Job Search: On-line vs. In-Person 1st Impressions

Chad Levitt, a guest blogger at Dan Schwabel’s Personal Branding Blog posted a blog a few days ago titled “What is Your Digital First Impression?” Chad claimed that making a digital first impression was very similar to making a personal first impression. He inferred in the blog posting that when people are searching for you on google, those first few links that come back are your first impression.

By the way, Chad is an extraordinary authority figure on personal branding, particularly in networking and sales. His own blog at The New Sales Economy Blog is one of my favorite.

No disrespect intended, but I think Chad may have defined digital first impressions a little too narrow.

In a personal meeting, you typically have one chance to make a good first impression. Blow it – and it’s over. Rarely will you have another opportunity.

On-line, first impressions are radically different. Not only are your first impressions scattered across a wide array of sites, such as LinkedIn, Google, Facebook, forums, discussion groups, Twitter, and many other indexed sites/comments.

Not only is your first impression scattered across a wide variety of sites as compared to a one-time event in person, you also have the ability to constantly improve, manage, build, develop, and evolve your first impression on-line. What appears today in a Google Search is NOT what has to appear next week.

The major question is: are you continuously working on your digital first impression so that you can be “found” by buyers, hiring managers, senior executives, recruiters, and human resources?

Let’s tackle one small area of starting to more effectively manage your digital first impressions: A few months ago, we posted on our website an 8-point Success Matrix to evaluate the effectiveness of your LinkedIn Profile. The scorecard was intended to determine if your LinkedIn profile was strong enough to let you be found by hiring managers, recruiters, and human resources.

Our research around the use of LinkedIn as a Personal Branding Tool and for Job Search 1st Impressions was depressing. Less than 10% of those who took the challenge to assess their LinkedIn Profile using our Scorecard met the minimum standard for effectiveness.

If you would like to gain a deeper understanding if your LinkedIn Profile can be more effective in helping you to be “found”, download the LinkedIn Profile Self-Assessment.

Barry

Join our LinkedIn Discussion Group where we release first all our new tools, templates, and advanced self-assessments.

Are You Difficult to Connect with on LinkedIn in Your Job Search?

Many candidates are obsessive about protecting the confidentiality of their contact information on LinkedIn when they are in a job search, even when they indicate on their LinkedIn Profile that they are open to career opportunities.

Why?

This doesn’t make any sense!

Here’s the sad part: Most recruiters, human resource professionals, and hiring managers will skip right by you on LinkedIn searches for candidates when recruiting if you make it too difficult to connect with you. When I do a search on LinkedIn for candidates in our Executive Search Practice, if you make it too hard to connect I’ll move on to the next candidate – I might sound a little harsh – regardless of how much you might be a perfect match – I just don’t have the time to play games or dig too deeply – particularly when there is lots of other great talent available.– I’ll define “too hard to connect” as the following:

• You have no phone number on your LinkedIn Profile
• You have no direct email on your LinkedIn Profile
• You have not checked the settings for “open to career opportunities”
• You have not checked the settings for “open networker”
• Your group settings prevent me from sending you a direct message if we are in the same group

You could be missing out on great opportunities because of inappropriate fears of confidentiality or security. What’s the risk that someone has your cell number or email address when you’re looking for a job. At a minimum, what’s the risk in adding to your account the “open networker” designation so that recruiters and others do not have to use up their precious allotment of inmails?

I’ve had my phone number and email address on my LinkedIn Profile for years. I can count on one hand the number of solicitor calls and inappropriate emails from that contact information. It’s irrational to think you’ll be bombarded with solicitors and crank calls/emails. Take a risk and make yourself available – you’ll be amazed at the increase in the number of calls and emails you get when recruiters, human resource professionals, and hiring managers reach out to you when they are recruiting to fill an open job.

Take a look at my profile on LinkedIn as an example. I would also recommend joining our Discussion Group on LinkedIn and participating in the discussion regarding LinkedIn Profiles for your Job Search.

Barry

Building Your Personal Brand- Audio File

Being different from the rest of the crowd is critical, not important – critical, during a job search. We discuss not only how important it is to develop a personal brand, but the steps to doing it and finally how to get your brand into the market place.

If you want to get noticed by recruiters, hiring managers, CEO’s and referrals, you have to brand yourself so people remember you and refer you. We give two resources in this talk that will make sure you are different from the rest.

Don’t be the same- – be different and download this show.

Every Monday from 11-noon Pacific time on www.latalkradio.com we talk about what’s important in your job search. To download this show or any of our radio shows go to our audio library. CLICK HERE.