By: fresh&easy? | May 4, 2012 | Tags: branded job search, branding examples, career branding, careers, corporate jobs, distribution jobs, fresh and easy, fresh food, google job search, google myself, great food, how to brand, how to personal brand, internships, job search branding, manufacturing jobs, neighborhood market, personal branding, retail jobs, social job search, social media job search In today?s day and age, many job seekers still focus on the classic resume and cover letter in their search. These documents are of vital importance, but you can enhance your chances by supplementing them with a strong personal brand.
What Is Branding?
Branding is essentially a marketing technique in which you associate the ?product? (in this case, yourself as an employee!) with a unique image. For example, you might want to define yourself as being a hard-working, experienced store manager, and you would brand your application materials and social media profiles accordingly. Your personal brand will help to promote YOU, allowing you to project your own answer to the question ?Who are you?? for potential employers to find online.
Branding used to be only for businesses and products, but with the advent of social media and employers ?Googling? their job candidates, the world of personal branding has opened up. What will a prospective employer see if they search for you online? If they find your LinkedIn profile and an online portfolio or resume site, you may be in good shape. On the other hand, if the first results are a YouTube video of you partying with friends, you?ve probably got some work to do!
The good news is that establishing your brand online can be a very easy task. With a bit of time and effort, both experienced candidates and new graduates can build a strong online presence which can attract recruiters and with which they can network to meet influential people in their field.
In this article we?ll discuss how to clean up your online accounts, an important first step before you can focus on branding. Over the next few weeks we?ll show you how to use these clean accounts and other techniques to brand your job search!
Five Steps to a Clean Online Profile
1. Google
Set up a Google account. Even if you have no interest in using Gmail or Google+, you can build a Google profile that will rank highly with the search engine. You can list past employers, a tagline, contact information, and other useful items. You should also consider following companies that you are interested in working for on Google+ if they have a page. We have a page right here!
2. LinkedIn
As a professional networking site, every passive or active job seeker should have a LinkedIn profile. Plug in your past job and education history, as well as information about youre career interests. Be sure to keep this profile up-to-date at all times, and follow companies that you?re interested in. Fresh&easy has some great groups you can join for job search info and discussions!
3. Facebook
You?ve probably heard many cautionary tales about your privacy settings to make sure your personal information doesn?t become easy to find online, but have you thought about what your Facebook profile looks like to a potential employer? We recommend going into your privacy settings and using the ?Limit the Audience for Past Posts? tool to set past posts to be visible only to your friends. Make sure your profile photo and Timeline cover image are clean, and use all the information you?ve been plugging in to LinkedIn and Google to update your past employment information. Then go back to your main profile page. You should see an option to ?View as.? Click this to see what your profile looks like to the general public, including a prospective employer who has not ?Friended? you. It should look clean, tidy, and professional!
4. Twitter
Twitter is a great way to connect with employers. Be sure to follow us at @FandECareers, as well as our individual recruiters at @Emma_Weare, @MelanieTom, and @C_Almanza! Go through your recent tweets and delete anything you think an employer might find offensive (swearing, adult content, etc.) Update your profile image to something clean and professional (ideally a head shot of yourself), and mention in your bio that you?re looking for work. Bonus points if you say you want to work at @FreshandEasy!
5. Miscellaneous (Blogs, Websites, Profiles, Etc.)
It?s amazing what profiles can pop up when someone searches for you online. If you attach your real name to them, people can find your blog and/or personal website, a profile you made to post once on a forum two years ago, and all kinds of other info. Perform a Google search for yourself and check the first three to five pages to see if you find anything you don?t like. Go in and manually clean each site, blog, and account as best you can.
This may sound like a lot of work, but it should only take you a couple of hours if you don?t have any major problems (like lost account information). If you really want to go the extra mile, ask a friend to do a similar search for you from their home computer. Google customizes results for each searcher, so they may find different items! And remember: at fresh&easy we love to see people who look like they have fun, but also people who look friendly and responsible!
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