Accelerate Your Search™ Now

Yesterday at a Networking event, I was speaking with three very talented individuals with different views and concerns about doing what they have passion for doing in their next job.  One who is energizes and excited about what he wants to do.  The second fearful and almost stopped in his tracks from fear, unhappy and afraid to take action.   The third,  so on fire about exploring a ‘love’, hobby and the opportunities in the market place he left behind in college you could feel his energy.

As I listened, I recalled a post from Meg Guiseppi, “Can You Work Your Passion in a Lousy Executive Job Market?” Meg shared the three points, from Curt Rosengren’s article in the US News & World Report article, “Does Having Passion for Your Work Even Matter?” – the point, here is that why passion is such an important investment for your career, was playing out before my eyes and why it is important to your job search as well.

It still surprises me that so many people, elect not to spend a little time to discover or think about what they have passion for and find a way to incorporate that passion within a search to land their next job.

For years I have shared, “Do what you love, money follows”.   To do that you do need to discover what you have passion for and how that aligns with your purpose and goals.

A job search is always challenging.  Work and life will always include bumps in the road.  When you know your purpose, what makes you unique and different, what brings you joy, what you want to do, it is much easier to find and once you are working, it make your career much more fulfilling.

Can you answer the questions?  What do you want to do?

Have you taken time to explore what makes you happy?

What excites you?  What matters to you?

What makes you get up in the morning or stay up late?

What is stopping you from spending the time right now to reconnect with your passions or to answer these questions?

Why are you afraid to do some soul-searching?

Every day I’m blessed that I get to learn from others.  There are many super stars in the world and some “super heroes”.   I am very grateful for those “super heroes” who have touched my life this week.

As you know, I enjoy learning and sharing what others share with me.  This week I want to share a post from City Sylvester.

On June 18 City Sylvester posted “Personal Branding Stars of the Week!” where he shared insightful wisdom from six other inspiring people.  Read and enjoy!

When it comes to using social media for business, yes your job search is business, it is important to periodically assess where you are, what you are doing and if your actions are achieving the results you want.

So often when I talk to top talent about social media they are in one of three camps.  Camp one views social media as threat, silly, and a waste of time. Camp two loves social media, uses tons of different social media sites and activities, they “poke”, “tweet”, “friend” hundreds a times a week without a care, thought, plan, or concern for the benefits or consequences to their brand or reputation.  Camp three views social media a big opportunity and realize the value of the tool.  This camp is looking for smart balanced approaches for using social media and managing its challenges.

Which camp are you in?

No matter which camp you are in you need to grow your social media literacy and realize it is a part of a fundamental shift in the way people interact and business gets done.  It is important for you to have a plan and regularly assess how you use (or don’t use) social media to do business, enhance or build relationships in all aspects of your life.

Here are a few tips smart “top talent” and  top organizations employee when using and planning to use social media:

1.    Listen before you talk.

2.    Invest in training and learn to use the technology.

3.    Know how to communicate and what you want to communicate before you engage in goofy social media schemes or online marketing.

4.    Create a plan and policies for using social media.

5.    Understand the appropriate tone, image and use for the various social media channels.

6.    Build real relationships and connections using authentic conversations.

7.    Use caution if you outsource you social media activities.

8.    Understand the benefits and the consequences of failing to have and follow a plan, current practices and policies for using social media.

9.     Routinely review what you do and the results you get from your using social media activities.

What else would you add to the list of tips?

How are you using social media now?

What are your results?

Last week Dan Schawbel captured the just of Google Buzz and provided four simple steps to begin to use Google Buzz, check out his post 4 Step Personal Branding With Google Buzz .  It is important to have a basic understanding of the many tools available to help you assemble your online presence and build relationships.

How are you communicating the value you add to the world and your future employer?

Being visible and helping those you want to reach find you is not only critical in a job search it is a requirement to accelerate your career.

What are the best tools for you to use?

For years video has been used in career management to help the career minded advance their career.  However, again the Internet is changing how we use video.

Early in 2009, there was an explosion of people recording 60-second video clips and video resumes as local Cable TV groups and others began to help job seekers produce videos designed to grab attention and help people land jobs.

Some of these videos popped and made a great impression and others, well a not so great impression.  This trend was like the early use of VHS tapes mailed to firms by new grads with a goal of landing an interview, some were top quality, well done and others were not.

In December 2009, William Arruda, the Founder of Reach Personal Branding shared his predictions on the top trends for 2010 in Personal Branding.  His top prediction was “Video, Video, Video”.  On Thursday, William Arruda and the Reach team launched personalbranding.TV (PB.TV) if you are interested in how video can help you advance your career and your personal brand you must check this new site out.

I have followed the work of William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson since 2007, when I first read “Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand”.  This is a book I have re-read several times and share with others often.  In my view William is the top expert on Personal Branding and watching his new site and learning from him and team of Personal Branding experts is worth your time.

Instead of just using video to land an interview or to be better prepared to interview by seeing ourselves as others see us, today’s trend is to use video to help communicate your brand.  Are you ready to communicate your brand via video?

We all have a personal brand.  Most of us understand little about how to leverage our personal brand, communicate our personal brand and really build a strong personal brand.  Just as strong corporate brands fair better in economic downturns, so do individuals with strong personal brands.  If you have a strong personal brand and you are clear about your target audience and communicate your unique points of differentiation to the companies you are interested in, it makes a difference in the value proposition.

Check out personalbranding.TV and let me know your thoughts.

What does your brand say about your value in the marketplace?

What do you do to communicate your brand?

To your accelerated success,

Cindy Key