Executive Resumes, Personal Branding & Executive Job Search

It's not news to anyone that job security is a thing of the past. It can start to feel as though employers are holding all the cards, hiring and laying off people at will, with no loyalty involved.

But there's another way to look at the situation. Consider yourself a free agent who can move freely between various opportunities as chances to grow your personal brand present themselves. Here are some quick tips I've summarized from Kathryn Ullrich writing in TechRepublic:

1. Look out for #1: with loyalty an old-fashioned virtue, you have the right to move to a job that works better for you

2. Be strategic: plan where you want to be within a range of time frames and chart how to get there

3. Work in step with your company goals: by aligning your work with the company's strategic objectives, your contributions will be more significant

4. Be customer-centric: not only will attention to your internal and external customers result in better products and services, but you'll be better networked for future career moves

5. Collaborate: again, build your connections while improving innovation and day-to-day work product

6. Hone your communications skills: it may sound overused, but ability to listen and express yourself effectively are core skills to almost all jobs; even individual contributors like coders will be more effective with better communication skills

7. Cross over functionally: more and more companies are looking for people who have a broader functional skillset - and you'll grow your network while you're at it

8. Expand your experience: this will give you value-added skills and a broader network

9. Find a guide: a mentor can be a great guide to planning and implementing your career progression

10. Network - now: optimize your profile on LinkedIn for job search (see previous post) and continually make connections online and off for when you need them or they need you

Here are a few more I think are important:

1. Define your personal brand: your value proposition, attributes, values, and value-adds

2. Project your brand online (see previous post)

3. Keep your eye on where the business and/or company you're in is trending; shape your career in the direction where the jobs are going to be

4. Become a subject matter expert and showcase your knowledge in a blog, on LinkedIn groups, in LI Answers, on Twitter, etc.

5. Go deep in one of the trending areas

6. Choose a function to join with IT, such as finance or sales & marketing - to give you a competitive advantage in a job search

Job search is an Always On feature of life now. Go ahead, you're in the driver's seat of your career.

William Arruda, The Personal Branding Guru, is known for "seeing around the corner." His list of the top trends in personal branding is a heads-up for job seekers who want to get out in front of their competition. Here they are, in brief:

1. Hiring Anywhere - companies are more open to hiring from other locations, and video is the way to get your message across when you're not there in person; consider creating a video to communicate your personal brand, host it on YouTube, and distribute it to interested hiring managers and recruiters

2. Homecasting - professional home offices and backgrounds become the "set" for your video communications; when you shoot your video, make your background clean and professional

3. Vidmail - William says that email is "so last decade," and that integrated text, image, and video communications will become more common; include images and/or a video in your emails

4. Professional Dress - as video becomes a more prominant vehicle for communicating personal brands, it's essential to have your dress on-brand in terms of formality and style; in video and in-person interviews, dress on the formal side of what is appropriate for your job

5. Personal Branding Infused - with the concept at least a decade old now, watch it being talked about in corporate settings with more frequency; leverage personal branding on behalf of your job search

6. Web Purity - watch for new ways to ensure that when someone googles your name, they will find you; now, several people may come up; take a look at Visibility's "Search Me" button and consider adding it to your LinkedIn profile

7. 3D PB - with blended, multimedia search becoming a reality, be sure to have different ways that people can get to know you - real-time content, images, and video; become active on Twitter, YouTube and Flickr in job-appropriate and brand-enhancing ways

8. Personal Portals - new tools are emerging that enable you to assemble in one place all the pieces of your personal brand that reside in different places on the Web; check out about.me and flavors.me

9. Revyous - establish your credibility by getting recommendations on your LinkedIn profile; watch for more sites that enable feedback on who you are professionally

Job seekers, more than anyone else, need to present themselves as relevant, valuable, and 3-dimensional, in order to capture the attention of recruiters and hiring authorities. For those of you who haven't developed your personal brand, do it now. For those who have, project your personal brand in the many ways suggested by William's list of top trends.

The vast majority of employers and recruiters search LinkedIn before deciding whether to interview you. If you're conducting a job search, do you know how to optimize LinkedIn to your advantage? Here are a few ideas. Please add additional ones in comments!

1. After your title, add your industry (if that's the one you want a job in) and then pump it up with your brand if you wish: "Go-to SAP Project Manager"
2. In your summary, nail your value proposition and competitive advantages.
3. Use the common keywords recruiters or hiring authorities would use when searching for someone like you.
4. Put in a comprehensive list of keywords under Specialties to attract search engine attention
5. Under Experience, just hit your main achievements and contributions. Use numbers whenever possible.
6. If your title isn't the one a hiring manager would use to search for someone who does what you do, put your formal, legal title in, then a slash, and then the title that you would have in most companies: "Business Continuity Analyst / Business Continuity Manager"
7. Make your profile as complete as possible. Include links to any websites or blogs and to your Twitter and Facebook pages.
8. List all your educational institutions, training, associations, and memberships to provide keywords that may help other users find you.
9. Include a headshot. Make it professional even if it's taken from your digital camera.
10. List your interests, community involvement, and extracurricular activities. They give you individuality and make you memorable. Also, studies show that skill in one area (swimming) tranfers to perceived skill in your professional area (Program Management).
11. List your LinkedIn groups.
12. Consider which applications you'd like to download (see bottom of your profile). 
13. Participate in the Answers feature in your field to demonstrate subject matter expertise and thought leadership.
14. Join one or more groups related to your field of expertise. Contribute to it regularly. This helps your reputation as a thought leader.
15. Ask as many people as you can to write a recommendation (stick to professional contacts).
16. Recommend others. They may return the favor.
17. Consider embedding a video in your site - it's a real differentiator and allows you to show your enthusiasm and expertise in your field.
18. Connect to people you know and have confidence in.
19. Let LinkedIn mine your email addresses and give you the opportunity to invite some of them.
20. Do research on companies you are interested in working for.
21. Find names of people who work in those companies or who have worked there recently (all this can be done in a simple search).
22. Send a message or an inmail if it's available to them to ask if you could speak with them for 5 minutes to learn something about the culture of the company from within.
23. Find out any inside information you can about where the company is going that will help you tailor your message to them.
24. Go to Settings and check the box that says you'll allow inmail and introductions.
25. Go to Jobs and start using the largest job board on the Web!

Logically, I think what he says about the future of IT in US and Europe makes sense. I have, however, seen a flow of jobs back to the US in some cases. Customer frustration with help desk services provided by non-native English speakers and occasional dropped calls have prompted some companies to bring the function back to the US. One of the companies I am aware of has taken their systems administration away from a low-cost Indian provider and given it to a high-cost European one that is providing vastly improved service.

Still, IT professionals in India and China will only get increasingly skilled technically and better at communicating in English as time goes on. So what does the author suggest IT folks in US and Europe do to ensure they will have jobs in the future?

1. They need to focus on more than just cutting costs.

2. They need to develop expertise in another functional area on the business side of the house - marketing, finance, sales - in order to have an inside track on how they can leverage IT to MAKE MONEY.

3. They need to continually work to leverage technologies that provide greater agility to transform business to be more agile and hence more able to respond to market opportunities and challenges.

In addition to these, I think that, even though China is particular is coming on strong in tech innovation, the US and Europe must continue to lead in innovation. The individual technology professional who either pioneers or is an early adopter of an innovation that improves how business gets done will have a job that can't be outsourced.

The same is true, in my opinion, of the IT professional who adds value to the standard job description. An example of this would be my client who is such an expert on iOS and other mobile operating systems that he is an invaluable support to other Team Leads and a highly effective trainer and manager of outsourced teams.

Any other thoughts on how to ensure tech careers going forward?

Now that so many people are branding themselves in the employment market, how do you keep from duplicating someone else's brand and how do you keep them from unknowingly mimicking yours?

Say your brand is that you excel as an operations manager at cutting costs through business process redesign. Well, many, many people probably have that value proposition. So what do you do?

Fortunately, since a personal brand is made up of more than the value proposition, you have the opportunity to fill out the picture more. Consider the constellation that makes up a personal brand: key attributes, abilities, signature achievements, core values, value-add skills, commitments, leadership or working style, outside interests and skills, etc. Synthesizing these into a "living, breathing" personal / career identity makes it possible for your personal brand to be truly unique.

The difficulty comes in communicating the complex picture surrounding the core value prop in a succinct way that comes alive on the page and then finding space for it in valuable resume real estate!

BUT! With the possiblities presented by social media, you can present a more complete and nuanced personal brand than is always possible on a resume.

- If you tweet frequently, your followers will start to know you for your style, interests, values, commitments, knowledge, etc.

- LinkedIn offers some opportunities to present the bigger picture with its links to your personal blogsite / Website and to your associations. By participating in Groups on LinkedIn your audience will come to know the way you think and process information as well as the depth and range of your expertise.

- Facebook with its wide array of ways to interact with it can help fill out some of the picture of you socially.

- YouTube videos in which you talk about some aspect of your work can be tremendously powerful and can communicate many of the intangibles of a brand as well as your expertise and personality.

- If you write a blog, you become available to your public in yet another way. Your "voice" is unique. What you care about, think about, and talk about help define you.

We are all dynamic, living personal brands ever evolving. That makes us different from product brands. But it makes it more challenging to fully communicate too!

LinkedIn is having a great discussion about personal brand reinvention based on an article in the Harvard Business Review. Most comments have to do with someone changing dramatically from a software engineer to an artist, etc. But there's another kind of career reimagining that needs to happen for entrepreneurs who want to transition within their own industry.

Here's the scenario in which a job seeker MUST change their personal brand even if they're not changing their industry or even changing their chief competency: they've been running their own business for a number of years and now want to transition to being an employee of a company. It's doable, though not an easy sell.

Usually they can demonstrate extensive knowledge of the industry and superior capability in one or more functional area (usually more). But the hiring authority has concerns about whether a CEO / entrepreneur would be happy or committed over the long haul to working in a situation in which the org chart has clearly defined boundaries between jobs. Employers may have concerns that the entrepreneur would be reporting to someone else for the first time in a long while.

The imperative for entrepreneurs is to infuse their personal brand with elements that assuage those concerns while conveying an irresistible value proposition and even exalting their entrepreneurial experience as a competitive advantage in certain cases.

1. Brand Reassurance: Some of the elements of the new brand might be extensive experience consulting within companies, working with internal and external teams, reporting to program managers or other managers / executives, interfacing and interacting comfortably up and down the organization etc.

2. Value Proposition: The value proposition would depend on the function and industry. For example, an independent sales rep might be able to report having an extensive database of C-level contacts in Fortune 100 companies and a strong closing ratio. Both would be highly valuable to the right company.

3. Turn Your Liability into an Asset: Entrepreneurs may also find that the very fact that they have a mindset of taking a great idea and commercializing it in the form of a viable long-term business is valuable to the right kind of company - a mid-sized to large company that has institutionalized an intrapreneurial approach in some or all of its groups - or - an early-stage company or startup that is looking for proven entrepreneurial talent.

Because it's a harder sell than making a move as an employee, the entrepreneur must nail these new aspects of their personal brand - both in their networking and in their resumes, cover letters and other marketing materials.

LinkedIn's launch of a global group called BrandYou is a powerful recognition of the movement towards personal branding in careers and job search. William Arruda, the Personal Brand Guru, extended Tom Peters concept about a decade ago and created a methodology and tools to help people create their own personal brand. Others have continued the conversation. And now LI  has put its imprimature on the concept - and appropriately so, as personal branding couldn't be more central to LI's own core brand: a business networking site facilitating trusted connections for business, job search, and knowledge transfer / idea creation.

On the group's main site is a link to several Brand You videos. Don't miss these. They capture facets of personal branding that you don't often hear about, but we all experience: the "magic," "spirit," and "mystery" in strong personal brands.

There's been a trend in resume writing - particularly executive resume writing - to leave off interests and activities unrelated to the person's profession. The thinking was that it's not a good idea to distract readers from the person's consistent career brand as described in the resume. Those extras have been considered simply irrelevant.

But I was struck to read about some research that has implications for what a job seeker should do about this matter. Craig Lambert, in a Harvard Magazine article about Harvard researcher Amy Cuddy, discusses the finding that competence in one area generalizes to overall competence. So, if a job seeker lists "sailing" as an interest, the reader will be more likely to think that that person is competent in his/her job.

My new advice? It doesn't matter how removed the interest or activity is from your profession, include it if it demonstrates an ability or skill that you have. Cello playing for a CFO. Competitive swimming for an IT manager. Sled dog racing for a construction manager.

You get the idea. You'll be considered better at what you do for a living than a comparable competitor with no interests / activities.

Do you usually think that it's what you say that counts the most in terms of getting a job offer? Think again!

That's not to say that you shouldn't go into an interview fully prepared to get your message across, ask good questions, and answer questions skillfully. You must do so to be competitive. But new research indicates that how you stand and sit may have more impact on how you are perceived that you imagine.

Harvard Magazine has a fascinating article called "The Psyche on Automatic." Harvard Business School professor Amy Cuddy has found that, in order to be considered competent, you need to be sure that your posture sends the message that you are "powerful." There's a high correlation between perceived power and competence. And your posture is an important way to give the impression that you are powerful - or not.

In a "power posing" study, high power postures are "expansive positions with open limbs" and low power postures are "contactive positions with closed limbs." She advises women MBA candidates to stop crossing their legs and shrinking their physical presence. "Be as big as you are," she says. For men and women, the more you can spread your arms, keep your feet on the floor, and take up maximum space the more you will be perceived as powerful and therefor competent.

"In all animal species, postures that are expansive, open, and take up more space are associated with high power and dominance," Cuddy says.

There's more! Nonverbal cues of confidence and happiness produce a mirroring effect on the person you are with and therefor a sense of connection with the other.

And, a natural smile (which affects the eyes as well as the mouth) releases neurochemicals that "correlate with happy feelings." So, you are more likely to be perceived as warm and competent. These findings go to the "likability" quality that makes such a big difference in being successful in all aspects of life.

The takeaway for interviewing? Make sure that your body and your facial expressions communicate competence, confidence, and warmth - while acing the content part as well! You'll be a strong contender for the job.

Of course boomers have to use up-to-the-minute best practices in resume writing, job search and interviewing when looking for a job. But there is one overriding factor they have to nail: their value proposition. Often boomers have an advantage in this, because they have already had accomplished careers and a strong track record.

What's a value proposition for a job seeker? It's the benefit they can (often uniquely) provide to the potential employer that matches the needs of that employer. How do you use it? At a minimum, in your resume, cover letter and LinkedIn Profile. How else must you leverage it? In your networking and interviewing.

One of my clients was 62 and had been out of work for a year when he applied to a Director-level job. Despite a strong competitive field of younger applicants, he got the offer. Why? Because the value he offered was so clearly and boldly spelled out in his resume. And because he interviewed keeping the value prop as his central message. How could the company resist? He was offering the exact value that they needed to solve the "pain" they were having.

So, don't neglect this critical value messaging as you go about your job search. It will override any concerns employers may have about age (even if that concern is not expressed because of possible legal ramifications). But only if clearly, powerfully and consistently expressed on paper and in person!