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

Don’t Take a Summer Vacation From Executive Job Search is a post from: Executive Career Brand

Although you may think it’s perfectly fine to take the Summer off, because you mistakenly assume no one is hiring, you may be missing out on the perfect time to position yourself for your next gig, before competition spikes with the mad rush in the Fall.

Now is the time to get your foot in the door, while others are out catching waves and trying to forget about job search.

According to Online Job Search Expert Susan P. Joyce, Publisher of Forbes top-rated Internet employment portal, Job-Hunt.org, the two biggest times job seekers slack off are the holiday season (between Thanksgiving and Christmas) and during the Summer (especially July and August).

In her blog post Summertime: A GREAT Time to Job Hunt!, Susan advises

“If you think of your job search as a sales process, and you really should, one of the best times to try to make a sale is when the competition is the least intense.”

Recruiters and hiring authorities are not “out of the office” over the Summer. They have jobs to fill and they’re sourcing good-fit candidates to slide into them.

You’ll stand out more, with less competition, if you’re networking and connecting with them now, and if your online presence and activities capture their attention.

Stay focused by setting daily agendas, reviewing goals, and moving forward each day. But reward yourself, too. Once you’ve met your agenda each day, take the rest of the day off and take time to recharge. Give yourself permission to take weekends off from everything job search related.

Several posts to help you get moving on networking and positioning yourself in front of key hiring decision makers:

Build Winning Relationships with Executive Recruiters

How to Build a Powerful Executive Network

16 Deadly Executive Job Search Mistakes

Does Your Online Identity Scream “Hire Me”?

Power Your Executive Personal Brand with LinkedIn Groups

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

How to Get the Best LinkedIn Recommendations is a post from: Executive Career Brand

Why are LinkedIn recommendations so important?

The true measure of your executive brand and promise of value to future employers is reflected in what those who know your work the best – co-workers, peers, top management, team members, customers, etc. – have to say about you.

Executive recruiters and hiring authorities routinely source talent through LinkedIn search. They’re attracted to candidates who have quality recommendations on their profiles. If you have no recommendations, they may question the value you offer and skip over you.

And, at least 3 recommendations are required (among other criteria) before LinkedIn considers your profile 100% complete, giving your profile a much better chance of landing high in LinkedIn searches.

Best tip to get the best recommendations?

Write good recommendations to get good recommendations. Two bonuses when you use this strategy:

1. Your recommendations of others include a link to your profile, extending your footprint on LinkedIn. Hiring authorities checking out the person you recommended will click over to your profile if you are someone of interest to them.

2. Recommendations that you write and the ones written for you show up in network updates for you and for the people you recommended, keeping your brand top of mind with both networks. 

A few cautions:

Only ask for recommendations from people who will give you a good recommendation. Don’t strive for quantity over quality.

Only give recommendations to people you can honestly praise. Social media authority Chris Brogan noted in his recent post on LinkedIn Recommendation Tips:

“I’ll say this once: if you recommend someone and can’t really vouch for their work, you’re just setting your own reputation up for a blow. Don’t do it . . . I’ll never recommend someone whose work I don’t know enough about.”

Avoid obviously contrived recommendations, ones that look like they were written just for the sake of reciprocating (“I’ll write one for you, if you write one for me.”). They will probably backfire. Recruiters are good at sniffing these out, and they can harm you and diminish your value.

Don’t demand a reciprocal recommendation.

Give the same kinds of recommendations you hope to receive. When writing recommendations Brogan suggests:

“Lead with the strongest thing you can say about the person. ‘Gerry is a clutch player in the world of project management.’ If you can’t say anything particularly strong, you might reconsider whether you’d recommend them.”

What are the best LinkedIn recommendations?

Assuming you have clarity on what jobs, industry, and audience you’re targeting, and your LinkedIn profile reflects this, you should seek recommendations that will hit home with your target audience and align with the qualifications and qualities they’re seeking.

It’s okay to help people write a recommendation for you, if they’re willing, by letting them know what kind of information you’re looking for. Asking them questions such as these should help them compose a paragraph or two:

1. What do you feel are my top strengths and skills that have most benefitted the company?

2. In what ways did I add value to the team and to the company?

3. What things did you know you could always rely on me to deliver?

4. In what ways have I helped you do your job?

Better yet, you may want to provide them with suggested verbiage and an actual example of the kind of recommendation you’re looking for. This would give them a foundation to work from and improve upon.

Related posts:

Executive Personal Branding and Your LinkedIn Profile FREE e-Book

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

Does Your Twitter Bio Pack an Executive Brand Punch? is a post from: Executive Career Brand

Twitter allows you just 160 characters in your bio to tell the world who you are.

Granted, it’s not easy to pack everything you feel people need to know about you into such a small package. Carefully craft what you put there to resonate with the people you want to attract.

First, define your purpose for tweeting. Are you just interested in idle chatter – sharing and discussing what you do for fun, music you like, favorite foods, restaurants and vacation spots, etc.? Then it’s okay for your bio to be light and reinforce that purpose.

But if you’re an executive job seeker and you want to leverage Twitter to expand your network, connect with your target employers’ hiring decision makers, gather market intelligence, and learn about job openings, your Twitter bio should reflect that purpose.

Understand that this is your pitch – whatever is in your bio may be the first impression people will have of you. They will use it to assess whether to follow you, connect with you, and/or consider hiring or doing business with you.

Take advantage of what you can do with 160 characters to brand your unique promise of value to hiring decision makers and potential employers.

If you’ve already gone through a branding process and created your brand positioning statement, you’re most of the way there. All you have to do is cut it down to fit.

If not, it will take some work to draft the right kind of statement. Meantime, by all means devote time to defining your brand. See my 10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand, and get busy.

As you’re composing your bio, or improving your existing bio, ask yourself these questions:

• Is it free of typos? Is it grammatically correct? Is it free of Twitter/texting shorthand and confusing abbreviations?
• Does it contain your most important keywords?
• Does it include some of your brand positioning statement, if you have one?
• Does it clearly differentiate the value you offer potential employers?
• Will it generate chemistry and resonate with your target audience?
• Will it compel others within your niche, or those you want to attract, to want to follow you, listen to you, and retweet you?

It’s all about career marketing through precision, short-form writing. Ruthlessly edit and pare down . . . consult a thesaurus to pinpoint the right words . . . say just enough to capture attention.

Here’s an example of one I wrote for a senior real estate executive:

Acquisitions, Business Development, Retail, Project Management ~ Physically & Economically Maximizing Tenant Retail and Mixed Use Real Estate Development

Related posts:

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility

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

Stalled Executive Job Search? Get Busy on LinkedIn and Twitter

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

LinkedIn Helps You Find the Right Twitter People to Follow is a post from: Executive Career Brand

Are you like many of my c-level and senior executive clients – a Twitter noobie, or thinking of diving in, and having a hard time figuring out who to follow?

You know that the more quality people you follow, the more value you’re likely to derive from Twitter. But how and where to find them?

Connect with me on LinkedIn

Here comes LinkedIn with one solution to your dilemma.

They’ve just rolled out a huge improvement to their Tweets application, which launched last November.

Now you can easily find and monitor your LinkedIn connections on LinkedIn and Twitter.

In his May 25th post on the LinkedIn blog, Adam Nash (@adamnash on Twitter) described the features:

• Once you’ve installed the Tweets application, you can easily access it from anywhere on LinkedIn using the “More…” menu at the top of the website.
• The Overview tab has been updated with an improved design to help you easily find everyone you currently follow on Twitter, view their Twitter feed, and tweet from your own account.
• A new module, “Connections to Follow”, has been added to recommend new people for you to follow, based on your LinkedIn connections.
• A new tab has been added to Tweets called “Connections”. On that page, you can see all of your LinkedIn connections who have added Twitter accounts to their LinkedIn profiles. Simple navigation is provided to make it easy to see who you are and aren’t following on Twitter.
• One of the most useful features of the new Tweets application is the ability to save your LinkedIn connections as a dynamic Twitter list.

Still on the fence and leery about joining the Twitter phenomenon? See my post, Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility.

Related posts:

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

Give Twitter 15 Minutes a Day, Land Your Next Executive Job

Stalled Executive Job Search? Get Busy on LinkedIn and Twitter

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

ExecuNet’s 2010 Executive Job Market Intelligence Report is a post from: Executive Career Brand

In 2010, personal branding, networking, and online identity management are the keys to executive job search success.

A new resilience is emerging in the 150K+ executive job market.

ExecuNet surveys conducted in January 2010 show “job creation increasing, recruiter confidence restored, and executives building new professional connections to improve their business performance and long-term career options”.

A total of 3,636 participants (ExecuNet’s executive members and the search firms and corporate recruiters using their services) were surveyed for the report, to determine trends and best practices in career development and candidate search, hiring and retention for executives earning total compensation of 150K or greater.

Although uncertainties abound, there are areas of strength and some market trends are propelling key industries forward.

The report indicates the top 10 high-growth industries for 2010 will be:

1.  Healthcare
2.  Clean / Green Technology
3.  High Technology
4.  Pharmaceuticals / Medical / Biotech
5.  Energy / Utilities
6.  Business Services
7.  Financial Services / Banking / Insurance
8.  Government / Nonprofit / Education
9.  Environmental Products / Services
10. Manufacturing

Perhaps not surprising, companies are turning to their networks of colleagues and peers to source talent. More than ever, job board postings yield dismal results. “About 90 percent of $200K+ positions are not openly posted, and the few that are found on job boards receive such a high volume of unqualified responses that hiring managers think twice about pursuing candidates from the posts.”

Personal branding and online identity play a key role in executive job search.

It is now critical to define and communicate, across online and real-life channels, what differentiates you and your unique promise of value in the marketplace, enabling people to quickly understand who you are and what you offer.

“Ninety percent of search firm recruiters now make it a regular practice to Google candidates to find anything that can help draw a complete picture of that individual — up from 75 percent when ExecuNet began researching this activity in 2005.”

Eighty percent of corporate recruiters say “a candidate’s job prospects improve when positive information (such as thought leadership, community service activities or published articles) is found online.”

Related posts:

2010 Top 10 Executive Personal Branding and Job Search Trends

10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand

How to Build a Powerful Executive Network

Does Your Online Identity Scream “Hire Me”?

Twitter Turbocharges Executive Job Search and Personal Brand Visibility is a post from: Executive Career Brand

In a recent chat about social media, a new client and I discussed the value of LinkedIn and Twitter. “Randy” understood that, just to keep pace with his competition in the job market, he had to have a strong presence on LinkedIn and take advantage of all it has to offer. He had already made some strides with it.

But when it came to Twitter, Randy was adamant. “If you think I’m going to waste my time on Twitter telling people what I had for breakfast, you’re crazy!”

Are you Twitter-resistant like Randy, still sitting on the sidelines, thinking it’s a waste of time, and questioning whether there’s any value at all there?

With more than 60 million users, Twitter is a powerful place to:

• Build credibility, visibility, and evangelism for your brand and unique value proposition,
• Extend your online presence.
• Position yourself in front of employers and hiring decision makers.
• Connect with new communities of subject matter experts and thought leaders, and
• Uncover opportunities that may lead to landing a job.

Many, many employers these days are hanging out on Twitter, tweeting job openings at all levels and tweeting about their organizations. Shouldn’t you be there too, connecting with them, learning from them, and staying top of mind with them?

Where else online (or offline for that matter) can you listen in on and learn from conversations your targeted key decision makers are having, without being invited?

It may take a little time to get the hang of Twitter, but soon it will all click, and you’ll get into a rhythm.

Getting started basics

• Set up your free Twitter account claiming your real name, or variation if yours is taken, for your Twitter @username. Or you may want to choose something highlighting your expertise, like “COOBobJames”, if “BobJames” isn’t available.
• Upload a professional head shot.
• Add a link to your blog or website (if you have one), or Google Profile, LinkedIn Profile, VisualCV, etc.
• Create an abbreviated version (160 character maximum) of your keyword-rich personal brand positioning statement for your Twitter “bio”.
• For now, choose a Twitter background other than the default. You can customize this later.
• Noodle around and get comfortable with how Twitter works.

Building out your network with old friends and fresh faces.

Use Twitter Search or Twellow, the Twitter Yellow Pages, to search for, find the Twitter usernames for, follow, and retweet these groups of people:

• Friends and colleagues in your existing real-life and online networks.
• Your target employers. See if they’re on Job-Hunt’s list of employers who are using Twitter to recruit.
• Major players and decision makers in your industry.
• Recruiters in your industry. Also look at recruiter Jeff Lipschultz’s list of recruiters.
• Thought leaders, subject matter experts, and other people who are talking about your industry.
• Top career people. Check out Job-Hunt’s 101 Best Twitter Job Search/Career Experts Plus 6.

See my post, Twitter Personal Branding Strategy: The Beauty of a Retweet. If you do nothing else on Twitter, you can get results by retweeting, but don’t stop there.

Use hashtags in your tweets and retweets (RTs) when you can. Read Ben Parr’s (@BenParr) HOW TO: Get the Most Out of Twitter #Hashtags, at @mashable for all the skinny.

Once you build up a strong and diverse following, tweet what kind of job you’re looking for. Put the information out there. Someone may be looking for candidates just like you. Or someone following your tweets may know someone who needs you.

Through the Tweets of those you follow you may uncover job opportunities, plus gather market intelligence and discover challenges facing your target companies which you may be able to help them overcome.

Twitter is all about micro-blogging “tweets” in 140 characters or less. For best impact, Tweet (and RT) content that is consistent with your brand and will be interesting to your followers and relevant to your target audience.

Google indexes tweets, so the more you tweet, the more you’ll expand your online identity.

A few Twitter tips:

Realize that when people look at your Twitter profile page, they’ll see your most recent 20 tweets and the time line and frequency of your postings. Avoid constantly repeating the same tweets.

Include targeted keywords – including company names, products, industry names, and people – in your tweets to lead hiring professionals to you.

Retweet your own important tweets using hashtags with the keywords.

Mix up your tweets for variety:

• Retweets
• Tweets with URLs to relevant articles and blog posts.
• Tweets that demonstrate your knowledge about best practices, trends and events, and position yourself as a subject matter expert.
• Some tweets with relevant and/or inspirational quotes.

If you’re blogging or publishing articles, book reviews, or anything else online, tweet it.

Use Twitter lists to save time and organize users into groups. Search for lists through individual Twitter accounts and by keywords through directories, such as Listorious. Also curate your own Twitter lists.

Use applications such as Tweetdeck to manage your groups of tweeps and to schedule your tweets.

Bring your Twitter stream into your LinkedIn profile (see applications on your LinkedIn home page).

And some Twitter DO’S AND DON’TS from The Twitter Job Search Guide, an extremely valuable resource.

Do’s:

• Brand and Plan. Know who you are and what you want to accomplish on Twitter (networking, job seeking, research/information, fun, all of the above?)
• Choose your identity wisely. Select a professional screen name, whether it’s your first and last name, or a name that captures your brand (CIO_Leader, RockStarPMP, EagleEyeEditor).
• Shoot for a 75%-25% professional-to-personal tweet ratio. Interviewers will review your stream. People get hired for who they are, not just what they do. Your digital footprint is your resume.
• Be visible, viable, and valuable. Tweet with regularity. Make sure your tweets demonstrate your skills and interests. Don’t be afraid to toot your own horn occasionally (example, Just finished my xyz training and earned new certification).
• Be worthy of a follow. Engage in interesting conversation and generously offer help, information, job postings, inside leads, lessons learned, shout-outs, retweets, questions, Follow Friday lists, and more.

Don’ts:

• Don’t be a downer. Avoid focusing solely on your job search, appearing needy, over-sharing personal information and problems, whining about frustrations, or boss bashing. These are not appealing to potential employers.
• Don’t forget your 15-minutes-a-day plan. Don’t let overwhelm stop you from starting; and once you’re in, don’t get sucked in or lost in the stream.
• Don’t expect Twitter to “work” (land you a job) in 1 day or even 1 week or 1 month. Relationships take time. Be strategic; allow serendipity.
• Don’t forget to ask! For example, Know of great companies in Philly for project mgrs? What’s best advice on dreaded “weakness” question in interviews?
• Don’t forget to follow recruiters, engage in conversation, and share info. Search #splits and send them candidates. They’ll love you!

A caveat:  Twitter is just one piece in your executive brand communications plan. It’s way too easy to squander an unfocused hour or more hopping around on Twitter. Develop a time-limiting strategy for Twitter – 15 minutes a day or so should do it.

Your key takeaway here, as with any networking activity – give value to get value.

Join in and begin adding value to your various Twitter communities. Contribute to conversations and start your own. Share your knowledge and learn from your tweeps. You may be surprised by the valuable resources, opportunities, and people Twitter can lead you to that you would otherwise never have come across.

Related posts:

How to Build a Powerful Executive Network

2010 Top 10 Executive Personal Branding and Job Search Trends

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

Stalled Executive Job Search? Get Busy on LinkedIn and Twitter