning in. Not turning away. So you have to be smart.”

He further notes two universal truths:

1. “Marketing is hard. To do it right, anyway.

2. Marketing takes time. Only in rare cases will your brand become viral overnight (or even over a few months). People who ‘rush in’ are making mistakes. And those mistakes can be costly. Giving you a reputation that’s hard to shake.”

Tim is a wonderfully engaging writer. The ebook is quick to read (only 12 pages) and will give you actionable advice and resources, along with the tools you need to make your promise of value known to the world.

Tim takes you through 5 steps to create and execute your personal marketing plan:

1. Build a Personal Marketing Hub
2. Learn to Engage with People
3. Start Building Social Credibility
4. Inspire Sharing of Your Ideas and Successes
5. Take a Few Calculated Risks

Download the free e-book now. Tim and Job-Hunt welcome you to share it freely with your friends or networks.

Related resources:

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

My free Job-Hunt ebook, Executive Branding and Your LinkedIn Profile: How to Transform Your Executive Brand, Resume, and Career Biography Into a Winning LinkedIn Profile

I was thrilled for Susan P. Joyce, my esteemed colleague and online job search guru, when she told me last month that she was about to purchase Work Coach Cafe, a widely-read and highly respected job search and career hub.

I was even more thrilled when Susan invited me to join her new team of career professionals supporting Work Coach Café, beginning in the new year. 

Ronnie Ann Himmel, who founded the site in 2007, decided to move on to the next stage of her career. She built an amazing community of supportive members and will be sorely missed.

Taking over the reins from Ronnie Ann, Susan summed up her challenge in her introductory blog post last week:

“Ronnie Ann’s are the proverbial “big shoes” to fill, and I will do my best, honoring what Ronnie Ann has created over 5 years of hard work, and, hopefully, continuing to help people with work and job search issues.”

For nearly 15 years, Susan has been the publisher and editor of the top Internet employment portal Job-Hunt.org, named Forbes Best of the Web for Job Hunting and U.S. News & World Report Top Site for Finding Work.

For the past 5 years or so, I’ve been Job-Hunt’s Personal Branding Expert, contributing articles on the various aspects of building and leveraging branding in job search.

I’ve come to know and deeply respect Susan as a friend, and as a job search expert and website owner who is fiercely dedicated to providing job seekers the best and safest resources and advice. She truly cares. You can always trust her to have job seekers’ best interests at heart. And she knows most of the best career professionals in the industry, so you can bet she’ll have quality support on the site, just as she does on Job-Hunt.

On Work Coach Café, you’ll see me responding to comments, and I’ll likely contribute blog posts and assist Susan with various behind-the-scenes activities. The new team’s mission is to continue Ronnie Ann’s legacy of providing job seekers a safe place to fall in the daunting new world of job search and work.

Come visit us at Work Coach Café and subscribe to receive the latest blog posts. Lots of good things will be happening!

So you’re suddenly in an executive job search or planning one – by choice or by circumstance.

Things look different out there than they did the last time you were seeking a new opportunity, don’t they?

If you’re just starting out or, if your job search is lumbering on and you’re getting few or no interviews or action, you may not know how to job search well.

Or you may be lazy – thinking that if you put out a few feelers and get your updated resume onto plenty of job boards, you can sit back and wait for interviews to roll in. That makes you a passive or REACTIVE job seeker, instead of the PROACTIVE one you need to be.

Or you may be misinformed – putting most of your efforts into job search strategies that yield the lowest return on your time invested. You’re ready to put in the time and do whatever is necessary, but you don’t really know what you’re doing.

You’re a lazy, or misinformed, job seeker if you:

1. Skip over step one – identifying the kind of job you want, targeting the companies that will be a mutual good fit, and researching their current challenges to find out how you can help them solve their problems.

2. Run straight for your old resume (if you can find it) and update it – without first defining your executive brand, and creating content designed to market your ROI and resonate with your target employers.

3. Focus most of your time on job boards – the “monsters” and smaller niche boards. You think that job search in the digital age means hitting the job boards hard because that’s where all the job are. You don’t understand that most jobs are found by penetrating the “hidden” job market.

4. Fear having an online presence and putting yourself “out there” with social networking and social media. You don’t understand that executive recruiters and the hiring decision makers at your target companies are on LinkedIn and other social networks. If they’re hanging out there looking for candidates like you, you should be, too.

Get started with LinkedIn. If you do nothing else with social media, you need to be there, leveraging all that this social network has to offer, just to keep pace with your job-seeking competitors. See my LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search.

5. Neglected your network while you had a job because you didn’t think you needed them any more. Now that you’re looking again, you don’t have the time or inclination to re-connect. It’s too much work! You don’t understand that the way to get at those hidden jobs – where most opportunities lie – is through purposeful networking.

6. Haven’t researched what executive job search is all about today, so you can prepare and do all the back end work, before jumping in.

Are you a lazy or misinformed job seeker?

To get all the inside skinny on landing an executive job in today’s job market, see my post Today’s Executive Job Search Toolkit.

Related posts:

Bullet-Proof Your Executive Career in the New World of Work

5 Key Elements of a Strong Online Personal Brand

Social Media ROI: Is It Worth the Time?

photo by suvodeb

If you’re like many people, January is the time to make – and stick to – resolutions that will improve your life in some way.

While you’re working on those resolutions, why not also take stock of your personal brand and brand messaging, to be sure they’re aligned with your career plans for this year.

Times being what they are, you never know when a new job opportunity, a possible career change, or even a layoff may come your way.

Maybe it’s time to re-brand. Ponder these questions:

• What’s my brand reputation about these days?
• Have I become the “go to” person for a new area of expertise?
• What is my promise of value in the marketplace?
• What ROI do I offer potential new employers?

Step one with any career branding work is identifying which employers (or which kind of employers) you will target.

If you’re happy in the kind of work you’re doing now, and would want to continue in the same vein, then you probably know quite a bit about your target audience.

If you’re ready for a change, it’s time to do some research and plan a new career path.

An essential piece in both the re-branding process and job search strategy is looking at your recent career accomplishments and contributions.

What did you do for your employer(s) last year that most benefitted them?

Think about the things you did that positively impacted your company or organization – saving money, increasing profits and market share, improving processes and/or productivity, expanding service offerings, improving communications, turning around failing processes/operations, etc.

How will those contributions impact your promise of value to your target employers?

If you weren’t keeping track over the past year, get to work cataloging them now, while you can still recall them.

Here are some things that could be important:

• Joining new professional associations and/or contributing to existing ones
• Publishing articles, white papers, blog posts
• Getting a promotion
• Overcoming challenges you and the company faced. What were the results that benefitted the company?
• Suggesting initiatives to make the company “greener”
• Negotiating a lucrative new contract
• Sourcing a cost-saving new vendor
• Introducing new best practices
• Being part of the recruiting and hiring process
• Being a mentor and helping others progress in their careers
• Earning certifications or awards
• Reaching a career milestone
• Connecting with new people who brought in business for your employer
• Completing special training or gaining any relevant new skills
• Taking advantage of professional development – seminars, webinars, attending conferences
• Volunteering in your community

What should you do with all this new information?

• Update your resume and career biography, so they’re at-the-ready if you’re suddenly laid off and find yourself job hunting.
• Consider adding new career marketing documents to your career portfolio, such as an Achievement Summary, Performance Milestones, Leadership Initiatives Brief, Case Studies Profile. Name the document to fit the content.
• Update your LinkedIn and other online profiles.
• Revamp your brand statement to keep it relevant and make it resonate with your new target employers.

I know this is a lot of work to do. You’ll be thankful you’ve done it, if you find yourself suddenly in a job search.

Another major benefit to you. Reminding yourself of your valuable contributions and personal achievements is a HUGE ego boost. Something we all need from time to time.

Related posts:

Bullet-Proof Your Executive Career in the New World of Work

Get Personal With Your Executive Brand Statement

10 Things to Love About Your Executive Brand

(An edited version of this article was originally posted on Quintessential Careers as part of the fourth annual Job Action Day initiative, celebrated this year on November 7.)

Finding a job and staying employed today – two separate challenges – require more effort and strategic planning than ever before.

Maybe you think that finding a job in the digital age means posting your resume to as many job boards as possible, then sitting back and waiting for the interview offers to come flooding in.

If that’s how you spend most of your job search time, you’re setting yourself up for failure, and building a false sense that you’re working hard on finding a job.

The fact is, most jobs are not posted on job boards. The majority of jobs that are filled are not advertised anywhere and not posted on a job board. Yet, most job seekers only pay attention to that small percentage of jobs that are advertised and visible.

Launching a targeted personal marketing campaign, with purposeful networking to uncover the goldmine of “hidden jobs”, and strategically positioning yourself, leads you into the huge pool of unadvertised jobs.

What is the hidden job market?

• Positions created to accommodate specific candidates, once they connected with and spoke with companies’ hiring decision makers.
• Existing positions that open up when an incumbent is replaced with someone better.
• An open position that isn’t advertised outside the company. Only insiders know about it.
• Jobs that, for whatever reason, are not advertised or visible, and can only be uncovered and accessed through networking.

But understanding where to find jobs won’t bullet-proof your career. Understanding how to stay employed will.

Gone are the days, for the most part, when you could expect long term employment (5-7 years or more) with the same company. Employer loyalty rarely exists these days. No job is permanent and everyone should expect to be in perpetual passive job search.

Savvy careerists continuously market themselves, always anticipating job transition. Career situations can change at any time, and everyone must be prepared.

Flexibility is key. Some viable strategies include temp to perm and portfolio careers (multiple part-time jobs or consecutive short term consulting positions, including temporary jobs, freelancing, and self-employment). Creating income security, instead of job security, is the new wave.

As Quintessential Careers’ Randall S. Hansen said:

“Portfolio careers are usually built around a collection of skills and interests, though the only consistent theme is one of career self-management. With a portfolio career you no longer have one job, one employer, but multiple jobs and employers within one or more professions.”

What many job seekers today don’t understand is that staying employed is very much like running a business. You need to think of yourself as the CEO of your own start-up company – BRAND YOU – and continuously market, network and strategically position yourself, just as a business does.

To insure you’re ready for the many inevitable shifts and moves your career is likely to make over your work life, you need to change your approach, whether or not you’re currently facing a job search.

Dive in right now, with this checklist:

1. Define your personal (or career) brand.

Personal branding is a method to uncover and differentiate the personal attributes and hard strengths you possess that outdistance your competition for good-fit jobs with your target industry and employers. Branding is no longer optional. Employers want to see hard skills linked to your softer ones – indicating who you are, what you’re like to work with and how your strengths and expertise will translate to $$$ for them.

I’ve written a 10-step personal branding worksheet that will help you.

2. Get your resume, biography and other career documents together as the foundation for all your personal marketing (or Brand You) communications.

Gone are the days when all you needed to land a job was a one-size-fits-all resume outlining your comprehensive skill sets and qualifications. These days, you need to first have a clear career target so that you can build your career marketing documents around content and messaging that showcase your ROI (Return on Investment) and resonate with a specific audience.

3. Move your Brand You communications online with LinkedIn and other social media.

Being on LinkedIn and having a strong online presence are also not optional. You may not feel comfortable putting yourself out there, but without an online identity, you may be completely invisible to recruiters and hiring decision makers who source and assess candidates through LinkedIn and other search engines. Transform your portfolio of career documents into a LinkedIn profile that’s a magnet for these people.

Beyond LinkedIn, build a diverse online footprint across multiple channels, monitor it regularly for “digital dirt” or incorrect information, and make adjustments when possible. Show that you’re social media savvy by networking through LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and others.

4. Keep your network alive . . . always!

A vibrant, far-reaching network is career insurance. Your real-life and social networks need to be ever-primed for you to tap into for new opportunities, introductions and hot leads, and help you penetrate the hidden job market. You need to practice “give to get” networking, being there for your network, so that they’ll be willing to reciprocate.

Put your online and offline brand communications to work in all your networking efforts.

5. Improve or add relevant skills and stay educated.

Job seekers with up-to-date skills are much more attractive than those who haven’t kept up. This means learning industry-relevant skills as well as the new social media skills.

6. Work on developing a back-up or side career.

Think additional income stream to supplement your “real” job and possibly pump up to full-time, if you lose your real job.

A beloved hobby or favorite past time could become a money-maker. Maybe you’re handy around the house and can hire yourself out to help people with their “honey-do” lists, or odd jobs. Maybe you’d go for a part-time job in retail, healthcare, restaurant or business services.

Other options could include teaching or substitute teaching, consulting or contract assignments, and home-based work or telecommuting work that could include technology, sales, office support, bookkeeping, personal services, etc.

Now you’ve done the backend work and you’re ready for the inevitable. When you’re laid off, forced into another job search or choose to transition:

7. Get clear on what kind of job you want, who your good-fit target employers are, what their needs are right now, how you can help them and who their key hiring decision makers are.

8. Work on circumventing the gatekeepers at your target companies and connecting directly with the key hiring decision makers, where they hang out online and offline.

9. Cultivate relationships with several executive recruiters who specialize in your niche.

10. Prepare to brand and “own” your job interviews.

Related posts:

Today’s Executive Job Search Toolkit

How to Build a Powerful Executive Network

LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search

I love blogging – running with the germ of an idea, the writing itself, the research (when necessary), recalling older posts to refer to, even the actual mechanics of loading on the content, finding a graphic and hitting the “publish” button. There’s more geek in me than I ever realized until I started blogging and learning about SEO.

Although my ongoing blogging strategy is to focus content on my 14 blog categories (listed in the sidebar directly to your right here), I still run out of ideas that make me want to actually sit down and write.

One thing that keeps blogging interesting is getting pumped by something I read and building my own blog post around it. The inspiration can come from a news or business site, a magazine article, a book I’m reading, or many other things. Sometimes content I read on other sites prompts a nifty blog post title first, then the content all falls into place.

But maybe my favorite inspirations are other bloggers’ posts, or other bloggers themselves.

I like to showcase or link to their work, and I do it often. Over the past year, I designated separate posts to some of my favorite job search bloggers. You can see the list in my post about blogger Jason Alba of Jibber Jobber.

Jason returned the favor with a post on his blog showcasing me, Has the Job Search Changed?

Here’s why I love this strategy so much:

Of the millions of people actively blogging out there, there are so many people doing such a good job of posting content that is meaningful and worth reading. I typically only zero in on people writing about job search, personal branding and related topics, but I wander away from that, too.

In business networking, reciprocity is critical. If you want people to support you and evangelize your brand, you first (usually) have to get on their radar, support them and evangelize their brand.

Writing about another blogger or their writing builds community and encourages mutual brand evangelism.

The beauty part about writing a blog post that mentions and links to another blogger’s site or their content elsewhere is the satisfaction I derive from doing something nice for someone I admire and respect. It makes me happy. It makes them VERY happy to be singled out and spotlighted in this way.

Many colleagues in the careers and other industries have been kind enough to mention me in their blog posts. I can tell you that it not only made my day … It made my week. The goodwill you create with this simple strategy goes a long, long way. And, when I get writer’s block, this is a relatively easy kind of post to write.

If you’re on Twitter (and you really have to be if you’re blogging), don’t forget to send an @mention or direct message to that person to let them know you’ve written about them. They’ll be happy to support you with a retweet. Who knows? Your post could go viral and generate lots of traffic to your site.

Make someone’s day, or even week. Give this strategy a try.

Related posts:

You’re a C-level Executive Job Seeker and You’re NOT Blogging?

C-level Job Search: Blogging? What Am I Going To Write About?

Blogging and Twitter: How Tweet It Is!

photo by Sean MacEntee

If you think that HAVING a photo on your LinkedIn profile (and elsewhere online) may red-flag you for discrimination – age, weight, ethnic background, etc. – think about this.

NOT having a photo can be a red flag, too.

Discussions persist over whether including your photo can cause people to discriminate against you. My c-level executive clients – typically over 50 years of age – are understandably worried that they’ll suffer from age discrimination. You can minimize the age issue by not including earlier career history in the “Experience” section, but a photo could well show age.

Your reasoning for not including a photo may be that you hesitate “putting yourself out there” so visibly. Although you know that for executive job search and networking, you have to be on LinkedIn, you resisted putting up a profile in the first place.

You didn’t really want to have an online presence at all, but you slapped up a LinkedIn profile because you felt you had no choice. But you feel that adding a photo will make you way too visible online.

You may have good reason not to include a photo, but I encourage you to include one. The benefits far outweigh the pitfalls.

Think about the recruiters and hiring decision makers at your target companies who click through to your LinkedIn profile. The first thing they’ll notice is your photo . . . or lack of one. If you have no photo, their initial thought will likely be “What is this person trying to hide?”

One of the strategies you should be using with your LinkedIn profile is branding yourself to differentiate the qualifications and qualities you possess from your competitors. Branding is also about creating emotional connections.

People connect easier and believe content more when it’s accompanied by the author’s photo. They’re more likely to reach out to someone when they can “see” the person. Your photo helps to personalize and humanize your brand-driven content.

Why NOT having a LinkedIn photo is NOT a good idea:

• You can be perceived as not understanding how to use LinkedIn. It can make you seem out-of-touch with current technology and trends. You can appear to be technically incapable of loading on a photo.
• “Fake” LinkedIn profiles do exist. Those without photos may be perceived as not belonging to real people.
• Lack of a photo keeps your profile from being 100% complete, according to LinkedIn’s criteria. Profiles that ARE 100% complete are more likely to show up higher in search results, giving them an advantage over “incomplete” profiles.
• LinkedIn research indicates that profiles with pictures are seven times as likely to be viewed as those without.

Choose your LinkedIn photo wisely. This is the first thing people are likely to see when they open your LinkedIn profile. Select an appealing photo that strikes the right image and professional tone for your industry and niche.

Remember that your LinkedIn photo isn’t only visible when people click through to your profile. It also shows up with all of your status updates, group discussion comments, contributions to LinkedIn Answers — any of your activity on the site — so make it be a positive reflection of you.

Related posts:

LinkedIn Guide for Executive Branding and Job Search

My free e-book: Executive Branding and Your LinkedIn Profile: How to Transform Your Executive Brand, Resume, and Career Biography Into a Winning LinkedIn Profile

LinkedIn: Best Tactic for Undercover Executive Job Search

29 Biggest LinkedIn Mistakes

photo by nan palmero