Career Management Alliance Blog

Most people would readily agree they have a personal life, but few would describe themselves as having a “public life.” Sure, we have our work life and our home life. Yet, we don’t usually think about having a “public” dimension to our lives. Politicians and celebrities have public lives. We do not. We are apt to believe our careers are part of a daily blur of activities and don’t really stand out. Yet, to a large degree, professional success has always been driven by the positive regard of others. It shapes our reputation. And although we might not consciously make the connection, reputation exists by virtue of a public life. Sure, many of us have tended to be conscious of making the right “career moves.” Still, we’ve not usually thought of proactively managing our success in a “public life” context. The advent, and virtual explosion of social media, has changed that. Forever.  Continue Reading »

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I see it all too often with my c-suite executive clients. Many of them are baby boomers who come to me never having needed a resume (or any career documents) to land jobs over their 30+ year careers. Some haven’t been faced with job search for 5 or 10 years, or longer. In the past, jobs fell into their laps before they were even considering a career move. They were hot commodities, pursued by recruiters, and could pick and choose between opportunities. They easily slid into new jobs. Continue Reading »

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In a guest post on Ryan Rancatore’s Personal Branding 101, Mohammed Altaee asked 15 Twitter personal branding experts to contribute their top tips in ”Personal Branding Tasks You Can Do Every Day“. Here are 9 of their sure-fire suggestions: 1. Continually hone your skill through self improvement. — @pathfindernig (Yinka Olaito) 2. Post a status message daily on Facebook, something engaging or interesting. — @ChrisBrogan 3. Less time promoting their brand; more time in conversations driving value for their people. — @WalterAkana 4. Follow your lead and build networks through reaching out / giving back. Also, focus on own website daily as personal brand ‘hub’. — @EmilyBennington 5. Find at least 10 things worth retweeting in your home feed and share it to your followers. — @MAltaee (Mohammed Altaee) 6. Tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn – relevant information, group discussions, network, promotion of your field of interest. Collaboration is key. — @HeatherEColeman 7. Remember to do something for your brand that is offline. It’s not all about building an online brand. — @PaulCopcutt 8. Do something unselfish that helps somebody else or promotes their work. Repeat as often as possible. — @RyanRancatore 9. Every day ask yourself: How can I communicate my unique value message today? — @MegGuiseppi What do you do for your personal brand each day? Related posts: 10 Steps to an Authentic, Magnetic Personal Brand Health Insurance for Your Personal Brand – The 3 Cs How NOT to Build Your Executive Personal Brand

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Fistful of Talent had a blog post last week entitled “LinkedIn Profiles - More Accurate than Resumes ... Sad but True.” This quote came from Reid Hoffman, founder of Linked In, in a presentation made at the first Social Recruiting Summit in 2009 ...

... people won't lie in public via LinkedIn.  With that in mind, the core elements at play in most LinkedIn profiles - the titles, the dates, etc. - are always going to be more accurate than the resume.

I’m hopeful that in this age of transparency, candidates have learned those hard lessons!

Telling is Jessica Lee’s statement that “if you're truly looking for ‘what's up’ with a candidate, you need to rely on the LinkedIn profile.” Continue Reading »

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Want a foolproof page one Google search result for “your name” that you can create quickly for FREE? Then a Google Profile is for you. Actually, I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t benefit from having one, especially if you’re in executive job search. A fully fleshed out, branded Google Profile is just the kind of compelling web page you need to attract recruiters and hiring decision makers when they’re searching for and assessing candidates. With the introduction of Google Buzz, a social network set on competing with Twitter and Facebook as an easy way to share content online, a Google Profile becomes even more powerful. According to MG Siegler’s TechCrunch post, If Google Wave Is The Future, Google Buzz Is The Present: Continue Reading »

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One hundred percent (100%) of Chief Financial Officers

and Senior Finance Executives have an online reputation to manage

Not everyone loves statistics, but I do. There is something about having a factual basis for acting that resonates with my brain and propels me forward. So of course, as my Online ID re-certification course began, the stats had me saying WOW! My clients definitely need to know - from a facts and figures perspective - how critically important it is to manage your online reputation. Because whether or not you are proactively managing it, you do have one ... even if that reputation is MIA.

Here are some of the stats that jumped out at me ...

-- ... an executive can increase the amount of his or her compensation by increasing one statistic; the number of CEOs and decision-makers in a sector that are aware of the executive’s accomplishments. Howard Nestler, CEO of Executive Options Continue Reading »

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A new client of mine understood that he needed to pump up his online presence. A Google search for his name yielded a dismal number of relevant results, plus he had a common name and the little that was out there about him was lost in a sea of same-named people. To win at executive job search in the digital age, he knew that having on-brand evidence online supporting and differentiating his promise of value was critical. Recruiters and hiring decision makers Googling “his name” were assessing him based on what they found. Continue Reading »

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If you’re using Twitter to promote your business, your products or yourself, followers are the key to your success. But not just any followers — you want the right kind of followers. People who will enjoy what you have to say and will therefore pay attention. But how do you attract those people? Twitter doesn’t exactly make it easy. You don’t get much real estate to talk about yourself – just a tiny little bio and space for one outbound link. But those two things, combined with the photo you select, are key to whether people decide to follow you. Continue Reading »

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Career experts suggest that job-seekers who are conducting a thorough job search consider creating and publishing a Web resume. Besides the advantage of having your resume available 24/7, developing a Web-based resume also gives you the opportunity to build an online portfolio to showcase your best work (which you can then link to your online resume). But there is a lot more involved than just slapping your current resume onto a Web page — and you do not need to be a Web guru in order do everything you need to do to create a successful Web resume. So how do you go about the process of creating a Web-resume? Visit Resume Found: Keys to Successful Search Engine Registration to learn more.

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Think your online presence, or lack of it, doesn’t factor much into executive hiring decision-making? Think again. Given two equal candidates, in terms of skill sets, education, work history, and all around good fit for the job, recruiters and hiring professionals are likely to choose the one with the stronger, more vibrant online footprint. According to Boris Epstein, CEO and Founder of BINC, a Professional Search Firm that specializes in the Software Marketplace, in his Mashable post, Do You Pass the Social Media Recruitment Test?: Continue Reading »

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