Executive Resumes, Personal Branding & Executive Job Search

"The Social Network" premiers Friday - and it promises to be a powerful dramatization of the origins of Facebook and the character of its founder Mark Zuckerberg. The only problem is, it plays fast and loose with the story, and Zuckerberg's reputation and online ID will probably suffer in the process. The movie may well have the power to become "truth" for the huge viewing audience.

Whatever Zuckerberg has done in the past to shape his brand for the public will probably not be able to supersede the impression millions will get of him from the movie. What does that mean for the rest of us, who aren't likely to have a movie dramatizing our lives?

That we'd better control our brand before it is controlled for us. With ~80% of recruiters and hiring authorities using Google and social media to scope out possible candidates, job seekers need to have an online, on-brand ID that projects them the way they want to be known.

If you Google your name and don't come up with anything, come up with very little or with content that is off-brand or of questionable taste, then don't waste any time in getting your personal/career brand out there. Three fast ways to do this are:

1. Go to ZoomInfo.com and fill out your profile: many recruiters go here first to see the profile for you there. If you haven't created your own on the site, zoominfo will go out on the Web and aggregate what it finds there.

2. Go to LinkedIn.com and fill out a complete profile. This site is a go-to source of candidates for employers and recruiters (often after they search your name on Zoominfo).

3.Create your Google profile to give you one more place on the Web that you can control what people read about you.   

Then, go to Facebook.com and, if you have a profile, do whatever you have to in order to eliminate material that may reflect poorly on you (even other people's writing) and keep you from being considered for a job. Even if it means deactivating your account or deleting your wall.

If you go on to invest in the more time-consuming activities to project your online ID - such as blogging, twittering, setting up a brand portal in the form of a blogsite or Web portfolio - all the better.

You still might not be able to prevent Aaron Sorkin from hijacking your reputation should he decide to write a screenplay about you, but you'll optimize the chances that an employer will decide to bring you in for an interview!

I was curious to find out how IT executives viewed Twitter. I wondered whether, as a group of technologists, they were early adopters of this business/social tool. I suspected that they were not. And I wanted to know what those who did use Twitter used it for.

In a survey conducted by Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, 200 IT chiefs were asked a range of questions about their use of Twitter. With 75 CIOs responding,78% used Twitter at least once a week, 50% tweeted more this year than last, and 70% established new working relationships as a result of using Twitter.

The picture that emerges, both from the survey as well as the Webinar discussion, is that there are some CIOs who are evangelists and build Twitter into their daily life, some who dabble in it, and some who hardly use it at all.

Perhaps it's the hybrid nature of the tool - inviting personal and social info as well as business content - that holds some CIOs back. Perhaps it's because - for the 22% who hardly use it if at all - Twitter has been a renegade tool that started as one thing and evolved rapidly and in surprising and unpredictable ways, well beyond the vision of the founders and out of their control. Not a growth pattern apt to appeal to all C-level execs!

For those who do use it, how important is Twitter in promoting their personal brand? To find the answer, look at the top 5 reasons CIOs tweet:

1. To follow news that impacts my job 91.7%
2. To learn best practices from other CIOs 75.0%
3. To position myself as a thought leader 67.7%
4. To share news about my company with outsiders 55.6%
5. To socialize with friends 48.6

So personal branding ranks a strong 3rd and company branding ranks 4th. Also, the CIOs indicated that advancing their capabilities on the job (and presumably as an IT executive brand) was the most important reason (see top 2 spots).

Do you remember when Twitter was mostly about "What are you doing" and people would tweet about where they were having lunch etc.? This CIO survey indicates the distance Twitter use has come from those simple beginnings.

To be able to grow your personal brand for free and for 140 characters at a time is a pretty good deal! And managers and professionals in all functions and industries are advancing their personal brands inadvertantly, just by learning more, sharing their own expertise, and demonstrating the kind of commitment they bring to their work

One of the CIOs said he views Twitter as great tool for cross-pollinating ideas up and down the organization - kind of like "servant leadership," he said. I think he means that the top executives can learn from the front-line technologists as well as vice versa. This is another testament to the democratization that the Web has enabled. This opinion is a very telling piece of that CIO's personal and career brand as well. Certainly not an attitude found everywhere among bosses.

The 3 top knowledge areas CIOs gained information in were technology, innovation, and strategy. The latter 2 at least are in no way lower-level learning and are, in fact, critical areas that an IT leader needs to be out in front of if s/he's going to continue to build a career!

It's hard to escape the implications of the survey that Twitter can be an important personal branding tool. And that avoiding using it can mean missing out on an opportunity to become known for what you do best, stay current with leading-edge thought in your field, and demonstrate your own unique style and "take" on your world. B thr or b sq.

What do you do when you have a well-developed personal brand in terms of your attributes and style but a muddy one in terms of your career brand? 

Because "what you do" is part of your personal brand, your brand naturally morphs as your career evolves. You will become known for what you do in your most recent position. Your personal traits such as "inspirational," "passionate,""never gives up" usually remain constant.

But, branding gets more complex when you are in job search mode and want to leave open the options of 2 different career directions.

Many managers and executives in technology - the folks I work with - have 2 career objectives. In terms of preparing their resume and other marketing documents, their personal / career brand will change depending on the skills/experience/talents they want to be emphasizing for the particular job. 

Say in one case the individual wants to present herself as a PMO expert and crack large program manager and in another as a VP of IT. She will need two sets of documents.

The tricky part comes when she has to present herself to her various audiences: LinkedIn, blog, Twitter, networking contacts etc. The ideal solution of course would be to do more career and market exploration until you have just one target. But, when that isn't going to work, you need to frame the career part of the personal brand more broadly to encompass both areas: "IT executive with strong PMO and large program management credentials."

When your goals greatly diverge, such as in the case of a serial entrepreneur who has worked in 3 different sectors, I recommend holding off on writing the LinkedIn Profile until your goal is clearer. It doesn't make sense to represent yourself as someone who is a CEO, COO, Sales & Marketing VP, Business Development Executive, Director of IT, and Finance Manager, even though you have played all these roles. You get the picture.

Obviously, a brand is more powerful if there is a clear and logical progression in your career, but very often this is not the case. So your personal / career brand must be considered dynamically and handled in a context-dependent manner. Here's where the attribute "good judgment" comes into play!

What is the acid test of whether your personal brand as expressed in your executive resume will help get you your next job? This story illustrates the answer:

I worked with a technology executive to write his branded executive resume and brand bio. I heard back from him in a couple of months in the form of a link in an email. I clicked through and read the article announcing his appointment as CIO for an organization experiencing rapid growth. Congratulations to him!

As I read the article more carefully, I noticed that the two reasons the organization stated for selecting him were the two components of his brand that we had showcased in his resume and bio.

It struck home to me then that personal branding is not just an optional exercise. The value proposition and value-adds that you use to represent yourself are absolutely critical to getting your next job.

When writing your executive resume, bio, cover letter, or blogsite copy, be sure that the ONE THING you do best and the SUPPORTING PERSONAL INFORMATION are what the employer really needs - a lot!

In the case of my client, the hiring organization immediately picked up on his brand that he was extremely skilled at ramping up technology functions to enable exponential corporate growth and sought him out. So, in their need to find someone to help them with their "pain" - the fact that their technology infrastructure was not adequate to provide for planned growth - my client was the answer to their needs.

We also, in his bio, talked about another key component of his personal brand: he is highly committed to mentoring up-and-coming technologists. He initiated programs and provided other kinds of leadership both within and outside of his corporation to help reverse the prevailing scarcity of skilled IT personnel. The article pointed out that his commitment was an additional fact about him that made him a valuable hire.

So, to test whether your personal branding will be effective in your resume ask the question: "Have I made it crystal clear in a 10-second read that I am the solution to a company's needs?" And: "What makes me interesting and distinctive and gives me a competitive advantage over other applicants?"

If so, you will stand out amidst the flood of other applicants and land interviews. You can then use your career and personal brand in interviews and salary negotiations to get the offer and negotiate your compensation at the high end of the range. Personal branding is the "gift that keeps on giving!"

The other day, I had several messages from someone I didn't know. When I called the man back, he said, "Do you remember me? I was your census taker?" Then he went on to say, "I called you because you seem to be outgoing (I'm an introvert) and upbeat (hmmm), and you might be interested in a multibillion-dollar company I'm connected with. I told him that I have a business of my own, and he said that I'd be doing something completely different from what I'm doing now (he looked me up online). He said, "Let's have coffee" and "Here's a website to look at."

He was so mysterious that I went to a similarly unrevealing website that looked to me as though it was a pyramid scheme and the former census taker was just looking to harvest prospects (from people he met in the census, researched, and approached!)

I found myself taken aback that someone would use information he found that way (possibly illegally?). He had used what he found out about me online to try to enlist me in his scheme.

A second instance happened in my life this week too. This one related to the connection you make when you do an online video where you are speaking to your target audience. You put it up to address that audience. But it doesn't feel great to have someone not in that audience or in the industry make assumptions about you that they then act on.

Now that having a strong online brand is increasingly de rigeur for professionals, managers, and executives (and just about everybody!), don't we all become at risk of becoming known - not just by the employers who might want to hire us or the customers/clients we'd like to do business with - but by people willing to exploit what they have learned about us to try to manipulate us for their own ends?

I'd love some reaction to the following questions:

* Does anyone else out there feel uncomfortable at times that the whole world is able to find out what you are "known for"?

* Does having a video of yourself in cyberspace make you feel more vulnerable or exposed than text alone would?

* Where do you draw the privacy line in terms of what you put online?

* Is your personal brand something you want everyone to know, and, if not, how do you protect it and still get a job or do business?

Although it's a little strong for my experience with the ex-census-taker (or maybe not), a gospel verse popped into my head: "Don't cast your pearls before swine, lest they suddenly turn to attack you."

Personal branding is, or should be, all about authenticity, and as such, is revelatory of the "personal" as well as the brand. Isn't it the "personal" part that places an individual potentially at risk?

But, for all these concerns, is a personal brand kept out of the public domain, like the tree that falls unheard in the forest, a brand at all?  Jean

In a Harvard class he was teaching, Nick Morgan said that the Dalai Lama exemplifies 2 qualities that make for a great public speaker: charisma and authenticity. What if a job seeker had an interviewing style that had those qualities? My guess is that he or she would have a huge competitive edge.

Personal Branding Guru William Arruda, through his Reach interview series, introduced me to Nick's ideas about public speaking (refer to Nick Morgan's book Trust Me). Nick says that there are 4 parts to developing your own communication style: openness, connection, passion, and listening.

When I saw the Dalai Lama in the TD Garden with tens of thousands of others, I felt as though I was the only one in the room. Out of great quietness came this teaching voice. The impression of stillness and total non-judging acceptance that I felt was unique in my life and was unrelated to his words (which were mainly a rehashing of Buddhist tenets).  

If 80% of an interview's success lies in nonverbal communication, then it's critical to give out a sense of "presence" that matches the person you say you are. Part of what Nick is recommending is making sure your nonverbal cues align with what you are saying. Because the interviewer is going to believe your body language not your words!

If, for instance, you say you are a bold leader, it would be a good idea not to hunch your shoulders and use nervous hand gestures!

That day in the Garden, I saw how the Dalai Lama made the connection with the audience. Imagine if, in an interview, you were able to speak out of a place of deep conviction in yourself - about your unique promise of value, your achievements, and your strengths - while also connecting genuinely with the unique other that is your interviewer. Now that would be powerful.

Cross-posted at www.CareerHubBlog.com