Monthly Archives: July 2011

How To Create Your Personal Brand From Scratch

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If you have just graduated or are a fairly new entrant into the professional world you may be a bit mystified by all the talk of personal branding buzzing around the Internet. How can I have a brand if I just started out? Can my brand be “desperate for work”? Don’t worry. You can create a brand for yourself right from the start with four simple steps ~ but don’t go with the desperate for work theme, that one is not a door opener.

Step One: Decide on a Theme
This step will take some thought. How do you want employers and colleagues to think of you? Try to come up with three interconnected character traits that encapsulate who you want to be professionally. It is OK if this is not who you are yet. It is meant to be your end goal at this point.
Do you want to be “motivational, dynamic and client driven” or “meticulous, professional and straight to the point.” Throw around some ideas. Hash it over with some friends. After a while you will hit on a theme that describes who you want to be.

Step Two: Scrub Your Virtual Identity
This one is pretty straightforward but it will take some time. As someone who grew up in the midst of the information revolution you most likely have a pretty substantial virtual footprint. It is time to look at the entirety of it with a very critical eye. The first step in creating a personal brand is making sure there is nothing out there that will contradict your soon-to-be-decided on theme.

Go through your various profiles and postings on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Pisca, MySpace and any other social media site. Delete anything that could come back to haunt you. You don’t need to wipe them clean- employers want you to have a personality after all. However, if your posts paint the picture of a serial keg-stand artist you may want to change that.

Step Three: Rewrite Your Profiles
Now create a new profile for each of your social media accounts with the thematic statement you created in Step One in mind. Use your three character traits as your tag line in each account. Let this be the first thing anyone searching for you sees. Then back it up. Create a reading list at Amazon that supports your goals and attach it to your profile. Put a quote or two from someone who exemplifies your theme on your page.

At this point you have begun building your brand. Congratulations! But you’re not done yet.

Step Four: Create Your Professional Documents
There are two main items that fit in this category, your resume and your Linkedin profile. Both are vitally important in creating a personal brand. Start with the resume as that will give you some content for the Linkedin profile later. There are numerous tutorials out there for how to write a resume, including some of my own, so I won’t go into detail as to the nuts and bolts.

However I do want to say a few words on how to insert your brand. Go back to your theme from Step One (notice I keep going back up there ~ yes, it is that important!) when your write your objective or profile statement at the top of your resume include the character traits prominently. Then as you fill out the rest of the resume sections be sure to make those traits the driving message of the document. If something doesn’t support those ideas, leave it out, or at least minimize it.

Then upload your resume to a Linkedin account. Be sure to fill out your profile completely. Take advantage of all the apps that the site allows for. Include your Amazon list here. You can’t have too much info up on this site, as long as it supports your new brand.

OK, I’ve done everything you said. Now what?

Now comes the hard part. You have to get involved socially online with people and organizations that you want to be part of your professional life and to whom you want to promote yourself as your newly created brand. This will take time, but a couple years down the road when you have a fully search-able and professional brand associated with your name, future job searching will be that much more productive.

To Grad School or Not to Grad School?

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Hunting in today’s job market can be a serious challenge: with the pool of available jobs shrinking, new college grads are competing with older workers for the same open positions. For many reasons, graduate school is becoming an attractive option for jobseekers fresh out of college. But before you decide on a graduate program, consider the pros and cons of attending.

Plot your career path
Many students begin graduate school with a particular career goal in mind, such as advancing their current career or gaining the necessary knowledge for a specialized career path. Still others use graduate school as a way to delay jumping into a tepid job pool.
Graduate school is an investment—it’s important to make sure that the time and money you invest can give you a reasonable return.

Of course, not everyone who attends college knows what they’ll be doing once their studies are completed. If you’re still not clear on what you’ll do after grad school, talk to your campus’s career center or your graduate advisors for advice.

Get a leg up on your peers
Depending on your current employment situation, taking a break to attend graduate school could put you behind the eight ball while other jobseekers gain valuable experience in the field. With the job market becoming more competitive, staying in the game might be the better choice.

But working toward a graduate degree could also make you a hot commodity in your field. The graduate of a decent business school and a couple of years in the job market has potential, but an advanced education, like an online MBA, can demonstrate a commitment to self-improvement and learning. Consider a graduate degree to be a trump card in fields where advanced education is strongly
desired.

Giving companies what they want
That’s what this is all about: providing employers with the right mix of education and experience. For specialized professions, higher education is a must; for other jobs, experience may be more important. Research your current career path to determine if a graduate degree would improve your prospects.

Keep in mind that pursuing an education will take time, money and effort—but if grad school helps you land a great job, it will be one of the best investments you ever make. Do your research: talk to friends or family members who have attended graduate school and ask them about their experience. In the end, the decision is up to you, but it’s a decision that should not be made lightly.

4 Ways to Develop Your Resume Like an Executive Resume Writer

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Writing an executive resume is challenging; tough decisions must be made along the way, including which career information should and should not be included.  If you’re perplexed by how to push forward, you could always adopt the mentality of an executive resume writer.  Here are some tips for taking this approach:

Quantity Speaks Volumes

An executive resume writer works diligently to position you and your resume in a way that is consistent with your career objective—and in a manner that will secure interviews.  Securing interviews is one reason why they work so hard to quantify your achievements.

How can you do the same?  By sharing how many projects you initiated and/or managed in how many days, while leading how many team members, and bringing in how much revenue, etc.  These are general examples, but how you quantify the experience in your resume should be related to two points: First, the requirements of the position/needs of the company—and second, it should be consistent with your career goals.  For example, if your goal is to stop managing people and start managing processes, then don’t focus on numbers related to your management of employees; instead, quantify your experience on the processes side.

Ask the Right Questions

Executive resume writers are great data miners.  They can go past the surface of your career to really draw attention to achievements that you may not initially remember, didn’t think were important, or may be vital to the position and meeting the needs of the organization.  In order to do this, they ask you a lot of questions.

For instance, have you ever asked yourself what contributions you have made to the companies for which you’ve worked?  Are they better companies now because you have worked for them?  What initiatives did you bring to the table that made you stand out from other executives who had previously worked in your position?

These questions are often difficult to answer but are necessary in setting you apart from your competition.  Your contributions are probably greater than you think, but it’s up to you to identify the difference you’ve made and then express this difference in your resume.

Walk Away for a While

Everyone needs some perspective and some time to clear their head.  Take time to get a little distance from the resume.  When you come back with a fresh mind, you have the opportunity to read and edit your resume from a third-party perspective—or you may have remembered critically important details that you’d initially left out.

Call in Another Team Player

Even some of the best executive resume writers in the industry will have another set of eyes review the resume for errors or inconsistencies.  Some writers even rely on very meticulous and detail-oriented copy editors to review each client’s project before the client ever sees the document, thereby ensuring its flawlessness.  At the very least, you should have one person review the resume for you prior to sending it out, but a second or third person can never hurt.

Executive resume writers are great at what they do because they know about current trends, have written thousands more resumes in their lifetime than you ever have, and they have an objective, third-party view of you and your qualifications.  Ever heard the phrase, “It’s easier to write about someone else than it is yourself”?  A phenomenal executive resume writer will invest time and effort getting to know your career history and your current career goals.  They’ll strategize with you on how to overcome any obstacles your resume may face and will collaborate with you to develop a strategy to effectively tackle these challenges and garner you interviews.  You are a hard-working executive with a proven track record, so be sure to work as hard on your resume as you would expect a professional writer to.  Or, if you can use some third-party objectivity, consider hiring an executive resume writer to develop your brand, strategize your action plan, and craft an interview-winning resume.

For additional tips and advice on resumes and cover letters, follow @GreatResume or visit our blog.

Global resume authority Jessica Hernandez of Great Resumes Fast is a former HR Manager who partners with professional- and executive-level candidates to create authentic, branded resumes and cover letters.

Article courtesy of the Recruiting Blogswap, a content exchange service sponsored by CollegeRecruiter.com, a leading site for college students looking for internships and recent graduates searching for entry level jobs and other career opportunities.

What It Takes to Be a Lead Software Engineer

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If you like a challenge, love technology, and want to stretch your leadership and team muscles, lead software engineer may be the perfect job for you. It’s similar to other software engineering positions, but this job puts you at the head of the team and gives you the ability to take on new challenges and exciting projects.

Meet Joe. As the lead software engineer at Ungerboeck Software International, Joe manages and mentors the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) team, which handles all the contact and opportunities the company collects, tracks what salespeople use, and handles customer stories.

And yet Joe still spends most of his day coding.

“I like working with my team,” he says. “If you treat the people you’re working with the right way, they’re going to have respect, and that’s a two way street. The people here are going to give it their best try.”

While the job has its challenges, Joe enjoys them. He says the most difficult challenge is learning what customers really need and want from their software. It can be difficult to narrow the focus and prioritize these needs and wants.

Joe didn’t just get the job as a lead software engineer by accident. He graduated with a degree in Management and Information Systems, Phi Beta Kappa. In other words, Joe tailored his education specifically for a career that combined technology and management, but that doesn’t mean you have to take these kinds of courses.

“College teaches you how to learn and is more about understanding,” Joe says. “Technology is always changing, so the courses you take in college won’t necessarily be relevant to technology five or ten years later.”

“You’ll have to learn on your own and continue learning throughout your career,” he says. “You’ll have to work well with others, and understand how your piece fits into the puzzle.”

Joe suggests students interested in a similar career should make sure they get real world experience.

“Go get internships,” Joe says. “Familiarize yourself with other languages to show potential employers you have a desire to learn and are willing to learn independently. And make sure it’s something you really enjoy. ”

Joe sees a bright future for himself and the industry. While he hopes to secure a management position in the future, the industry is getting bigger all the time. Mobile has seen exponential growth, and along with this new media is the demand to support numerous platforms faster than ever before. The potential for the industry and lead software engineers is endless.

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Ungerboeck Software International is currently hiring for positions in St. Louis. If you are interested in working with a leading end-to-end event management system and room booking software for conferences, meetings, exhibitions and associations, visit ungerboeck.com.