Executive Resumes, Personal Branding & Executive Job Search

You already know that cloud computing is now and will continue to be impacting the tye of jobs technologists  and technology executives will have in the future. Another mega trend that will impact tech careers is rapidly becoming a strategic priority for companies: superstacks. The term is so new I couldn't find an image in Google images for it - just pictures of smokestacks!

Smart phones are the earliest manifestations of superstacks. Accenture's Mitch Cline predicts that vertically "stacked" solutions - operating systems + chips + devices + software + web interface + user services - are poised to become a top corporate strategy priority. Superstacks will be needed for new mobility and B.Y.O.D (bring your own device) solutions and are predicted to become increasingly prevalent in healthcare, consumer products, and retail applications.

The most immediate impact of the trend on your tech career is the anticipated surge in M&A activity: "More than three fourths (77 percent) of respondents believe an increase in M&A activity will occur over the next two-to-three years." Many of my clients come for branding, executives resumes, LinkedIn and social media profiles, and job search coaching because their company has recently been acquired and their division spun off, their job made redundant, or their unit simply eliminated as not a priority for the new corporate entity. Many have seen their compensation slashed as their work load has been increased.

There are great job opportunities in the new tech landscape, but you have to "trend-proof" your career insofar as you are able. To be ready for the rise of superstacks, you need to be proactive about the roles you might play in developing the new technologies and prepare yourself for M&A turbulence.

1. Superstacks trend: Aim your career towards where the jobs will be. Don't keep your head down. Read everything you can about superstacks and cloud computing. If you're a tech professional, can you morph your path in the direction you seeing technology going by gaining necessary new skills? If you're a technology leader, develop a vision for leveraging superstacks and cloud computing as transformational, value-added techologies. And then blog and tweet about it to demonstrate thought leadership.

2. Accompanying M&A activity: Protect your career by being ready AT ALL TIMES to start a job search. That means to always have a current resume, a strong and distinctive brand, and powerful online networking connections on LinkedIn and also Twitter and FB, if you want to. Keep your offline network thriving through frequent friendly contact as well. Continue to build your online reputation as well by multiplying the number of quality sites where your name will appear in a Google search and by blogging, tweeting, or commenting on other people's material.

3. And stay tuned: I'll continue to keep you up-to-speed in terms of trends that will be impacting your tech career. The race is to the swift and the market-savvy.

It's amazing, though understandable, that so many people are pursuing job search strategies that are apt to yield no results.

The job search environment is more complex and requires greater sophistication to navigate than ever before. Here are 8 of the things you should not do to avoid getting stalled in your job search.

1. Give your resume to your contact list and assume you've done their networking

2. Failed to get your resume into the hands of the right people at all of your target companies

3. Spend significant time searching on job boards and company websites looking for jobs to apply to

4. Put your profile up on LinkedIn without attention to keywords and your personal/career brand and assume that "if you build it they will come"

5. Spend just a few hours per week on your job search

6. Do your entire job search from home without making appointments to meet with networking contacts and hiring authorities

The new job search is a social search - involving the use of Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook, among many others. These are places hiring authorities are looking for candidates. And they are places you can also create networking opportunities times 10.

The new job search is more competitive. Recruiters want 10 out of 10 of their requirements met. Hiring authorities can usually find someone who matches their needs on LinkedIn, which has become a Big Data resource for them.

That means there is a premium on alternative job search methods that will produce direct face-to-face contact with decision makers, a context in which you can pitch your value, not just be someone evaluated with a checklist. It also means that, to get results, you need to spend serious time each week looking for the right job.

The savvy job seeker of 2012 has mastered new skills that will hold him or her in good stead for now and into the future - understanding that new changes are sure to come that will require further adaptive skills.

Avoid these easy but unhelpful ways to let folks know you are in job search mode:

1. Send out a mass email.

2. Only put an update on LinkedIn

3. Tell them you are looking for a job and ask can they help

4. Use a plain vanilla message

5. Close your email without offering to help them in their networking

So, what IS the best way to tell your network you are in the job market? Ask a Manager blogs about this subject and has some useful things to say.

I would like to add to the suggestions there and advise job seekers to contact each person in your network personally by email or phone with a message that is interesting and that they can act on.

1. Tell them as specifically as possible what you are looking for: your preferred job title, mission, industry, and geographical location. For example, “I am looking for a position as a sales executive selling SaaS (software as a service) for a small to medium-sized software company in the Boston area.”

2. Give them a reason why their network should be interested in helping you or hiring you: “What I do best is close high-dollar sales of complex, cutting edge software solutions and exceed aggressive quotas, like the $8M I sold on a $7.5M goal in 2011.” BTW, this is a key part of your personal / career brand!

3. Tell them exactly how they can best help you in your search: “I would be very appreciative if you could give me the names of two people you may know who work in software companies in the Boston area.” And then, when you talk to those people, ask them in turn for two more names, conveying the same message about the value – your ROI – that you bring to the table. 

Once you’ve got your message and your method right, develop a good way to keep track of your contacts, the contacts they refer you to, next steps, to-do items, etc. Jason Alba’s Jibber Jobber is a great tool for that.

Then be meticulous about following up with a thank-you email or note letting your contact know you appreciated their interest and help. Then tell them you’ll keep them updated on your progress. That gives you a chance to stay top-of-mind with them when you check in again in a month or two. And, of course, when you accept a job offer, be sure to celebrate your success by thanking your network personally.

Jean Cummings:  http://www.aResumeForToday.com

This post was first published on http://www.GetHired.com

Credit to Kim Garst for image

I encountered the phrase “all in” in two quite different contexts lately. In the first, a minister used it to describe his faith. In the second, a technology sales executive said it about the way he works. And then in a third instance, Ralph Waldo Emerson (a voice from the past), is quoted using different words but talking about the same idea (thanks to Angel Maiers for her post and the Emerson quote:

"Passion is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without passion.”

Put this together with a research finding that most of new hires that fail do so because of attitude, not lack of skills – as much as 80%.

And add in the “personal” in personal branding, which is about your passions, values, and goals. In other words, the things that go to make up your personality.

And you’ve got a little-known but apparently crucial ingredient in on-the-job success.

The Passion thing helps in interviewing too. If you know what you’re passionate about, great! Don’t be afraid to show the energy and excitement you experience in what you do. Even if the intervivewer hasn’t thought about passion as a desirable quality in a new hire, you will radiate energy and enthusiasm and that will engage the interviewer’s interest.

Studies have also shown that there is a kind of mimicry that goes on when two people communicate – that is, your enthusiasm will ignite the interviewer's. And that’s got to help!

Surveys find that by far the biggest element in deciding whether to hire someone is based on how s/he looks and sounds. Both your facial expression and your voice change when expressing passion, and, therefore, you will look and sound even better than you ordinarily do (we hope). :)

If you’re not passionate about your work, here are some thoughts. Passion doesn’t have to be fireworks kind of passion. It can be a firmly grounded commitment. If neither of those is true, see if you can find one aspect of your job that particularly interests you. Ask yourself why. Then ask yourself how your heightened interest impacts outcomes. Then, you can take advantage of the magic of passion, at least in the part of the interview where you give an example from the interesting part of your work.

As the hiring process is increasingly using assessments and simulations in an attempt to be more objective, your passion need not lose its power completely. It may be the single differentiating factor between two otherwise similar candidates. It may, in fact, be the one that will put you over the top!

Mozilla, the MacArthur Foundation, and HASTAC* are working on a new model for standards and credentials in learning and job performance called Open Badges. Proposed digital badges allow people to know you by your achievements and contributions, not just your reputation and credentials. Badging represents an innovative alternative to traditional credentialing and takes its inspiration from open source software development.

What is unique about badging is that it gives the individual job seeker an opportunity to be promoted or hired on the basis of actual accomplishments and on-the-job work attributes. Too often people's lack of a specific kind/level of education, training, or traditional work history get in the way of their getting hired. Promotion and hiring are usually based on whether an individual meets a specific standard profile desirable for a specific position. Badging allows for an end run around all that.

Here's an example from Cathy Davidson on HASTAC: "If I’m engaged in a project with someone who does an exemplary job, I can award credit whether that person happens to have a Ph.D. from MIT or be a brilliant sixteen-year old programmer in Gary, Indiana—or Nairobi." You can see that badging could be a major leveler across populations at home and across the globe.

Another key feature of badging as proposed is that it allows teams to recognize social, collaborative and other "soft" skills that may be critical to the success of a project but often discounted from hiring decisions. 

The grassroots nature of the proposed model would enable a mutiplicity of badges from many different organizations, whether they be professional, industry, nonprofit or corporate. Sounds chaotic, but badging is an innovation that breaks down traditional barriers and encourages individual initiative. Rather than having your employment fate hanging on traditional resumes, education, work history etc., you can activily earn recognition that explicitly confirms the contributions you have made. Open source programming has models for ways to prevent cheating and gaming the system. 

This is a bottom-up rather than a top-down initiative, with elements of Facebook, crowdsourcing, Twitter, citizen journalism, YouTube, Amazon product reviews etc.

What would a badge system mean for your career brand and your job search? I think it would provide stronger evidentiary support for your brand. It would provide more validation for talented people with portfolio careers or non-linear career paths in job search. It would give weight to non-traditional learning and experiential learning.

Badging, as an alternative form of credentials and standards, is a good match for millenials, in particular, who are already viewing their careers in a more flexible light. Millenials view work more creatively - not the traditional "climbing the ladder" - but moving around to different jobs following interests, making lateral moves, interrupting their work with volunteer or entrepreneurial stints, mastering new skills or content informally.

Keep your eyes and ears open for this revolution in assessing mastery. It just may open up job and career opportunities you had assumed were closed to you. What do you think of the idea of badging? Do you think it could work?

Job search today is bewildering to many. Social media. Job boards. Recruiters. Networking. Should you have your resume out on the Web? Or not? How do you get on recruiters' radar?

Today I'm only going to talk about one piece of the picture: the free sites recruiters visit to source candidates and, therefore, the sites on which you may well want to build out a presence.

1. LinkedIn Groups. Everyone by now knows that LI is a top resource for recruiters. But they may not just be doing keyword searches to pull up candidate profiles. They may also be joining groups where they look for the right kind of candidates. So join prominent groups in your industry and function. Also try to link with recruiters. And grow your network. If you're up for it, become a LION (LinkedIn Open Networker) to exponentially expand your network so that your chances of being found in a recruiter search go up.

2. Twitter. "Rapidly becoming a search engine in its own right," Nick Leigh-Morgan says in his post on "Free Hiring: the secret to $0 cost per hire." Now is the time to think seriously about developing a Twitter profile and starting to tweet on interesting ideas and resources in your field and function. Recruiters ARE searching Twitter for job titles, industries and functions in the hope of turning up interesting candidates. Can you afford NOT to be where they are looking?

3. Jigsaw.com & ZoomInfo.com. Like LinkedIn, these sites allow you to set up your profile with the career brand you want recruiters to see. Recruiters will be sourcing candidates here, so don't pass up this easy way to be found onlilne. Also, being on these sites will improve your searchability. Because recruiters also Google search candidate names, it pays to be on the Web on multiple properties.

4. Blogs. A great way to be more visible to recruiters is to comment on some of the top blogs in your field or function. If you use gmail, use Reader to identify those blogs and interact with them. Also, consider starting one yourself if you are willing to post once or twice a week.

5. Facebook. This one is a little trickier. The melding of personal and professional is sometimes happening and sometimes not. BeKnown, Monster's creature, is making inroads in this area. Another issue is that Facebook is often used by recruiters to rule people out not in. But, all that said, Facebook is HUGE and will assume a larger share of recruiter attention as time goes on. If you think you can maintain a Facebook presence that references your line of work while using it to keep in touch with friends (never veering off into areas you don't want the world to see), then by all means start now.

Of course, if you're not a senior executive and you want to post your profile on job boards, there are dozens where recruiters may be looking. Don't neglect the niche job boards.

But for everyone, take seriously the need to build a presence across most if not all of the five websites above. Just a few years ago, these five sites weren't prime recruiting grounds. Now they are. Just a heads up for savvy job seekers!

You hear it from every direction. From LinkedIn, for starters, and from bloggers like Tim's Strategy. We are exhorted to limit our connections to only people we know, like, and trust. To strive for quality in our networking relationships on LinkedIn. To build our network strategically and nurture it carefully.

I can see that. I really can. I think, "Wouldn't it be great to be in contact with a couple of hundred professionals with whom I touch base now and then - so that we can benefit each other in meangingful ways?" Who am I kidding?? I barely have time to keep up with the daily demands of my work, much less nurture such a quality network!

I admire people who can develop an extensive high-quality network! But in advising my clients - technology executives in transition - do I advise them to work to build out such a high-touch network? Let me tell you what I tell them.

"If you want to leverage LinkedIn to get your next job and for long-term career advancement, connect with everybody who touches on your industry space as well as all the recruiters you can." Why?

Recruiters and hiring authorities are on LinkedIn often, if not constantly! Although many of the Fortune 100 firms are able to pay for unlimited access to the full network, many other companies are taking advantage of the free membership option. That means they are limited to searches within their own networks. Let me say that another way. If you have a relatively small network (one populated with people you know or know of), your chances of being included in the universe of profiles that that person searches in are small.

From where I sit, if you are counting on a passive presence on LI to get you a job and you haven't built out a large network, your chances of being found are slim.

The same holds true if you want to do a search for recruiters or hiring authorities and explore job opportunities. With a free membership, you are only able to search among your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree connections. That's a whole lot of possible job connections you will miss out on if you have a small network.

There are ways on LI to connect with LIONs (LinkedIn Open Networkers) in your industry (software, telecom, etc.) or area of functional specialty (i.e., IT, finance, sales & marketing etc.). LIONs usually have 500+ connections. By connecting with them, you will be expanding your network exponentially. Your chances of being included in a search go up. So does your ability to identify job possibilities within your own, now-much-wider network.

The job search benefit you gain from accepting all invites and proactively linking with LIONs in your space is very real. But that doesn't make the decision to explode your LI network a slam/dunk. That's because some people, including LI, frown on these practices. You may be concerned that people will think less of you if you don't have a carefully curated list of connections. Yes, there's a chance that will work against you - or even be a career disaster.

But I encourage my clients to take the risk of growing their networks beyond people known to them, because the upside long-term for their careers can be great. And if you are able to capture in your profile the keywords hiring authorities and recruiters are likely to search for, you have a much higher chance of being included in the resumes reviewed. And therefore a much higher chance of getting in the door. Don't forget to make your executive resumes agree in brand and content with your LinkedIn profile.

It strikes me as somewhat "precious" on the part of LI to expect people to disdain such an obvious opportunity. As a professional network, LI is all about work and career. Job search is an inevitableout to more recruiters, why is that so wrong? Makes sense to me. What do you think? I'd love to know! And...I accept all invites! So feel free to contact me on LI!

The world of job search is a little like the current Republican race for the presidential nomination: the lead contender is constantly shifting. In job search, although networking has always been king, the ways to do it are constantly evolving along with technology.

While searching for a job and applying online through big boards was judged to be a worthwhile activity some years ago, now there are new big kids on the block: LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, in that order.

What do we know about how effective job boards actually are at yielding new hires? Richard Bolles in What Color is Your Parachute 2011, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, estimates your job board success rate at 4-10%. CareerXroads found in a 1/2011 study that 25% of hires from external sources come from job boards. Why the difference? One reason is that a lot of hires come from within a company or from employee referrals, so a correspondingly higher percentage of hires come from job boards.

Still, whether the number is the 1% (est. # of hires from Monster.com), the 4-10% or the 25%, spending your time on job boards is not the best use of your time.

However...you will still find many (most) of job seekers spending a lot of time on job boards. So what is the seductiveness of using job boards? 

• It's easy. You can roll out of bed and open your favorite job boards and see some that look good to you. You don't have to pick up the phone and cold call or even call a networking contact. 
• It's simple. The jobs give you title, often name of company, job description, requirements, and instructions for applying. You can form a picture in your mind of the job and of you doing it. You don't have to network your way into an organization seeking one of the hidden jobs whose names or requirements you may not know. 
• It feels proactive. You can submit your resume to any number of positions and feel a sense of accomplishment (whether warranted or not).
• You can do it when you feel tired or discouraged. Job search is so hard. Let's face it. Networking, whether traditional or enabled by social media, requires enough moxie to actually do it. You may not always have the energy or the courage at that particular moment.
• Betting is fun. Yes, you say to yourself, the percentages don't look great, but I just might be one of those who gets hired this way.

I actually think these are all acceptable reasons to give job boards a shot, particularly the niche job boards or company job portals. Even though the percentages are dwarfed by the other, more effective methods, THERE ARE TIMES WHEN YOU NEED A BREAK. No one can be on their best game 100% of the time. It's simply not possible. Why not use the slack time to surf the boards and apply to a few jobs? It's a better bet than playing Angry Birds.

Just as the food police say that eating healthy fats should be a modest part of one's daily diet, so keeping an eye on job boards specializing in your function or industry can be a small part of a highly effective job search campaign. So keep networking and leveraging social media, but, when you need to, relax and do what's easy. Happy New Year!

This article was written, in part, by my Gen Y lifestyle resource, Matt. 

Fashion trends change, but the essence of style remains same: look your best, look current but not trendy, and wear what looks good on you. Interviewing has its own etiquette. If you are applying for an executive job, you need to be aware of the impact on the interviewer of what you wear.

The stats show that over 80% of a hiring authority's decision is based on you "look and sound!" So, make sure your clothes help you. You definitely don't want your clothes to become the reason you were not selected for further consideration.

Your Clothes Send a Message that the Employer Reads Closely

For Men:

1. Try to look sophisticated and sharp while also dressing conservatively. If you need help, try a personal shopper at one of the higher-end mall stores such as Nordstrom. Avoid anything too flashy or that attracts the wrong kind of attention, such as an attention-grabbing tie. 

2. Don’t worry too much about accessories or the newest suit trends, but make sure what you wear flatters you.

3. If you already have a good quality, conservative suit, consider buying a few shirts and some ties from a place like Armani or Brooks Brothers to liven up your wardrobe.

4. Avoid bright and flashy colors and stick to darks and solids.

5. Focus on fabric. Nice materials speak to your financial wellbeing as well as to your taste.

6. Wear clothes that have just come back from the cleaners. Alternatively, press and iron your clothing, making sure to iron a crease in your trousers.

7. Shoes should be clean and conservative. Whether you decide on loafers or dress shoes with pointed or round-toes, you want to keep your shoes polished and looking new. Johnston and Murphy is a resource for high-end men’s shoes. Zappos carries a full range of styles, and their great customer service reps may be able to give you pointers.

For Women:

1. Consider taking advantage of a personal shopper at the higher end mall stores, such as Nordstrom, to help you pick out a suit to wear to your interviews.

2. Some stores with up-to-date clothing that is conservative enough for an interview are: Talbots, Ann Taylor, Pendleton, and J Crew.

3. Avoid attire you might wear out clubbing as well as shirts that are too tight or necklines that are too low.

4. When looking for shoes, avoid high heels. Zappos offers plenty of shoes that will help you stay comfortable and look classy. The customer service is great too, so take advantage of their advice.

5. Wear suits, pantsuits or jacket and skirt, in a darker color, with a light-colored blouse and conservative jewelry. Go for a knee-length skirt.

Ultimately, the most important thing to remember is to make sure you look well dressed and current in terms of fashion, so that your appearance never becomes an issue and the interviewer can focus on what you say, not on what you wear.

For more detail on what to wear to your interview, click here.

Ever had someone tell you to meditate to reduce stress? Ever felt you couldnt? I've heard so many people say, "I just can't meditate." And there are times when I have trouble meditating too. Well, last night I heard a lecture from a Harvard Medical School-affiliated psychologist that cited a cool study validated in both US and Europe.

The study was designed to test whether certain activities could actually refresh attention and improve distractibility for students at the University of Michigan before they took on tasks requiring intense focus.

As a job seeker, you know all about stress and the need to be fully attentive! For instance, you need to be all "on" when you are reaching out to others in your networking process, planning out your job search strategy, customizing your resume to a position, and, most challenging of all, having to be highly mentally focused in meeting and interview situations.

The UMichigan test had students accomplish a mentally tiring task. Then the researchers split them into two groups. One half walked around the downtown area. The other half walked in a nearby arboretum.

When re-tested, the arboretum walkers improved 20% (!) on a test of attention and memory given pre- and post-walk. The students who walked through the busy town center didn't improve at all.

The conclusion from this and other studies is that attention can be restored through activities that enable the mind to unfocus for a while. The best places to do this have been natural settings like woods, churches, and monasteries. Looking at paintings at the art museum, even going to your favorite Starbucks or coffee bar have been shown to accomplish the same result.

So, if you are spending a good proportion of your time highly focused on your job search, take some daily restoration time doing one of the activities above. And, before an interview, take a walk in the woods. You will go into the meeting with improved focus and abililty to leverage "directed, selective, and focused" attention. (It may also help you before holiday family dinners as well, particularly if you have siblings who push your buttons!)