“Look job, it’s not you, it’s me. I don’t think we’re as compatible as I once thought.”
I don’t think I have read an article that explains the relationship with one’s career better than this one. Kayla Cruz does an excellent job explaining why sometimes you need to leave your job to be happy; in the same way you sometimes need to walk away from an unhealthy relationship with your boyfriend/girlfriend.
My favorite aspect of this article is that it is very positive. Not finding your dream job right away is not a bad thing, it is just one stop on your career path. Kayla states that “It’s okay if you graduate and your first ‘dream job’ turns out to be an epic fail. CONGRATS! You’re one step closer to finding something you DO like…So don’t be afraid to acknowledge that what you’re doing isn’t the right fit for you and that you need something different. It doesn’t make YOU a failure.”
No matter where you are in your career, I recommend reading this article.
Tag: job search
9 Steps to Creating a Personal Brand Strategy
Check out this great infographic below on 9 ways to create your personal branding strategy.
You can’t just create a LinkedIn profile and hope for the best, a lot of thought and work goes into creating and maintaining a personal brand. When creating your personal brand strategy, you need to determine who you are versus how you want to be perceived, or more who you want to become. Changing that party image to one of professionalism and experience. A few tips are:
- Define who you are
- Set specific goals
- Be original, don’t just be your job title
- Connect with those in your industry, create a network
- Start conversations and monitor your online personal brand
9 Steps to creating your personal brand strategy infographic
Related articles
- How to Brand Yourself Online and Offline (beingyourbrand.wordpress.com)
- Protecting Your Online Reputation (beingyourbrand.com)
- Brand Yourself To Highlight The Best (personalbrandingblog.com)
Social Media and Your Career
Social media is probably the best tool that you can use these days when job hunting. Actually, when I was applying for my first job in the marketing and advertising industry, after college graduation, some companies requested that 
I include social media in my application. It was requested that I did not send them a traditional resume; rather they preferred my cover letter in the body of my email and a link to my public LinkedIn profile. This makes sense since I was applying for a position in an ever-changing industry. This type of application would showcase the applicants who were using the newest and best tools.
Usually, when you think of an online professional network the first platform that comes to mind is LinkedIn. While LinkedIn is undeniably an excellent resource, blogs and Twitter can be great tools as well.
There are quick changes that you can make to all your social media profiles that help portray your professional image.
- Remove (not just un-tag) any unflattering or inappropriate pictures.
- Delete any posts, tweets, shares, etc., which contain inappropriate or offensive language.
- Remove any affiliation with a person or group in which you may be questioned about by future employers.
In addition to making the above changes to your personal profiles, I recommend doing a few searches on Google to see what comes up (what a future employer would see if they “Googled” you).
The most valuable thing to remember when building your personal online brand, specifically across multiple platforms, is to maintain consistency. You cannot be interested in every industry, instead try to highlight your strengths when creating a professional social media presence.
If you going to join a LinkedIn group, blog, or tweet make sure that all posts are connected and relevant to your industry. If you join 50 groups on LinkedIn, each with a different topic, you may come off as indecisive or unfocused to a potential employer. Joining groups based around a similar topic will portray drive and focus.
Keeping the information in both the experience and specialties sections up-to-date is particularly important, because potential employers can view your public profile at any point. In addition, I recommend rewriting your summary section to include keywords that correspond with your industry and expertise.
Blogs
Blogging is a powerful tool to increase your professional online image. It can increase the likelihood of quality content (specifically related to you) appearing first in search results. However, this is only positive if you pick the correct topic. If you are applying for a job in the print media industry, blogging about your love for homemade juice is not going to help your professional image. Rather, blog about the industry you are in, or are interested in entering. However, do not pick too specific of a topic, because it will be difficult to come up with new posts. Blogging about your industry will highlight your expertise to the world, and even prepare you for future interview questions.
When blogging about your industry, always include your own insights about the topic and trends, as well as offer suggestions to your readers. In your profile, display your creative and deductive skills, along with your knowledge of the industry.
Twitter is becoming one of the big job “search engines” for both job seekers and companies looking for skilled employees. Companies are tweeting job listings more regularly, and professionals are searching for ways to stand out in the sea of tweets. The best way to make your tweets stand out on Twitter is by using Hashtags.
Hashtags specific to your industry
- #Media
- #Furniture
- #Healthcare
- #Restaurants
- #Retail
Hashtags specific to your social media profiles
- #Monster
- #Blog
Hashtags about your qualifications
- #MBA
- #PhD
- #Certifications
General Job Search Hashtags
- #Resume
- #CV
- #Career
Above all, make sure that your Tweets are relevant, appropriate, and informative. The goal of your tweets is to highlight your skills and create a conversation with future employers.