Simply Hired Blog

Online Reputation for Job Search: LinkedIn

This is part two of a four post series on building your online reputation. Jay's other post is available on maintaining your online reputation through proper name conventions. 

By Jay Buerck

It is a social network that has over 150 million users and one that you are most likely using in your job search. Did you know that having a LinkedIn account should also be part of your online reputation management strategy?

Without question, LinkedIn is the preferred social networking service for the unemployed as well as the employed. The topic of LinkedIn has been covered many times, this includes how to leverage your LinkedIn profile as well as how not to use LinkedIn.

Using LinkedIn as a reputation management tool is easy as the social network carries a lot of weight in the search engines for searches involving your name. Google your friend's name, you will likely come across their LinkedIn profile on the first page.

Customize your Public Profile URL

One of the first things you will want to do is customize your public profile URL so that your full name is in the URL.

You can do that by going to Edit Profile and then moving down to your Public Profile and clicking edit next to your URL. You will then be allowed to change what can be shown in your public profile.

Obtaining a clean URL with your name in LinkedIn is always the first place to start with cleaning up or protecting your online reputation.

Connect Your Online Properties

LinkedIn allows you to connect your social media profiles such as Twitter and your personal website to your profile. You can set it up so that whatever you tweet goes on your LinkedIn feed.

If you have created yourname.com this is a great place to link to it from your profile. You can link to it from your profile page by clicking Edit and writing in your name as the anchor text for the link.

Another thing to do is link to your LinkedIn profile from your personal domain.

Your LinkedIn profile can not only connect you to hiring managers, industry leaders, and companies directly but it can also play a key part in your online profile. Making a simple tweaks to your LinkedIn profile can prove beneficial in more ways than one. 

Jay Buerck is the COO of an Online Reputation Management company and has worked as an online marketing specialist for over 8 years including stints with 3 Inc. 500 Award Companies. You can find more great tips and strategies by following him on Twitter (@jaybuerck).

Your Job Search Questions Answered

Thank you to everyone who submitted their job search and resume questions over the last week. Sean Weinberg and Gerrit Hall of RezScore met today with Andrew Chen of Simply Hired to answer your burning questions. A video of their conversation is below.

Questions answered include:

• How does someone get noticed anymore?
• What is the best way to land a job long distance before arriving?
• How can I get the hiring manager's name when everyone is so "tight lipped" about it? 

  

Does Your Résumé Read Like an Obituary of Your Career?

By Norine Dagliano 

Peter A. Professional’s Career, 2000 - 2012

Here lies Peter Professional’s career. A victim of the current recession, Peter’s career has been on life support since a layoff from a health care consulting firm. Prior to its final demise, Peter took his career through a stint as a personal fitness trainer and ended it working as a car salesman with a luxury car dealership.

Peter was a graduate of a prestigious university where he earned a degree in integrated science and technology. He immediately began employment as a tumor biology lab technician where he worked for 2 years before joining the consulting firm. While there, he “utilized empirical data and statistically significant best practices to influence positive change for client’s capital efficiencies.”

In addition to the above, Peter was a certified phlebotomist, published numerous medical research papers, and played high school soccer. Peter’s Career was only seven years old. In lieu of flowers, please send condolences to the guidance counselors and college advisors who failed to help Peter find his best career fit and the writer who created the erratic document referred to as his “résumé.”

I hope you get the picture. Although the name is obviously fictional, the rest of the information is unfortunately true. I know this, because I took it directly from his résumé. Like many professionals, Peter never thought of his résumé as a marketing document that targeted a specific audience with a promise of adding value. “I’m not really sure yet what I want to do,” he told me, “so I figured I’d just put it all in there so an employer could figure out how to use me.”  And they sure did “use” him!

To write an effective résumé, don’t begin by looking back over your shoulder to see where you have been.

I suspect that your path, like Peter’s, was rarely a straight line.  Most careers zig and zag in many directions. Take some time to delve deeply into all of your experience.

Look for common themes:

• What knowledge and skills did you most enjoy using that you want to take to your next job?
• What types of problems do you most enjoy solving?
• What words do others use to describe you?
• What specific details can you pull from your experience to illustrate your answers? If you don’t know, you can hire a professional to help you.

Identify your target audience:

• Who are they?
• What do they do?
• Who are their customers and what problems do they specialize in solving?
• Talk to people in the industry. Read business and industry news. Print out job announcements and begin making a list of the knowledge, skills and experience employers seek in candidates.

Look for crossovers:

• Who you are and what do you offer compared to what the employer wants and needs?
• Identify the point where these two paths intersect and begin writing your résumé from there.
• When you look at your past, choose those items that are most relevant to your future and craft the content of your résumé around them. 

Here is an example of Peter's resume before and after using these tips:

View Peter Professional Resume - Before

View Peter Professional Resume - After

Don’t let your career suffer an untimely death – or worse yet, linger on life support for years (maybe even decades). Look ahead, indentify your target, and then assemble and deploy the tools you need to get there. Make sure that one of those tools is a well-crafted, strategically focused, and uniquely branded résumé!

Norine Dagliano is a job search coach and nationally certified resume writer. For more than 25 years, professionals in career transition have relied on Norine for dynamic marketing tools, expert advice, practical insight, inspiration, and support to help them get paid what they deserve doing work that they love. Visit her site at www.ekminspirations.com. 

Thanks, But No: 4 Steps to Take After A Job Rejection

By Tony Morrison

Dear Applicant,

We at Super Awesome Dream Company Inc. regret to inform you that you have not been accepted for whatever position it was that you applied ….

Rejection. Nobody likes it, but it’s the cold hard reality that the job search brings. This reality is made
all the more cold by the standard, vague, indiscriminate language that does not explain why they rejected you -- after all, the unknown "they" have never even met you -- but the language in the form letter is sanctioned by legal, so that is what every rejected candidate gets. Today, more and more people are applying for fewer and fewer publicly advertised job openings. As a job seeker, the best thing you can do after a rejection is to pick yourself up and try again.

Unfortunately, that’s easier said than done. Getting rejected can do a number on the typical job seeker psyche.

Check out the following four steps to take after a job rejection:

Breathe 

OK, it happened. You just got rejected by a company that you hoped would recognize what you had to offer. Remember that a rejection says nothing about who you are as a person, so don’t take it personally.

There are a slew of reasons why you got a rejection. The company could have hired someone else, promoted someone internally, or erased the position altogether (which happens a lot more than you’d think). You are not likely to get an answer, so put it behind you.

 If you’re angry or sad, let those emotions pass before you do anything else.

Follow-up

This might sound a little counter-intuitive, but try following up with the rejection. If you want to keep the connection going with a specific company, simply writing a note thanking the company for their time and consideration can affirm that you are a thoughtful and invested candidate.

​If you want to know what more you could have done to get the job or what you could have done differently, feel free to ask in your follow-up. You might not get a response, but many employers are glad to help rejected candidates improve.

Develop

Regardless of whether or not you got feedback from the company, look at yourself as a job seeker and employee. What do you think kept you from getting hired? Did you feel like your interview was rushed? Maybe you didn’t share all the great things you learned from your last job. Whatever the case may be, try developing yourself for next time.

Try again

Now that you’ve finished this chapter with a company, jump back into the job search. Many job seekers will take a break from applying while they are interviewing, so if you’re one of those, it’s time to fire up the resume and start applying again. 

You might have gotten rejected, but don’t let your past keep you from scoring an amazing job. Stay positive. You never know what opportunities could be just around the corner!

What do you think? What other advice would you share with job seekers who are recovering from a rejection? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

Tony Morrison is the Vice President of Business Development at Cachinko, a unique professional community where social networking and job opportunities come together. His roles include sales, marketing, and business development. He brings passion to Cachinko where he focuses on helping job seekers to find their ideal job and employers to find, attract, and engage their next rock star candidates. 

Online Reputation for Job Search: Naming Conventions and Monitoring

This is part one of a four post series. Over the next four weeks, Jay Buerck will outline how to effectively  build your online reputation as a job seeker.

By Jay Buerck

You've worked so hard to craft the perfect resume, you know what not to wear to an interview, and you've probably worked on your interview skills. But let's talk a moment about the possible hurdle to you even receiving an interview, your online reputation.

Today, over 70% of hiring managers will at least Google your name and do a little research about the owner of the resume before them. What returns could make or break your career, but this doesn't have to be a game of Russian roulette.

There are many inexpensive ways to help protect your reputation online and some of them you already use.

Using Your Name on Social Media websites

Many of you already use social media websites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest. These are great places to create clean content about you but they can also be the foundation for your reputation management strategy.

Facebook allows you to create a vanity URL in which you would most likely use some variation of your name. It's astounding how few people actually use this but it is pretty easy to set up.

Simply to go the Settings of your Facebook account and under General Account Settings you will see Username. You can enter in your name or a nickname. Many organizations and individuals capitalize on this easy to use reputation management tool.

Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest are also heavy hitters on the Social Media scene that would be worth creating a profile and using your name in the URL.

You might also consider setting up a YouTube channel, perhaps creating videos about yourself and what you can provide a hiring company. This is not only a great Reputation Management tool but also a great way to set you apart from the countless resumes the hiring manager is sifting through.

Purchasing and Creating YourName.com

An exact domain for your name is the best option you can have in your fight to protect your online reputation. Domains are not very expensive and you can find cheap hosting as well but the expense of setting up a resume site shouldn't deter you from being proactive.

You can easily install a Content Management System like WordPress, and quickly seed this with content about yourself, perhaps your resume and links to your Social Media Profiles and videos.

A little bit of SEO, such as Your Name in the Title and prominently across the page and you should be good to go.

Linking to this page inside your Social Media profiles is also a good move to help give your new site some links.

Monitoring Your Name and Reputation Management Efforts

Once you've done all this hard work with protecting your online reputation, it's smart to use free monitoring systems to learn if any new content is created and published about you.

Google Alerts are an easy and free way to monitor your name for new found works in the Search Engine. You can sign up using your Google Account and set up the keyword such as Your Name, and also the frequency with which you will be sent notifications.

You will then be sent an email if any new content is discovered and is now showing up in Google for searches surrounding the given keyword.

You've now been given the tools and strategies necessary to protect your online reputation and control the conversation about you. Hiring managers and the world will now be given the true glimpse into who you are and the benefit you can provide to their organization.

Now all you'll have to worry about is whether or not to send a follow-up to your job interview by email or through written communication.

Jay Buerck is the COO of an Online Reputation Management company and has worked as an online marketing specialist for over 8 years including stints with 3 Inc. 500 Award Companies. You can find more great tips and strategies by following him on Twitter (@jaybuerck).