What does your career pattern look like?  How does it compare to your peers?  

What does it say about you, about what you believe and where you are going?  What does it say about career planning and living in general?

The article in Fast Company, “The Four-Year Career” by Anya Kamenetz discusses a pattern the article states is increasingly defining the careers of US workers. Read it and share your view.

The article shares some recent statistics – “the median number of years a US worker has been in his or her current job is just 4.4, down sharply since the 1970s.”  As well as a close look at the careers of three people, two females, ages 36, and 61, and one male, age 28. Additionally, it shares more interesting statistics, insights and lessons.

The world of work is new and different than many of us were taught as young children, or at least different than how I was taught.  My view of what I was taught at an early age shifted in the 1980s.  Do you still believe what you learned as a young child?  Has your view shifted?  If not, what would happen if your view did make a shift?

I hope you enjoy the article.  I’d enjoy hearing your thoughts on Anya Kamenetz’s article.  Post them below or drop me an email. 

May I leave you with a few questions to ponder…

What do you believe in, why do you want to do the work you are pursuing?

What job or jobs (for others) could you create if you move or drive toward new goals, objectives and your beliefs?

What is next for you?   Do you have a four year plan?  If no, what do you want a plan?

You have heard it and you know your reputation counts in your job search.  It is a given that employers will check your references.  Employers and recruiters will ask you and others about your experience, how you work, the quality of work you deliver, and many other questions to help them determine if you are the right person for the current opening in the organization. 

Do you know what others say about you when asked?  Do you know how others view you? 

Your reputation – who you are and what makes you tick all help you communicate your value to an employer.  What others share about you is critical.  Do you understand how others view you?

When you have a keen understanding of yourself and how you are communicating who you are, how you work, play and do all things it is much easier to communicate your value in a way that paints a clear picture for others.  When you also have an understanding of how others view and value you, you are better able to market and leverage your brand.

After all your reputation (your personal brand) is about what others think of you, not only what you think.  Do know what others value about your knowledge, your experience, your skills, your style, your value in the workplace, your vision and your values?

What would happen if you did?

All of these items are elements of your personal brand and who you will be as an employee.  These elements make up ‘fit’.  “Fit” for the job is one of the critical factors in hiring a new employee.  Employers want not only the skills need to do the job they also want employees who “fit” on the team and within the organization.  Don’t you want “fit” too?

One of the best indicators of future performance is past performance, and most if not all hiring managers know this.  Therefore, as employers seek employees for new or open positions they not only identify the skills and experience needed for the job, employers seek to discover how you have performed in the past and they seek information from others to learn about your possible ‘fit’.

When you began your job search you probably updated your résumé, your LinkedIn profile, contacted a few key people in your network, maybe asked for a reference or two, posted your résumé online, and set up a few online search agents to send to you emails of job openings in your field.  Then you may have made a few calls to see who might be hiring, and began to look at the job openings online.  You submitted a few applications or emailed out your résumé and now you are waiting to the phone to ring or the emails asking you to set up an interview.  Does that sound like your marketing efforts and your search plan so far?

If so maybe it is time to leverage your reputation and actively market yourself.  Here are the steps to leverage your reputation (your personal brand) and actively market yourself and have a better understanding of your personal reputation and how to market and communicate your ‘fit’ to employers who will value you.

1. Get feedback on your reputation.  Learn about what others think of you and how they communicate your strengths.  Assessments, interviews and conversations will help gather feedback.
2. Review the feedback.  After you selected those to provide feedback and gathered enough data, you will want to review the data.  This type of feedback will often provide valuable data to help you create a very on target message to share your value.
3. Review the feedback with a trusted advisor or coach.   To look at your reputation and grow and leverage your personal brand you will need help.  Companies hire teams of experts, don’t short change yourself by lacking the benefits and insights of having a trusted advisor or coach help you review the data you have gathered.
4. Establish your brand aspirations.  Your reputation evolves.  This occurs with or without your intention.  How can your reputation and your strengths help you achieve your goals?  How will you communicate these as you continue to grow and evolve?  Strong personal brands grow and evolve and your personal brand is a tool to help you market yourself and to achieve your goals.  What is your desire for your brand?  How would you like to communicate your desire?
5. Plan and execute.  Ideas, Thoughts, Aspirations are great, however without planning and action nothing happens.  Develop your plan to leverage your reputation, make a commitment to yourself to take action, now execute and market yourself communicate your value and use your reputation and what others say about you to demonstrate your “fit” for the job you want.

I often share with my clients that clarity of message rarely comes as quickly as you wish it would. Yet when it does come together, it’s like the sun breaking out at about 10am on a foggy fall morning.

 You know the mornings, those mornings that are thick, gray, the road hard to see, you feel as if you are not sure where you are going and if you are on the right road, then the sun jumps out, the color of fall is all around you.  The sky is bright; the grass green and even if the payment in front of you disappeared, you would know you are on the right road.  Trust me the message will come, if you are doing the work and the message will come.

 Many people can do this work alone without help.  They have lots of time and they enjoy solo work. 

 Others like you may not have the time nor enjoy the solo journey.  If you have discovered that having help and feedback to help you speed the process is something you are seeking, or you have a question that you want to ask to clarify your message join the next Q & A call.   I am happy to listen to your question and see if I can help you.  Have a question now?  Give me a call and let’s talk.

“Do what you love. Lead with vision and passion; use your strengths and offer unique value, the market will notice and reward you.” ~ Cindy Key

One of the common mistakes is not being clear about what you do.

Over the years, as I work with executives and professionals, I have discovered that it is often the most talented who face the biggest challenge in clearly communicating what they do and make the mistake of not being clear.  Most people forget to keep the message simple.   

That is why I smiled this week when I read this post “Randy Fenoli: ‘Say Yes To The Dress’ Star At Brides Magazine White-Hot Hope Style Shop”.   Randy Fenoli is very clear about what he does and does not do – “I don’t sell dresses. I dress brides”.

Randy Fenoli gets it and communicates it in 3 words! 

For those who are interested, curious or want to know more about Randy Fenoli, he has a clear 133 word; 6 sentence Bio or his Twitter Bio to complete the picture. His message is consistent and clear.

Is your message clear?  Do you tell others quickly and clearly what you do?

Do you have a question or need some help to clarify your message, develop or communicate your personal brand?

 Sign up to the right and join the next Q & A call.

Dewitt Jones has a great saying ~ “Celebrate what’s right with the World!”   He does this with his gifts and his work. You can find his photos at www.dewittjones.com – Enjoy!

As you enjoy today, celebrate summer, celebrate August or just celebrate life, I hope you do something fun, wonderful, and that you are celebrating what is ”right’ in your world!

Enjoy the week!

Not a week goes by that someone does not ask this question – there is not one best answer or one best way.   No two people are alike and no two candidates are alike.

The most successful approach it to focus on who you are, your strengths, what you offer and your unique talents.  That’s what sets you apart from the other candidates who will interview for the job you want. 

This approach is not hard but does require focus.  Begin with an assessment of your strengths, skills and talents.  Then plan how to communicate your value in each area.  Build your marketing message and tools showing how you can and will use your talents to provide consistent, performance to help an organization achieve its crucial business goals.  

The reason this is hard for most people to sell their talent and strengths during a job search is they get too focused on the past, or on what is missing or what’s wrong.  Focus first on you and your value. 

It is easy to get focused on what you don’t have, what you need to “fix” or what your weaknesses are, and move into comparison mode, but that is a dead end road to mediocrity.  Invest some time and focus on assessing your strengths, what you do well, your talents and how you can best apply these to the marketplace. 

When you know yourself, your value, your talents, your strengths, and how to communicate what you want, then you don’t dread an interview or talking to a potential employer.  Nor do you need to spend hours fixating on re-wording a résumé or writing a cover letter to fit a job posting, instead you can spend your time on targeted interactions within the organizations who can use and are looking for your skills and talent.

What are your natural talents? 

What pertinent knowledge and skills do you offer the marketplace? 

How can you use your talent to help the organization achieve a significant return on their investment in your salary?

Can you clearly share this information with a potential employer in a few minutes?

If you are publishing articles online and never had this issue – that’s great!  If not, here’s an important tip from Susan Friedmann, CSP.  Susan helps companies put their best foot forward at trade shows and events.  Her focus on increased results, and on building better relationships with customers, prospects and advocates in the marketplace is not only solid information for companies it can help you too.  She is also a literacy volunteer for the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

Here is Susan Friedmann’s tip to “Avoid a common hassle when submitting articles online”

If you write articles for online publications, you need to change your quotation mark style to avoid hassles.

Many online text boxes don’t accept “smart quote” or “curly quote” quotation marks. When smart quotation marks are copied from a MS Word document and pasted into an online text box such as a blog editor, the result can be text mashed up with incomprehensible symbols. It’s easy to change your quotation marks.

Instructions:

Open a new text document or the document you are working on. Click on the “Tools” menu.
Click on “AutoCorrect.”
Click on “AutoFormat As You Type” in the AutoCorrect menu.
Deselect the “Smart Quotes” option and select the “Straight Quotes” option in the ticker boxes.
Click “Save”

Thanks – Susan for sharing this information!

I appreciated this tip and I bet my readers will too.

Accelerate your search today!

Have a comment, tip or thought?  Post it below.

Everyone (recruiters, career coaches, hiring managers) I know will tell you eliminate distractions and sending the wrong message during interviews and negotiations.  I agree.  One of the best ways to avoid sending the wrong message is to be very clear about your message and to be on brand.

 When you take the time to identify, clarify and communicate your brand you create solid ways to leverage what sets you apart from the crowd and your unique value.  It is one of the best ways to avoid and eliminate distractions.

You may never change the perception of others.  However, a strong personal brand will draw your brand audience and those who value your unique value to you.

Your strong personal brand will help you leverage your strengths; align your values, goals and vision.  A strong personal brand will help you dliminate distractions.

Also with a strong personal brand you will not find yourself asking the question – Should I wear ___<you fill in the blank> ___?  … before an interview, negotiation, or performance evaluation again.  Instead you will prepare with confidence and a smile knowing what you wear is on brand and helps to send your message without distraction.  You will also give the interviewer and the world what is exclusively yours to give.

Do you have questions or comments?  Post them below.

1.  Have a plan.  Think about your brand, what you want to communicate and how do you want to show up online.  Be consistent.  Stay on message and stay on brand.  Start with one site, use it and maintain it. Don’t know where to start?  Explore about.me.

2. Add your photo or branded background.  If you just started your search you may not be ready to do that, so until you have the photo you want to use on your page, or your branded background ready to go, select one of the many backgrounds in a gallery that is a good fit for your brand.  There are many for you to select and use.  You can change and update your background easily in the future.  The prior background photo is saved giving you instant flexibility.  I suggest you add a high quality personal picture that captures you and your brand.  But if you are not ready to do this, or your appointment with the photographer is next week – the background gallery is fine for now and helpful.

3. Personalize your page.  Selecting the font that is right for you and on brand.

4. Add your brief bio. It is easy to go to your Branded Bio file, copy and paste.  Style the page to fit you, be sure to view and proof.  The features on most sites allow you to select color and location of your brief bio.  These features help you stay on brand.

5. Add links to tell visitors to your page where your web content is – make it “one click” away.  Consider adding an email link so visitors can email you directly from your page.

Do you still have a question?

Post it below or join the next Q & A and ask your question or contact me.

There are so many tools to help you build visibility online.  ‘One size’ or one tool does not fit all. A resource that may help you quickly improve your online visibility is a personal portal.

In January, William Arruda shared Personal Portals as one of the Top 11 Trends in Personal Branding for 2011.  What is a personal portal?

A personal portal is a tool that allows you to create your custom personal profile page on the web to point users to your content and information on the web.   It provides analytics and is easy to set up at very low or no cost. Two of the options in this category you may want to explore are about.me and flavors.me.

An about.me “splash page” allows you to provide a brief well rounded branded bio and links to your online presence for an instant website.  If you are not ready to manage a website or to blog this is a great option to help you improve your visibility online.  If you have a website or a blog it helps you improve your visibility as a hub for all your content.  It is easy to put up, provides a portal to your LinkedIn profile as well as your other online locations, and gives you a nice link to add to your email signature.

Bottom line – A personal portal is easy to set up.  Low cost and gives you central web presence.  You can create an account, select your URL, add your bio and you have your page up in less than an hour.  You don’t need special skills.  Of course you need to do a little planning and have your bio ready.

Curious?   Check out my info at about.me or flavors.me 

Do you have a question or comment?  Post it below.