How to Jazz Up Your Personal Brand [5 Free Ways]

How to Jazz Up Your Personal Brand [5 Free Ways] There are lots of things you can do to jazz up your personal brand and many of them are completely free! Here are 5 things you can do for your personal brand without spending even a penny: 1. 360 °Reach Personal Brand Assessment 360 °Reach is the first and leading web-based personal brand assessment that helps you get the real story about how you are perceived by those around you. It gives you anonymous feedback about your brand attributes, brand persona, strengths, and weaknesses so  you can expand your career or business success. The basic version of the tool is FREE  and you can  sign up here. More information can be found in this video: 2. Online ID Calculator: Do you know how the world sees you? Are you digitally distant or digitally disguised? Your first page of search results is what people are using to make critical and even life-changing decisions about you. Assess your current online identity and then strategize how to improve, adjust, and even clean-up your search results. The best resource for this is a FREE tool called the  Online ID Calculator. By googling your name and answering just a handful of questions you will learn where you are situated on the ‘digital scale’ a scale which measures the volume of information about you and the relevancy of this information to who you say you are. You are then plotted somewhere on the scale ideally you want to have high volume and high relevance to ensure you are distinct. 3. Personal Portals I have always been a huge fan of personal portals that are essentially the window to your personal brand on the web. Two very common portals are  About.me  and  Flavors.me  where you can set up your own 1-page portal on the web. They are totally FREE so if you have not set one up this year then do it now! A cool new tool (also FREE) that lets viewers ‘interact’ with your portal is  Vizify,  a kind of personal portal based on the best of your social media content. What I love is that it collects and transforms  all the fragmented data across your social media platforms into a unified, visual profile.  TechCrunch  have called it the “slick new way to present your personal brand.” 4. Online Reputation Management Tools Once you know your digital identity, be pro-active throughout the year and manage your online reputation.  Three great tools to manage your reputation are  BrandYourself.com,  Vizibility.com, and  Profiled.com. Open a profile on each of these platforms because after all a basic account is (yup, you guessed it!)  FREE!  Also, set up Google Alerts (also FREE) for your name so that anytime your name does show up on Google, you will get an email informing you of this new search result. The key here is to take ownership in managing your online presence throughout the year. Make it a regular habit to even  â€˜ego surf’   Googling your own name â€" to see how the world sees you! 5. Google Authorship This is one of the simplest and most overlooked ways to build your visibility and credibility. If you are an active contributor of content / thought leadership online, are you verifying your “authorship” to these posts that show up on Google search? Essentially what this does is link your content that shows up in Google search to your Google+ Profile. This means that your profile photo appears alongside search results attributed to you as well as a link to more content from you as the author. Some people have no interest in using Google+ and that is fine. Simply set up a FREE Google+ profile and link it to the content you create and enjoy a higher click-through rate for your content. To learn how to set up Google authorship  click here. Do you know other tools to use to jazz-up our personal brands? Please let us know in the comments below. Top image: Shutterstock

Resume Writing Services in Arlington Heights, IL

Resume Writing Services in Arlington Heights, ILResume writing services in Arlington Heights, IL are essential for preparing and keeping a resume and information about job openings. Arlington Heights job placement agencies provide resume writing services to help job seekers, who are looking for jobs, to land their dream jobs. These agencies provide high quality resumes to their clients at affordable rates and also provide assistance for job hunting.You can get guidance about where to find these service companies. You can get good information by doing a little research on the internet. You can also contact other job seekers who have recently landed a job and know about these services. They can help you a lot in finding the best agency that will suit your needs.The recruitment agencies will provide you with a resume template that is a simplified version of the entire resume. It can be adapted to your requirements as well as personal style. This will allow you to get a job quickly as co mpared to creating your own resume.A good resume writing service company will have your work sent directly to them. They will then review your resume and its content and draft it accordingly. Once it is approved, it will be sent to the employer and posted on the websites of the firm.Resume writing services in Arlington Heights, IL are provided by several good quality service companies. However, one needs to make sure that they choose a well known and established firm. They can also check out the online sites of the firms to see what the services they offer are and whether they are accredited or not.Apart from this, they also need to check out whether they are providing relevant experience and training or not. Since the competition is stiff in the job market today, everyone is looking for professional and competent job candidates. So, you must ensure that you are going to get hired only if you have good experience. You need to ensure that you are providing them with all the necessary documentation as well.There are many companies that claim to be good resume writers but you need to ensure that you are dealing with a well-established firm. When you are ready to hire a service provider, you need to make sure that you have all the necessary documents along with you. They will also need a detailed resume that can include your employment history, work history, educational background and skills. This can include your job goals, qualifications, experience and other personal details.Once you hire a company for resume writing services, you need to make sure that they deliver what they promise. You need to make sure that you are hiring a company that has the credentials to do so. You also need to make sure that the company is reliable and has a good reputation in the industry.

Love and Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Love and Your Personal Brand - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.” Back in 1970, Stephen Stills delivered a mantra useful for those times when you’re far away from where you’d rather be. Quoting fellow musician and road warrior Billy Preston, Stills’ lyric posed a realistic, if unromantic viewpoint about life’s journey. How about spinning that for a personal branding mantra? Think about the job you have right now, especially if there’s something else you would rather be doing. Now repeat: If I can’t be in the job I love, I’ll love the job I have. Gallop polled 8,000 US workers, and found that’s the philosophy of the happiest, most successful people working today. Researcher Shane Lopez dug into the data and found out what was really behind the smiles. These people weren’t just making do, they weren’t white knuckling it through the day and they weren’t lying about how they felt. They had made great jobs from the jobs they got. The secret to their success and happiness was reinvention. They reinvented their jobs to fit their skills, strengths and interests. Yale School of Management’s Dr. Amy Wrzesniewski calls it “job crafting.” Can you job craft? Make a series of small changes by increasing the tasks you want to do and taking on new ones. You will find a natural decrease in those you don’t care for. This doesn’t just apply to tasks. It applies to the amount of interaction you might want to amplify or reduce with colleagues, customers or your boss. When you’re reinventing your job, don’t make changes suddenly. And don’t necessarily announce them to anyone. Start with whatever wiggle room you have in your job. Here are some ideas. -Do an unexpectedly thorough job, even if you’ve been given just a small task. For example, if you schedule tweets and you’d prefer to control more of your company’s social media â€" include additional ideas, information or insights when you email your report that the tweets are up. -Pick up the phone if you work virtually and mostly have been communicating by email and IM. For example, call a colleague to exchange ideas about a project and while you’re at it: ask how their day is going. Do the groundwork for a project you’d love to lead. For example, if you want to get your company involved in branded content, send around a short presentation with relevant show ideas. Ask for input. One of the hallmarks of my career is that after my first job in advertising, I never again was hired for a position that had a job description. I was interviewed for these kinds of jobs, but when I met the employer I treated the job interview as an opportunity to collaborate. I learned what their goals were and I brought my ideas, experience and strengths to bear. Without knowing it, I was being entrepreneurial, thinking beyond what was on the agenda. I believe that’s why I was never turned down, because I created jobs that only I could fill. Job crafting is simply being entrepreneurial on your own behalf, within your current organization. If you want more money, trust, responsibility, and freedom, work the way start-ups do. Take what you have including your imagination, and provide more value by doing more of what you do best. Watch the negative aspects of your job just fall off your to-do list. Because as someone who does, I know you can be with the one you love and love the one youre with. Author: Nance Rosen  is the author of Speak Up! Succeed. She speaks to business audiences around the world and is a resource for press, including print, broadcast and online journalists and bloggers covering social media and careers. Read more at NanceRosenBlog. Twitter name: nancerosen

Our Personal Brands Control the Conversation Not Companies - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Our Personal Brands Control the Conversation Not Companies - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke with Tom Asacker, who is a well-known branding expert, author and speaker. We talked about how conversations have changed over the past few years, how to break through marketing clutter, and some future predictions. As more and more companies are built and destroyed in the next year, marketing and branding still remain an important topic. Now is your chance to be seen, while everyone divests in their marketing budgets. Tom, how have conversations, branding and marketing changed in the past few years? That’s a big question, Dan. It would take us a few years to fully examine it, especially when you take the past few months of economic meltdown, and its effect on brands, into consideration. But let’s look at it this way: Branding is accomplished through value-added innovation and marketing that appeals to ones audience. Fundamental outcomes of “branding” are, obviously, behavior, but also conversations; the ones within an organization, between the brand and its audience, amongst audience members, and, most importantly, the ones people have with themselves. Those conversations used to be controlled and manipulated by the organizations behind the brands; like the Wizard of Oz creating drama with his audience by hiding behind the curtain and manipulating levers. But Toto, Internet-enabled technologies and platforms, has yanked the curtain wide open. The Great and Powerful Oz has been revealed as nothing more (or less) than men and women, like the rest of us. The question now becomes, Can these people help us with our journeys through their creative endeavors, their work? Do they have the wisdom, vision, and courage to inspire, guide and empower us? [youtube=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=O2nSjYXVQMo] You believe (as well as Godin and others) that people have stopped listening to spam and clutter. What do they listen to now and how do we market around it? Remember, spam is in the eye (or ear) of the beholder, and we’ve always had clutter. So people are really no different today then they’ve always been, in that they selectively choose what to listen to, watch, and read based upon what they desire; what interests them and what they find value in. Today’s marketing challenge is that there are a lot more interesting things for them to choose from. And Dan? You can not market around this fact. Rather, you must accept it and be driven to continuously reinvent your brand, differentiate and provide superior value for your particular audience. You have to approach it head on, with boldness and daring. How does this change in branding impact the workforce and how they can succeed at work? I have no idea. Seriously, the workplace is its own ecosystem, where people can succeed in the short term whether customers value their organization and brands or not. Detroit’s big three are on the verge of bankruptcy, yet their CEOs took home tens of millions of dollars last year. Absurd, but a fact of business life. That being said, if you work for an enlightened leader, one who places the interests and concerns of his people and customers above his own, then demonstrate how you can help add value and improve people’s lives. Because if you are not adding value in your work, you’re simply consuming resources and taking up space. What are 3 strategies that brands can use now to break through the clutter and get their messages across? First, be different in way that asserts your purpose as a business, and that purpose should be about them and not about you and making money. This will gain the attention of your highly skeptical and cynical audience. Next, be desirable in way that appeals to their interests. Most organizations have no idea what their customers are feeling and, thus, what they presently desire in the marketplace. Third, be real. Give people an experience with your brand that reinforces the value that they’ve intuited from their associations with your brand. Don’t try to communicate believability; demonstrate it. And finally, show your audience that you are interested in them by continuing to be interesting. Remember, brand is a verb not a noun. What do you predict for the future of branding? What trends should we watch out for? Just like Mr. T predicted in Rocky III, I predict pain! Many organizations, and independent professionals, will collapse during the imminent protracted economic downturn, either because they don’t understand how to build a desirable and profitable entity (a.k.a brand) or because the leaders simply do not want to make the tough decisions and do the hard work necessary to create one. See my 9 predictions for 2009! Tom Asacker, was referred to as a marketing guru in Tom Peters renowned book, Re-imagine!. More often described as a catalyst and non-conformist and acclaimed for his no-nonsense style, Tom Asacker is the author of A Little Less Conversation and A Clear Eye for Branding, groundbreaking books that redefine business for the new, customer-controlled economy. Tom’s first book, Sandbox Wisdom, a heartwarming story about a CEO’s search for meaning and success in the world of business and work, was a business bestseller in the U.S., and was published in South Korea, India and Estonia to rave reviews.

Putting Writing Kills in Resume Writing

Putting Writing Kills in Resume WritingResume writing is an art, not a profession, and writing for a putt event or even a putt competition is something entirely different than creating an exhaustive resume to present on an interview or first date. In the former scenario, you are merely doing a job that has been done by hundreds of thousands of other people and hoping that your resume will end up somewhere near the top. In the latter, you are doing a primary research job, and in this context, you want to make sure that your writing is clear, precise, and professional.Putting out a resume in the first place is a very different process from writing one. In resume writing, even if you are skilled at outlining, presenting, and summarizing, you can quickly lose control over the message if you do not organize the message.Putting the game of golf into perspective. Putt is a game that requires you to write very specifically in order to keep a very specific writing style. Many people want to t hink that there is some universal formula for being able to write clearly and concisely about golf. There is not. In fact, it is likely that the more in depth you are about golf, the more difficulty you will find to write about golf.Putt is simply a fine example of how good planning well can help you to 'put' the writing in writing. And you will find yourself out of practice by the time you get to the part where you actually have to write the words 'I would like to hire you.' Putting in the time to plan ahead, however, will pay off.A short but important part of putting the writing in writing is to make sure that you completely understand what the prospect wants. Of course, the prospect might well be a visitor at the next interview round and not you, but remember that the prospectsjob application is also a real person.Don't forget that the nature of your business is going to make the job position harder or easier. That said, you will have to write differently if you have just come on board from another company. Consider how much more important it is to hire someone who has some degree of familiarity with your products and services. In a perfect world, your writing should be equally good for each position.Remember also that the public (and perhaps some of your existing clients) will be scanning your resume for key phrases that may indicate that you do not know what you are doing. You want to make sure that you will look professional no matter who reads your writing. The best way to accomplish this is to write clearly, speak clearly, and use all of your talents to promote yourself.Writing for the golf writing test is a different animal altogether. And the only way to really get it right is to give it a lot of time and effort. You will benefit more if you take the time to prepare and be prepared.

This Whole Work Thing Is Getting In The Way Of My Personal Life CareerMetis.com

This Whole Work Thing Is Getting In The Way Of My Personal Life â€" CareerMetis.com It is no secret that it is a job seeker’s market out there. Unemployment is at a contemporary low and sustained economic expansion in Canada dating back to 2010 has put employees at a premium.Many job applicants, who are in their twenties or early thirties, may not even have a recollection of a pre-2010 world where jobs were scarce and the economy an adverse headwind. As such, finding employees is often difficult and finding qualified employees even more so.evalYet, we all know that things change and capitalism, as an economic model, comes with its adverse cyclical cycles. Sooner or later either the economy will stall, or worse, the recession will return and it will become an employer’s market again.Either way, job market participants need to be ready and keep their skills sharp. Employees deserve suitable workplaces that speak to their needs and potential. Equally, employers too deserve dedicated and contributing workers who step up and go beyond merely showing up. This is not a lways the case, however.There are hundreds of books, articles, experts, and videos on the art of interviewing and selling oneself to employers. It should be elementary by now. Everyone has seen these and had the chance to read or watch them.Yet, it is astounding how job applicants’ interviewing quality currently is. With this unhappy reality in mind below is a ‘best of’ actual accounts from recent interviews to remind the readers of a few rules of interviewing.Occurrence #1:The interviewee obtains the job but does not arrive at work on his start date. After several telephone calls, the no-show employee admits his current manager matched the new offer and he will not be starting at the new workplace.Advice #1: evalBe honest and communicate. This recommendation extends to after the interview process. Call the employer and let them know you have accepted either another offer or a counter-offer. Rescinding your acceptance of an offeris not ideal, but it is better than ghosting or burning bridges.Occurrence #2: The interviewee shows up and explains that he left his job because the “old man” Racism, sexism, and ageism have no place in our society and they certainly have no place at job interviews. Be mindful of your etiquette and, more importantly, clear your mind of generalizations and discrimination that casts a pall over an entire group.Occurrence #3: Interviewee tells the interviewer that the reason she is there â€" even though she currently has a job â€" is because “I am considering my options.”Advice #3: Do not waste time. Do not waste the interviewer’s time. Do not waste your own time. Honesty is always preferred, but feign some enthusiasm at an interview. Tell the interviewer why you would be a good fit and how excited you are to be there.Occurrence #4: Candidate for the job attends an interview and asks whether he is required to be in the office. When asked why he is asking the question he notes he lives too far from the office and moreover has his eyes on municipal politics, which require him to be present in his riding, knock on doors and campaign.Advice #4: evalDo not discuss working remotely even before there is an indication that you are being advanced in the search process. Much more pertinently, do not inform the company that you have other priorities than, er, working there. Actually, earlier we advised that you be honest. Do inform the company. They appreciate your candoras it helps them make the right decision by not hiring you.Occurrence #5: Candidate has done a good job interviewing and feels confident as he is leaving the employers’ offices. He pauses to ask one more question While being accommodated at work is necessary and logical, there is a time and place for it. Moreover, all such requests should serve a pretext that serves the work required of the employee. Sell it within the context of what is good for the employer and not as a demand that does nothing for your prospective manager or employer.Occu rrence #6: When asked why she is considering departing her current employer the candidate badmouths her current manager and says the supervisor has no talent or business being a leader of people.Advice #6:Do not attack your current manager when speaking with a prospective one. The hiring manager may perceive you as a malcontent. Instead of trash talking someone explain how certain behaviors(not persons) are not conducive to achieving goals and cushion it with stating that you are open-minded and always willing to be proven wrong.No matter the state of the economy or the job market, there are certain guidelines that make sense and are helpful to you as a candidate. Honesty is important. In fact, it is necessary. Ditto on staying focused on the needs of the prospective employer.As for the title of this article? An actual quotation from an employee uttered to her manager in 2019.

Rules for Networking Success Part 1

Rules for Networking Success Part 1 Many people think that networking during a job search means calling everyone you know and asking them for a job. They associate networking with being pushy, overbearing, and an overall pest. People often shy away from networking because they dont want to be labeled as this type of person. But research shows that 70-80% of all jobs are filled through networking. How can this be so, if networkers are such an annoying, self-serving lot?Successful networkers are not egocentric, aggressive jerks. They show a sincere interest in their networking contacts. They work hard to develop a relationship, establish their credibility, and share information. They follow the rules of the game where everyone has something to gain. Like the lottery, you have to be in it to win it. Here are a few rules for successful networking.Dont ask for a job…Ask for information. Networking is not about asking everyone you know for a job. As a matter of fact, when you network you should never ask someone for a jobâ €¦You ask them for information that will help you in your search. Your goal is to build a relationship and establish rapport so that if a potential opportunity becomes available in the future, they will want to refer you. Compare these two scenarios:Scenario One “Joe, Ive been out of work for six months and Im really strapped for cash. Do you know of any open positions in your department?”Youve put Joe in a very difficult position. Sure, he can sympathize with your situation, but he may not be able to offer you a job. Perhaps hes not in a position to refer you, or theres a hiring freeze, or there arent any openings right now. Whatever answer Joe gives you, its bound to be disappointing. So to redeem himself, Joe says, “I dont know of any open positions, but why dont you give me your resume and Ill send it to the HR department where I work.” Bad move. Unless your skills match a specific opening in the company at that point in time, its bound to never be looked at. Joe will fe el that hes done what he can for you, but you will be no better off.Scenario Two ”Joe, as you know, I most recently worked for a medical device company in their marketing group. I know that youve been in pharmaceutical sales for the past 15 years and Im very interested in learning more about marketing roles within your industry” I dont expect you to know of any open positions in your organization, but Id like the opportunity to speak with you briefly to learn more about your organization and the pharmaceutical industry in general.”Joe may think, OK, heres a friend that wants some information and sees me as some sort of expert on the topic. Thats kind of flattering. I guess I could spend a few minutes with him. Does Joe know youre looking for a job? Probably. But you are not asking him for a job; youre just asking him for advice and insight. The stakes are low and the expectations are reasonable, so he is more likely to help you.Dont take up too much of the other persons time. Have an agenda and keep the meeting on track. Nothing scares people more than the prospect of someone eating up a lot of their time. Many people dont want to cram yet another meeting into their already jam packed day. Contrast these two situations:Scenario One You meet with Mary after a mutual friend has agreed to help you set up a brief 20-minute meeting. You neglect to prepare for the meeting, ramble, get off topic and spend an hour and a half with her. Mary feels that you have abused the use of her time and you havent gotten to the critical questions youd hoped to ask during the meeting. Mary feels burned and vows never to network again.Scenario Two You walk into the meeting with a prepared mental agenda that includes: • A reminder of who referred you and perhaps some brief chit-chat about that mutual acquaintance. • A statement up front that you have no reason to believe Mary can offer you a position and a reiteration of why Marys information is of interest to you. • An ex planation of your agenda. “Today Id like to tell you a bit about myself and get your perspective on the future of the high-tech industry.” Remember to discuss your skills and accomplishments and show how you can add value to an organization.By planning out your meeting ahead of time, you establish your professionalism, gain credibility, and cover all the critical agenda items. Check back tomorrow for more networking strategies.

How to get ahead at work. Review of The High Achievers Secret Codebook -

How to get ahead at work. Review of The High Achievers Secret Codebook - I am happy to share a review of a new book by Sandra Naiman, The High Achievers Secret Codebook. As a special treat, Ill be offering a free copy of the book as a prize, courtesty of Jist Works Publishers, to one of my lucky readersBe sure to read on for details about how to enter. This book offers readers Seven Secrets to help careerists succeed at work. These rules, the author suggests, can make the difference between the professional who achieves his or her goals at work and the other, equally talented professional, who falters, stumbles and possibly never recovers. I appreciate and agree with the authors premise that how people perceive you at work is just as important as the choices you make. A successful leader must function in a nuanced, ever changing environment full of personalities, egos and varying interests. How to succeed? To start, remember Naimans message: You are never finished getting off to a great start and take action to learn how to conduct yourself in ways that help you get ahead. The rules? Tread lightly. Learn how to overcome your instincts to jump in and have an immediate impact. Instead, slowly integrate into an organization to lay a foundation for success. Play nice with everyone. Understand where the influence in the organization rests. Note its not always where you think! Yield the floor. Dont focus on right and wrong. Learn to incorporate a variety of factors before making a decision. Listen between the lines. Be alert to feedback that may not come via your performance review. Get over yourself. Dont get too comfortable! Blow your horn softly. Let others know what you have to offer without being labeled a blatant self-promoter. Keep sight of the shore. Be mindful of the fine line between self-confidence and overconfidence. The book is full of great advice,  stories and action items to help you succeed in virtually any situation. It offers a plethora of common sense suggestions and ideas you may not have considered. For example: Be careful your email messages are not too brief. Brief can be synonymous with brusque. Lower your voice and speak slowly and deliberately to cue your body to relax in stressful situations. Talking about others is an excellent way to go about self-promotion. This books common sense and useful information will help readers understand and implement approaches that will help them be better employees, better managers and more successful in their business and personal lives. I promised that one lucky reader will win a copy of The High Achievers Secret Codebook. For your chance to win, share an idea or rule that you live by (or know you should live by) at work. What has helped you succeed? Or, share a story about how you (or a colleague) didnt conduct yourself so well. No ideas yet? Feel free to write why youd like to win this book! You dont need to use your full name, but do be sure to include a valid email address so I can contact you if you win. Ill choose one commentator from comments on all of my blogs. Feel free to enter at each one: Examiner.com GreatPlaceJobs Secrets of the Job Hunt Ill draw a winner on Friday!