LinkedIn profiles are one of the best tools available for professionals to start developing their personal brand. Think of it as your online resume for both future employers and industry leaders to learn more about you. However, to grow your professional network, you need to optimize your profile so that industry professionals can find you. The following are five steps to increasing the visibility of your LinkedIn profile and highlighting your personal brand. Continue reading
Matt Wesson, a very talented Marketing Content Specialists at Pardot (and someone I am honored to call my friend), recently created a very fun and creative infographic that analyzes the evolution of the marketing and advertising profession, from Mad Man to Now.
In the infographic, Matt breaks down each aspect of both the 50′s/60′s marketer and the modern marketer; from the clothes they wear to the tools they use to reach consumers. Check out more about the evolution of “the art of influence” below! Continue reading
With hundreds of applicants applying for every job right now, how do you make your resume stand out from the rest? One way is by creating an infographic resume.
My favorite tool for building a visual, dynamic, and interactive resume is Re.Vu. Re.Vu calls its self the “Cure for the Common Resume”. They not only offer free tools for creating your dynamic resume, they also let you select a custom Re.Vu url to direct people to.
There a many different options on Re.Vu to display your work experience, so you will never see two identical Re.Vu resumes. The idea of creating an infographic resume may seem overwhelming, but Re.Vu makes it very easy. By linking your LinkedIn account to your Re.Vu account, all your past and present work information is imported. This makes it really simple to create all the visual graphs, that make your resume pop.
When you begin building your infographic resume, create a biography that explains who you are and what you do, and upload a traditional resume so employers can download it.
A great feature of Re.Vu is that you can add links to all your social media profiles to your infographic resume, including:
| WordPress | Tumblr | Google+ |
| YouTube | Flickr | Stumbleupon |
| FourSquare | Digg | Blogger |
| Vimeo | Slide Share | Myspace |
| Picasa | Posterous |
You can also create a visual timeline, based on the information imported from LinkedIn. The timeline will visually display your work history. Below is an example of what the visual timeline looks like. You can include a detailed description for each entry that will appear on your profile in a popover window when someone clicks on an event.
On Re.Vu you can create 9 different infographics to add to your resume. You can add one or all of the following infographics to your resume:
Re.Vu also lets you display your portfolio in your infographic and upload work examples that potential employers can download. In addition, you can promote your resume through Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. You can also create a QR code to promote your infographic. You can put it on your business card to direct people to your infographic resume. After you start promoting your resume, you can track profile views, resume downloads, and work example downloads on the profile statistics page.
Check out my Re.Vu profile for an example of the dynamic infographic resume you can make. View my profile page on re.vu page!
Using an infographic resume may not be the right approach if you are applying for a job in the accounting or scientific industries, but it is definitely a great tool for applying to jobs in the marketing, design, and media industries. Have fun building your dynamic resume!!!
I recently watched Jillian Michael’s interview with Tara Mohr, author of “10 Rules for Brilliant Women“. During the interview they discussed the speech mistakes that we unconsciously make during interviews, and during our everday professional life, that can damage our careers. Tara Mohr is renowned for her self-help advice, she has been featured on: Big Think, CNN, Forbes, Huffington Post, Today Show, International Business Times, and USA Today.
In the interview, they talk about four features of our speech that can quickly turn a strong confident statement into an unsure question. The following are the four speech mistakes we make, that we probably don’t even know we are making:
When you are presenting your opinion be careful not to unintentionally add on a ‘disclaimer’, you don’t have to apologize for having an opinion. During an interview, or while at work, try not to down play your opinion by adding a “but” to your sentence.
Saying “I think that…..” is a confident statement that others will take seriously and that will contribute to a discussion. In comparison, statements such as “I think this but…” or “I’m not an expert but…” often make the speaker appear uncertain and the statement appear unimportant.
I have never thought about how often I say “just” but I admit I say it a lot (something I plan on changing). This four letter word can quickly turn a strong sentence into a weak one:
Stronger: “I am concerned” “Can I speak with you for a moment?”
Weaker: “I’m just concerned” “Can I speak with you for just a moment?”
While it may be just one word (haha), it may be the difference between leading a conversation and sitting on the side lines.
“Uptalk” is when we raise our pitch at the end of a sentence, like when we ask a question. When you raise our pitch at the end of a sentence, it makes it sound like you are not sure of yourself or confident in your decision/opinion. Tara recommends that we should focus on going down in pitch at the end of a sentence instead of up, this shows authority and confidence. Hey, Oprah does it so it must work!
Whether you are in an interview or giving a presentation, in your mind picturing placing a period at the end of your sentence and then wait a moment. This will protect you from saying something you don’t mean to and helps you make sure that others have a chance to ask their questions.
While they focuse on applying these rules to an job interview, I think that they are definitely applicable to a person’s overall career.
Do you find yourself falling into these speech traps?
If you do, take Tara’s advice and don’t try to change all these habits at once, make this a long term project.
Check out Tara Mohr’s website for the “10 Rules for Brilliant Women“.
My friend’s boyfriend is an idiot. I mean, honestly, I have no idea what she sees in him. He treats her terribly, he’s not good for her, and no, his looks don't compensate for his behavior. So why does she stay with him?
I found this quote by Johnny Depp that seems to answer my question. Turns out that in addition to being one very sexy pirate, the man is a genius…
