Executive Job Search: Using LinkedIn’s Company Follow is a post from: Executive Career Brand

At the end of April, LinkedIn launched the new “Company Follow” feature, allowing you to stay current with the latest news from your target companies that have posted LinkedIn profiles. With nearly one million companies on LinkedIn, you’re bound to find many of those on your target list.

What’s so great about company follow?

By setting up “follows” for your target companies, you’ll receive email updates on their new developments, business opportunities, and jobs.

According to Ryan Roslansky in his LinkedIn blog post:

“This feature can deliver insights – you may be surprised at – such as the pace of hiring at your nearest competitor or the start of a whole new industry as you see web technology companies hiring geography teachers (for e.g.). Or better yet, you may find the job of a lifetime to do cause marketing for Major League Baseball.”

Additionally, once you follow a company, you and a link to your profile end up on that company’s list of followers. Chances are, people at that company are tracking who is following them. Hiring decision makers may notice you as a follower.

Using those lists of LinkedIn members following your target companies, you can expand your network to include fresh faces who may have similar interests. Check out their profiles, see what they’re about, and look at the LinkedIn Groups they belong to. You may want to join the same ones.

LinkedIn gives you two super simple ways to follow the companies of your choice:

From any company profile page: Click on the “Follow company” link at the very top of the right-hand sidebar.

From any person’s LinkedIn profile: Mouse over a company on a profile and click on the “Follow company” link at the bottom of the pop-up that appears.

Company profile pages also offer a wealth of information, such as:

• A brief company overview
• Current employees who have LinkedIn profiles and the number of them in your network
• New hires
• Former employees
• Recent promotions and changes
• Career path for employees before and after working there
• Key statistics including company size, common job titles and percentage of employees holding those positions, median employee age and tenure, percentage of male versus female employees.
• LinkedIn members following the company

Go to the Company Profiles homepage to find companies to follow. You can also access this homepage through the “More…” tab at the end of the menu along the top of any LinkedIn page (see “Companies” at the top of the drop-down list). LinkedIn even suggests a dozen or so companies you may want to follow.

LinkedIn says the 10 most followed companies are Google, IBM, Microsoft, Apple Inc., Facebook, Keller Williams Realty, Hewlett-Packard, Accenture, L’Oréal, and Cisco Systems.

Related posts:

FREE e-book: Executive Personal Branding and Your LinkedIn Profile

How to Get the Best LinkedIn Recommendations

LinkedIn: Best Tactic for Undercover Executive Job Search

Power Your Executive Personal Brand with LinkedIn Groups

Stalled Executive Job Search? Get Busy on LinkedIn and Twitter

The Roots of Personal Branding is a post from: Executive Career Brand

A friend and colleague Galen Tinder, senior consultant and manager for Ricklin-Echikson Associates, wrote an excellent article, The Promise of Personal Branding, in the August Worldwide ERC (Workforce Mobility Association) Mobility Magazine.

He describes personal branding as “a means by which a person establishes a consciously crafted and public professional presence and status in his or her field and the world at large.”

Describing the historical context of personal branding, he explains its evolution from the convergence of two trends forty years ago:

1. The shattering of “the implicit assumptions of employer-employee loyalty” with the massive layoffs in the 1970’s. Employees could no longer count on lifelong or even long-term employment with one company.

2. The consequent empowering of employees to take responsibility for their careers and re-examine the purpose of work.

The notion emerged that jobs should provide benefits beyond monetary compensation. People also came to expect fulfillment and meaning from their jobs.

“As these two trends entrenched themselves in the developed world, we were convulsed by a communication revolution that is still hurtling forward at a torrid pace and transforming the ways in which human beings communicate with and relate to each other. Technology has multiplied the means and the reach of individual self-expression on every imaginable level and in doing so has given us the tools for personal branding with the touch of a computer ‘on’ button.”

The article covers the how’s and where’s of personal brand development and communication:

• Defining your brand
• Branding four critical career documents
• Social media branding
• Where to begin and stop with branding in the virtual world

Further clarifying, Galen’s social media personal branding basics are essentials to understand and embrace:

1. Consistency

For your brand to thrive, reinforce it by communicating the same value message across all social media and networking channels.

2. Digital dirt

You are being Googled by prospective employers, business partners, customers/clients, and just about anyone who is considering associating with you in some way.

Monitor what they are finding when they Google your name, avoid posting anything that will discredit you, and clean up any existing dirt that you can control.

3. Generosity

Practice “give to get” networking. Be helpful and share your expertise to solidify your brand. “Generosity does more for self-branding than the blinkered pursuit of self-interest.”

4. Authenticity

In the long run, tiresome self-promotion doesn’t work. Instead of branding yourself as “selling”, focus on being authentic and your true character and abilities will be crystal clear.

The article includes plenty of valuable resources, and concludes with Galen’s take on the impact of social media on branding and job search:

“Social media is profoundly democratic. It opens up the world of careers, professions, and job search to anybody who is interested and, pulling us into a maelstrom of information and conversation in which we are both learners and teachers. We are not judged by the number of degrees after our name, the number of books we have published, but by the quality of our contributions and actions.”

Related posts:

10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand

What Personal Branding is NOT

Executive Branding: Personal vs Career Branding

The True Measure of Your Executive Brand

Executive Branding and the New Rules of C-level Job Search is a post from: Executive Career Brand

Have you been thrust into an executive job search and finding that things have changed drastically since the last time you looked for a gig, even if it was only a few years ago?

Suddenly the game plan looks and feels completely different, and no one told you about it. You don’t know what you need to do to get a handle on and accelerate your search – what to do first, what not to do, who to turn to for help, how to best invest your time and funds.

You may be wondering what all the fuss is about personal branding, and if it’s really a requirement for successful executive job search.

I’ve been blogging and sharing my expertise for quite some time regarding c-level executive job search and all its requirements – branding, resumes, career biographies and other career marketing materials, online identity, online reputation management, social media, social networking, etc.

Here is a round-up my best blog posts and articles on the strategies you need to incorporate into your executive job search campaign, from here on Executive Career Brand and my Executive Resume Branding blogsite:

PERSONAL BRANDING

10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand

What Personal Branding is NOT

Executive Branding: Personal vs Career Branding

The True Measure of Your Executive Brand

10 Things to Love About Your Executive Personal Brand

How NOT to Build Your Executive Personal Brand

Health Insurance for Your Personal Brand – The 3 Cs

RESUME, BIOGRAPHY and other CAREER MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Brand Resume in 10 Steps

What NOT To Put in Your C-level Executive Resume

10 Brand-Diluting Phrases That Can Ruin Your Executive Resume

At Executive Resume Branding, The Truth About Professional Executive Resume Writers

At Executive Resume Branding, Thinking of Copying an Executive Resume Sample For Your Own?

How to Write a C-level Executive Career Brand Biography

Why Is It So Hard to Write My Own C-level Career Brand Biography?

Storytelling Propels Executive Branding and Job Search

Cover Letter Debate: Are They Necessary in Executive Job Search?

At Executive Resume Branding, Power Up Your Email Signature With Personal Branding

EXECUTIVE JOB SEARCH

Top 10 Executive Personal Branding and Job Search Trends

16 Deadly Executive Job Search Mistakes

Stalled Executive Job Search? Get Busy on LinkedIn and Twitter

At Executive Resume Branding, 10 Ways You Sabotage Your Executive Job Search

4 Executive Job Search First Steps, Before You Write Your Resume

5 Tactics to Land a Green Industry Executive Job

LINKEDIN

FREE e-Book – Executive Personal Branding and Your LinkedIn Profile

Power Your Executive Personal Brand with LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn: Best Tactic for Undercover Executive Job Search

How to Get the Best LinkedIn Recommendations

At Executive Resume Branding, The 20 Most Common LinkedIn Mistakes

At Executive Resume Branding, Baby Boomer Executives Afraid of LinkedIn and Social Media

At Executive Resume Branding, Q & A With Jason Alba: The Inside Skinny on Using LinkedIn to Accelerate Executive Job Search

YIKES! My LinkedIn Profile is Missing!

NETWORKING

How to Build a Powerful Executive Network

LinkedIn Helps You Find the Right Twitter People to Follow

RECRUITERS

Build Winning Relationships with Executive Recruiters

At Executive Resume Branding, Working With Executive Recruiters: Interview with Recruiter Jeff Lipschultz

At Executive Resume Branding, Advice From an Executive Recruiter on Working With Recruiters

At Executive Resume Branding, In Executive Job Search? Don’t Call a Recruiter, Think Like One

JOB INTERVIEWING

Preparing to Ace the C-level Executive Job Interview

Several posts – Best Executive Job Interviewing Strategies

ONLINE IDENTITY and ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

Does Your Online Identity Scream “Hire Me”?

Maximize Your Executive Brand Online with the 6 P’s

Online Executive Personal Branding: Are You Digitally Distinct?

10 Ways to Build Your Personal Brand Online Without a Blog

At Executive Resume Branding, Google Alerts For Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

Microsoft Study Finds Online Reputation Management Not Optional

SOCIAL MEDIA

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People with Social Media

Social Media: Never on Sunday?

Google Profiles: 10 Steps to a Personal Branding Gem

Does Your ZoomInfo Profile Send the Wrong Personal Brand Message?

VisualCV: The Social Media Executive Resume

BLOGGING

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

Executive Job Search and Blogging: Perfect Together

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

At Executive Resume Branding, Blog Commenting: Build and Brand Your Online Identity and GQ (Google Quotient)

TWITTER

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

10 Ways I Use Twitter to Build My Personal Brand

Does Your Twitter Bio Pack an Executive Brand Punch?

At Executive Resume Branding, Twitter Personal Branding Strategy — The Beauty of a Re-Tweet

Search Executive Jobs With Twitter Lists

At Executive Resume Branding, 5 Ways Twitter-savvy CEOs Build Brand Evangelism

At Executive Resume Branding, 14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter

Choosing the Best Resume Writer is a post from: Executive Career Brand

Alina Dizik recently wrote quite a provocative article for the Wall Street Journal, Hiring a Résumé Writer? Ask These Questions First, that triggered over 25 comments.

Some came from people I know – my colleagues in the careers industry – and some came from people attacking professional resume writers in general, questioning the validity of professional credentialing, and demeaning them for defending our profession in their comments.

Some of the disparaging comments align with what I said in a post last year over at my Executive Resume Branding blogsite, The Truth About Professional Executive Resume Writers.

“We get a lot of bad press.

Lately, I’m seeing a growing number of blog posts and articles warning that professional resume writers are swindlers and resume writing credentials mean nothing. They lambaste us in general and place an arbitrary cap on what you should pay for a resume.

They are distrustful of resume writers and perhaps with good reason. So much misinformation about what we do (or don’t do) is floating around out there by people who make sweeping generalizations about us as a group but don’t really know what we do.”

For the most part, Ms. Dizik’s suggestions are reasonable, I take exception to some:

• It’s a bit much to expect resume writers to come up with (and spend time fictionalizing all identifying information on) specific resume samples at whim for potential clients to assess, beyond those samples we provide on our websites.
• “Previous experience as an executive recruiter or human resources manager” is not necessarily an asset, and certainly doesn’t guarantee a top-notch resume writer and final product.
• The National Résumé Writers Association (NRWA) is not one of two main trade associations for résumé writers. There are at least 3 others.

I list the 4 main associations in my post at Executive Resume Branding, and discuss some of the reasons why collaborating with the best resume writers is a valuable experience.

Related posts:

How to Write An Irresistible C-level Executive Brand Resume in 10 Steps

4 Executive Job Search First Steps, Before You Write Your Resume

Why Is It So Hard to Write My Own C-level Career Brand Biography?

10 Brand-Diluting Phrases That Can Ruin Your Executive Resume

What NOT To Put in Your C-level Executive Resume

10 Ways I Use Twitter to Build My Personal Brand is a post from: Executive Career Brand

Twitter is one of my favorite brand communications tools. The strategies I use are ones I advise my c-level executive clients will also work for their job-hunting and career management efforts.

Here are 10 ways Twitter helps me communicate and build my personal brand:

1.  My Twitter bio contains my relevant keywords and an abbreviated version of my brand statement. See my post, Does Your Twitter Bio Pack an Executive Brand Punch?

2.  My tweets and retweets are consistent with my brand, and reinforce my subject matter expertise and promise of value to potential clients.

3.  I tweet things that will be relevant to my target audience, and include my relevant keywords in tweets when applicable, mixing it up by sometimes using hashtags with the keywords.

4.  I give value to (hopefully) get value by retweeting with attribution to support the tweet originator, sharing helpful information and advice, and engaging in interesting conversation.

5.  I seek out subject matter experts and thought leaders in my industry and niche to follow, learn from, support with retweets, and connect with.

6.  I tweet every blog post I write – on my own blogs and as a guest blogger – and when I’ve commented on a blog post elsewhere or contributed an article to another site.

7.  My two business blogsites (Executive Career Brand and Executive Resume Branding) integrate Twitter with the Tweetmeme button for easy retweeting by readers.

8.  I have Twitter update widgets in the sidebars of both business blogsites and my personal blogsite, MegGuiseppi.com, showing visitors my current Twitter stream.

9.  I use TweetBeep to notify me of Twitter conversations that mention me and my companies, so I can tweet those people a thank you.

10.  I leverage the 3 C’s of personal branding:

• Clarity – Clearly tweeting who I am and what differentiates my value to my target audience.
• Consistency – Consistently tweeting the same brand promise and message.
• Constancy – Tweeting my message regularly – usually several times a day.

Related posts:

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

Twitter Personal Branding Strategy — The Beauty of a Re-Tweet

14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter [Revisited]

Stalled Executive Job Search? Get Busy on LinkedIn and Twitter

C-level Job Search: Blogging? What Am I Going To Write About? is a post from: Executive Career Brand

I encourage my clients to get involved with blogging in some way. Even a focused strategy of regular commenting and guest blogging on relevant blogs can have value and significant impact.

If they like to write (and perhaps have a number of articles or white papers under their belt) and have something to say about their industry and areas of expertise, starting their own blog is a good-fit strategy for their brand communications plan.

Why blogging?

Top-level executives (and other job seekers) are getting on the radar of recruiters and employer’s hiring decision makers, and landing jobs because they blog.

Hiring authorities found them when they were keyword searching online for viable candidates.

Some of these executive job seekers were offered opportunities in the “hidden job market” — positions not posted anywhere — because their blogging demonstrated their subject matter expertise and credibility, and positioned them as a good fit for a company.

Don’t assume that a blog won’t be of benefit unless you post several times a week. You can set up your blog so that posts do not include dates, so no one will know your posting frequency. Or, you can set up your blog to look like a career web portfolio or personal website with no blog stream at all – just pages and perhaps several important articles or white papers.

For both scenarios, you have the ability to publish new blog posts whenever (and if ever) you feel like it.

And your blog posts don’t have to be lengthy manifestos every time you write. In fact, with the busy schedules and short attention spans of most readers, brief posts of, say, 300-400 words (that’s only 3-5 paragraphs!) may be better, with an occasional long one thrown in. Long posts may be better broken up into a series of several short ones.

So how do you come up with good ideas for blog posts that will help advance your brand promise and ROI value to your target employers?

Here are some suggestions:

→ The categories you choose to list on your blogsite (you can always add/subtract later), which should represent relevant keywords and phrases for your industry and niche, will likely prompt blog posts. And you can routinely Google these phrases (in quotes) for research and to see what others are writing about them.

→ Set up Google Alerts (one of my favorite tools) to stay informed of issues impacting your industry and target companies. Some Alerts to set up:

• Names of your target companies and/or those you want to be informed about
• Names of key decision makers in your target companies
• Key word phrases relevant to your niche and target job(s)
• Names of your target companies’ relevant products or services
• Job position(s) and industry you’re seeking.
• Names of subject matter experts and thought leaders in your industry and niche.
• Names of any other people whose radar you want to get on.

→ Subscribe to your target companies’ blogs and those of industry thought leaders and subject matter experts. Do Google, Technorati, and Alltop searches on their names and relevant keyword phrases to find relevant blogs. See what they’re writing about, and blog about the same things.

→ Subscribe to (or just read) industry publications.

→ Peruse the big publications – NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, etc. – for industry news.

→ Re-purpose articles and white papers you’ve written. If they’re too long for one post, break them up into a series of 2, 3 or more.

→ Write a post commenting about someone else’s post. Include the title of their post with a link. Many benefits to this strategy – these are usually fairly quick to write, the blog post author will be very flattered by your support and mention, and your generosity builds community. For even better impact, coincide these kinds of posts by posting a comment on the original blog post.

→ Keep track of good posts by other bloggers you’ve read all week and do a Friday weekly roundup listing 4 or 5 posts with links and include a brief encapsulation. That takes almost no thought or time, and makes a connection with another blogger!

In your posts and post titles, frequently use relevant keyword phrases, and mention people and products of your target companies. Someone at those companies has set up Google Alerts to monitor mentions of these names and products. Recruiters and employer’s hiring decision makers search industry-relevant keyword phrases online and have Google Alerts set for those keyword phrases. These people are very likely to find you.

My related posts:

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

Executive Job Search and Blogging: Perfect Together

From Job-Hunt.org, Build Your Personal Brand Online by Guest Blogging

From Job-Hunt.org, Personal Branding With Blog Comments

Personal Branding By Any Other Name Would . . . is a post from: Executive Career Brand

As branding has mainstreamed, more and more misinformed dissenting voices scream out across Twitter, blogs, and other social media warning us not to fall for it.

In their rush to deride and dismiss branding, they’re confusing the whole concept of branding – digging deep to identify one’s ROI value and differentiating points, and then creating brand messaging and a communications plan designed to resonate with one’s target audience – with the way some people promote and exploit their brands.

Some object to the implication that personal branding is like cattle branding –”People aren’t cattle!”, or they confuse it with product branding – “People are not inanimate products!”

Some think branding is pigeonholing – “I don’t want to be known for only one thing!” – “A personal brand is too limiting!” – “How can I have one brand my whole life?”

Some say personal branding is contrived, self-promotion – people throw together uncharacteristic, lofty statements about themselves that they can never live up to, and spread the word about themselves incessantly. This is certainly true of some people who haven’t done the necessary work and don’t get what branding is really all about.

Walter Akana, a colleague and fellow Reach Personal Branding Strategist, wrote in an excellent recent post:

“Why do people insist on creating this artificial entity that is labeled ‘my brand’ and then proceed to promote it endlessly? And that’s not to mention suffering the endless “me” messages.”

I concurred in my post 14 Reasons I Won’t Follow You On Twitter with my #7 turnoff :

“[I won't follow you if ...] Your tweets consistently pound me with self-promoting blog posts and information. If you have to talk about yourself all the time, you’re probably not that great.”

Would the confusion and disdain cease, and the concept be more readily embraced if it had a different name?

Jason Alba, another colleague and fellow Reach Personal Branding Strategist commented in his recent provocative post:

“I use that term because it’s the most acceptable term, and I think it’s here to stick. I don’t care as much about the term, though, as the concept behind it.

You are known for something. Some people have a personal brand that is ‘on purpose’. That is, they strategically work on it and know how to define it, and help others understand what it is based on what they’ve thought about.”

Although it’s unlikely “personal (or career) branding” will go by another name, what if it was described as a “value proposition message” or “value promise” or your “ROI value differentiation”? Would any of these terms, or something else compelling, draw more people to the concept?

No question that the branding process is a critical first-step in building a career and job search marketing campaign.

In job search, especially at the c-suite and senior executive level, branding is required, not optional.

• Defining their brand helps job seekers understand what sets them apart.
• Knowing their brand helps them communicate their value prop, ROI, and good fit qualities better, network better, and interview better.
• Knowing a job candidate’s brand generates interest from hiring authorities and helps them assess good fit better.

Some of the objections to branding are fueled by the heavily followed, self-professed “personal branding experts” who entice with blog posts on how to make more money, or sell more products, or become a celebrity with personal branding. They mispeak the true value of branding.

When “experts” constantly bombard us with wrong-thinking ideas and self-promotion, it’s no wonder people get the wrong message.

What do you think? Does the problem lie in the name “personal branding” or the misinformation and misunderstandings surrounding it?

Related posts:

What Personal Branding is NOT

10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand

The True Measure of Your Executive Brand

Executive Branding: Personal vs Career Branding

10 Things to Love About Your Executive Personal Brand