Top 5 Personal Branding Tips for Recent Graduates

December 9, 2008 at 12:24 pm | In Articles, Career Development, Networking, Personal Branding, Success Strategies, eBrand, social media | 6 Comments

I know a lot of graduates who are very concerned with their chances as nabbing a job when they graduate. I decided to write a post to help guide you to the promise land, give you a load of confidence and hope, as well as point you in the right direction. Getting a job after college can be a terrible and annoying process, but I’ve been there, so I know how it feels and I want to help you. This post is for you college students! :)

This post also appears as a guest post on Gradspot.com.

1. Go through your Network Strength Pyramid

Networking is paramount for getting in-demand and desirable jobs throughout your career. It will also save you from months of labor intensive work submitting your resume to job boards and corporate websites. I developed the “Network Strength Pyramid” to show people that they need to start thinking of everyone they meet as a possible connection to a new opportunity.

Your family is your strongest connection, followed by friends and then acquaintances sit at the bottom.

When you have built rapport and a relationship, the chances someone would drop what they are doing to help you increases significantly. Most people won’t be compelled to go out of their way for you when you meet them for the first time.

Make your life one big networking event!

2. Change your mindset

Recent grads must understand that working conditions are rough right now. There have been 1.9 million layoffs since January and the job growth rate for entry-level graduating seniors is only at 1.3%. This means you need to do things differently. If you follow the same advice you’ve ever gotten in the past, then you will only have results equal to that, and in this economy, that means failure.

You need a “brand you” mindset to succeed, not just in acquiring a job, but keeping it and progressing in it. Think of yourself as the CEO of your own brand, much like Coca Cola and Nike. You get to name your colors, logo, and overall experience. How would you describe “brand you” to others?

Forget about getting a job title; make your own job title.

In a world where things are constantly changing, you need to be the commander of career, which means that at the end of the day, success lies in your hands!

3. Collect everything you’ve already done and put it to work

One of the sad parts of life is that people are obsessed with what you’ve done in the past. When I wanted to get a job, I leveraged every single project I did in the past as case studies for the future. For instance, I led a team to establish a business plan in college, created websites for companies and did cool projects in my internships at LoJack and Reebok. I was then able to use the results of the projects in a marketing pitch to get a job when I graduated.

I know you might want to forget about the past, but trust me, it’s worthwhile to catalog everything you do, just in case something you’ve done applies to a future job.

4. Are you an entrepreneur or a corporate employee?

This is a very important question to ask yourself because it depicts what you’ll be doing upon graduation. If you’re an entrepreneur, you may be looking to start a business immediately, continue a business you started in college or work for a company, until what you’re doing outside of work takes off. If you want to be a corporate employee, then you will want to get a job when you graduate, and possibly go to graduate school, so you can move up into management as soon as possible.

5. Use social media to build personal equity

Having trouble networking, getting your ideas out there and claiming a piece of the digital world? Look no further than social media to provide a channel by which you can accomplish all three. I would recommend starting a blog that relates to both your passion and expertise.

Next, I would ensure that you register your name on the top social networks and link from one to the next. Links build equity in your sites, leaving your sites ranking higher in Google, so people can find you. The reach of the internet using these tools is extraordinary and can help you connect with the right people at the right time.

Quoted in the Boston Globe on Branded Business Cards

September 21, 2008 at 6:28 pm | In Articles, Misc, Personal Branding | 4 Comments

I typically don’t blog about the press I get (although I include it in the press section of this blog) and I don’t “re-blog” any articles that I have published in magazines often.  Remember that too much self-promotion turns people off and I don’t want to be branded as some golden child (as Michael Port says).  The main reason to blog about this kind of success is to reaffirm your readership that you are becoming more successful, so you can offer them more value, teaching them how to achieve similar results.

The truth comes out

I live in Boston and have been interviewed by the Boston Globe about personal branding and related topics about 4 or 5 times in the past 6 months, none of which landed in print or online.  PR people are frustrated all the time when their clients don’t appear in articles, even after they are interviewed.  I had the same fate, and at some point you will too.  The reality is that you can’t let it upset you.

Success!

I was quoted in the Boston Globe today on business cards. This is a real big deal for me, especially because I was interviewed the week of my 25th birthday and I’m actually seeing my 90-year-old grandfather tonight who has a copy of the Globe (really cool).  Please note that I was called on by a Globe correspondent, rather than pitching.  This is what happens when you build a powerful brand online (what I write about each and every day and share with you).

Being in the Sunday paper is big because the circulation is over 580,000 paid subscribers, versus over 380,000 paid subscribers during the week.

The article

Basically, the article is meant to point people in the right direction with business cards. In the quote below, I talk about how you need two business cards, your companies and your personal one.  Your companies should be used when you are networking internally or at an event sponsored or paid for by your company.  Your personal one should be used outside of work.  I’ve written about having your picture on your business card and stand by it still.  People don’t forget faces!

“A business card is a huge reflection of who you are,” said Dan Schawbel, a 25-year-old personal branding specialist.

The cards reinforce a first impression made in-person, and Schawbel recommends that everyone, even college students, consider having at least one. He has two, one for his day job and the other for his side career as the personal branding specialist and blogger of personalbrandingblog.wordpress.com.

But what to include? Some people need only a name and Web address on their cards, he said. Real estate agents and those in sales may want photographs of themselves, but a photo may be inappropriate for other professions.

Those attending trade shows or conventions may want a card to stand out with color or unique paper. Or they may want a cheaper card, so they can hand them out to anyone and everyone without worrying about the cost.”

Online Reputation Management 2.0 and Our Mobile Future

July 29, 2008 at 10:22 am | In Articles, Personal Branding, Reputation Management, Success Strategies, eBrand, social media | 18 Comments

Today, on Facebook I was asked to post my contribution to PRWeek because paid subscription is required. Note that the title they gave it was “Controlling your reputation is vital,” which isn’t as strong as the title for this post. Being you are my audience and should get special privileges, below is the article I wrote, which touches on the new form of reputation management, what you can do starting today and a future “mobile” outlook. I started preaching this a few weeks ago. This is a very important article, with a few tips, but it acts as a “RED ALERT” notification that you need to do something to protect yourself.

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When it comes to building a strong corporate, product or personal brand, the internet has become the Holy Grail for connecting with customers, friends and co-workers. In this digital age, you must decide which face you want to show to the world. Every action you take can be heard, seen and damage your brand in an instant. You can treat the internet as a personal prison or a world of everlasting opportunities.

Companies, as well as people have actually lost control of their brand, as blogs, podcasts and social networks have given permission for the masses to start conversations about you, whether positive or negative. A quarter of internet users visit social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn (TNS, June 08’) and there will be 145 million people reading blogs by 2012 (eMarketer, May 08’).

The new state of the web calls for lightening fast messages, which was first popularized by the Twitter microblogging service. Despite the growth in messaging, you can keep track of your reputation on Twitter with TweetScan.com and you can set up Technorati and Google RSS feeds for your name or company name. This labor intensive method can be scaled with online reputation management providers.

Messages are traveling at the speed of light

Messages are traveling at the speed of light

To make matters worse and to raise your anxiety, livecasting and life streaming video websites are starting to become mainstream. Yes, even Hollywood producers like Steven Spielberg have broadcasted online. What started out as Justin.tv, which entitles anyone to broadcast their life, has given rise to other services, such as UStream, Seesmic, Qik, Utterz and Kyte.

Now from your mobile phone, you can take a picture or record a video and have it streamed right to a branded webpage seamlessly. These live feeds don’t enable you to freely edit or copy and paste. Any action you take now can be on the internet live or be recorded for distribution. AT&T now offers JuiceCaster, which allows you to accomplish this same feature for a small fee.

Mobility SCREAMS reputation management

The mobile web will become the number one access point to the internet in the future. As people live life on the run and start to live a life of connectivity and engagement, cell phones will hold our reputation. For example, you could be sitting in an interview and have a recruiter hold their cell phone out to you with your Facebook picture or a blog entry that negatively portrays your brand.

You could be littering by a street corner and someone could be broadcasting that live on the internet. With the power of embedded video, that single clip can be moved and mashed up and appear on 1,000 different websites in a single day. By 2012, there will be 975 million mobile users (Computerworld, May 08’) and 30% of European social network users access them through a phone (Telecom Paper, June 08’). If you want to achieve success as an individual or a company, you need an online presence, but at the same time, you must nurture it and maintain it. This is the biggest challenge of the future and one that companies will devote significant budget to.

You cannot escape these conversations, only see them as an opportunity to face the truth, be honest and monitor your reputation constantly. The days of corporate marketing spin are coming to a close. Your name, picture and logo are all you have now. It’s time for you decide how to best represent yourself, so when people talk about you, they understand and can relay that message to others.

Stop what you’re doing this moment. Conduct a search on your name. What do you find? Is what you discover factual or inaccurate? Develop a strategy to monitor your reputation, communicate with the people who write about you and always be true to your personal or corporate values.

The Future of Recruitment: Exclusive Interview with Jim Buttimer, COO of CareerTV.com

September 11, 2007 at 11:23 pm | In Articles, Career Development, Futures, Interview, Networking, Personal Branding, Podcasts, Positioning, award, magazine, news, tv | Leave a Comment

Watch as I discuss video resumes and the future of recruitment with the brand behind CareerTV.com, Jim Buttimer.  CareerTV is the world’s first interactive TV website to help college students and young professionals find successful careers within the world’s top companies.  As the COO, Jim has developed the architecture behind CareerTV.com, with a focus on connecting job seekers with employers through the video medium.  The idea behind CareerTV is to take an individuals Personal Brand and display it through video, so that viewers (recruiters) can identify the persons personality, appearance, competencies and differentiation.  Jim and I both agree that video resumes will be the future of recruitment!

CareerTV is also an official sponsor of Personal Branding Magazine.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with video resumes, please see my article in UK Online Recruitment Magazine.

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