Countdown till Personal Branding Magazine issue 2: 2 days!

October 30, 2007 at 11:37 pm | In People, Personal Branding, Success Strategies, magazine | 2 Comments

It’s hard to believe that it’s been almost 3 months since the first issue of Personal Branding Magazine. Luckily, with an outstanding team of contributors, I was able to develop the 2nd issue. This issue is a landmark in my career. Also, the magazine was adjusted based on my re-branding operation and reformatted based on subscriber feedback. Thank you everyone for the support and stay patient as I countdown the days till the launch of issue 2!

Here are a few things I’ve learned recently

  • Match personal interest and proficiency projects
  • Recognize contributors and management
  • Ensure content is exclusive to the magazine
  • Represent a full perspective of the topic
  • Go the extra mile to get the extra outcome
  • Talent = brand
  • Electronic magazines should print easily
  • Reducing the file size is critical to delivery
  • Loyal subscribers and advertisers is key to success
  • Many consumable formats maximizes readership

A very special thank you to all issue 2 contributors

And more…

Video resumes will soon eliminate job interviews

October 30, 2007 at 2:49 am | In Career Development, Futures, Interview, Personal Branding | 5 Comments

Video ResumeThe recruitment cycle is often so tedious, draining and time constraining for most companies. At fortune 500 companies, it may take months to screen, identify, filter, interview and accept a single candidate for a newly open position. A decade ago, after eliminating 80% of the applicants, companies would grant the remaining 20% a single interview. The applicant who interviewed the best, would claim the spot. Those days are over.

In the past few years, a single interview has quadrupled and now candidates are put to the test of meeting many people within a group, in order to be considered for a position. Whether you are a golden child or a commodity, you must participate in this exercise. The good news is that companies, as well as applicants now have a tool they can use. Video has been widely adopted by the media on a global scale. We can all thank YouTube for giving us a platform where we can broadcast our lives, both professionally and personally.

Supplements to traditional resumes

In a recent post, I pointed to LinkedIn as replacing the traditional resume. I was also one of the first to write an article about video resumes replacing the traditional resume months back. I’ve since pondered the idea of both a blog, LinkedIn resume and video resume as supplementing a traditional resume. I say this because most HR applicant systems, such as BrassRing require a standard format. For personal branding purposes, we must focus on how to differentiate and establish a clear value proposition. People consume information differently, and by delivering your message through different mediums, you can appeal to everyone. I do in fact see traditional resumes fading away in the future, as new database management systems emerge.

Wouldn’t it be spectacular if we could eliminate the interview process?

With video resumes, you are performing a self-interview and are able to pitch your personal brand and share it with the world. Why not sit in front of a video camera and explain why you are unique, your strengths, competencies, goals and interests in the course of a few minutes. One of the main benefits of video is that your entire brand can be viewed, including your personality and appearance. The more information you give to a recruiter the better, just like the more you give to a reporter, the easier their job is.

As a human resource representative, video resumes make your job easier. No longer do you have to pull in qualified candidates, force them to consume managements time, your time and the productivity of your company. A video resume is the perfect tool to get a glimpse of what an interview would be like from that candidate.

Why interview people for jobs, when you already have the resources in order to make a decision?

Subscribe to The Personal Branding Blog

Re-branding Phase 3: Personal Branding Magazine 2.0

October 28, 2007 at 4:09 pm | In Personal Branding, magazine, news | 2 Comments

If you haven’t noticed or read my previous posts, I’ve been re-branding my entire collection of personal branding websites and graphics. The purpose of these posts is not only to show you how important evolving your brand is, but that consistency between sites is critical to messaging.Personal Branding Magazine Homepage

Here are my accomplishments thus far:

As the next issue of Personal Branding Magazine will be delivered on November 1st, I thought it was be the perfect time to revitalize the website and mend it to the new look. The magazine has evolved ten fold, from the first issue on August 1st of this year. From 11 authors to 37 authors, from 22 pages to 39 pages and now with an exclusive interview between me and Philip Rosedale (Founder of Second Life).

The new site allows visitors to contribute to future issues, purchase back issues, view advertising options and admire the magazine staff. Starting issue 3, there will be 12 regular columnists, 2 editors, a sponsorship manager, a reporter and many contributors.

All current subscribers will receive their issue, along with all sponsors and members of the Personal Branding Network. For everyone else, please subscribe today! Thank you for the support.

Subscribe to the blog

How many social networks are too many for our personal brands?

October 26, 2007 at 12:45 pm | In Personal Branding, Reputation Management, social media | 11 Comments

The last step in the personal branding process is entitled “maintain.”  Personal brands must grow as you grow, keeping authenticity and accuracy consistent.  Sites such as TechCrunch, Techmeme and Scobleizer promote a variety of social networks daily. The sheer number of social networks is now overwhelming and forces all of us to concentrate on reputation management. The more social networks you join, the more you must perform routine maintenance on each profile. When I say profile, I mean your work experience, hobbiesSocial Networks Web 2.0 and adding new friends to your network. Another issue I see is that if you have friends on multiple social networks, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, you are forced to add the same friends to each one. This increases your email and begins to be a tedious and continuous task you must preform.

The Question: With all the social networks that are created each day, how do we react? As humans, we only have a certain amount of time we can dedicate to social networks, especially because many of us have full-time jobs, blogs and other extracurricular activities.

The answer: Join the most innovative networks with the largest installed base. There are more than 34 million Facebook users, 200 million Myspace users and 10 million Linkedin users. All other social networks have a fraction of this amount and few of those provide strong differentiation. We join networks to solve certain problems and we hear about them through word-of-mouth marketing. In general, if you can’t pinpoint a reason to join one of these networks, then you are wasting your time. It is a better and more productive use of your time to stick to the “usual suspects.”

Next Page »

Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.