Most hiring companies today have done an exceptional job of convincing virtually every job seeker that the only way to apply for an open position is to respond to one of the company’s online job postings. “Only applications received online will be accepted,” they specify. “Unsolicited résumés will be rejected.” “No phone calls accepted.” A pretty bleak, stifling situation for a job seeker today.

As I pointed out in last week’s blog, this is one of the major reasons that many job seekers who are classified as “semi-passive” (55% of all potential candidates) will not even attempt to investigate career opportunities with companies that actually want to attract—and hire!—“good” people, in order to effectively compete in today’s extremely competitive global marketplace. Unless they are particularly masochistic, these potential candidates aren’t at all likely to subject themselves to the hassle, the rejection and, oftentimes, the humiliation that is sometimes involved in the entire “online application only” process. Clearly, then, neither the hiring company nor the potential candidate wins in this situation.

To be fair about it, I can easily understand—as I am sure most of you reading this blog can as well—why hiring companies today are putting up barriers such as the “online applications only” requirement for job seekers. With so many people, both employed and unemployed, seeking new jobs, virtually any position posted by a hiring company can—and usually does!—result in a literal avalanche of applications, many from job seekers who are in no way qualified for the positions. The flip side of that coin, however, is that, while the hiring companies are “protecting” themselves from this oftentimes huge number of non-qualified candidates, they are also considering only 17% of the TOTAL job candidate pool, i.e., those who are classified as “active” (usually, the unemployed who are looking for any type of job) and/or “semi-active” (usually, employed people seeking better opportunities)! Then, these same companies lament the fact that they can’t attract “good” people for the positions they need to fill!

How, then, can hiring companies continue to protect themselves from a potential avalanche of unqualified applicants and still engage and tap into the huge pool of fully qualified top talent who will usually never be encountered through the “online application only” process?  There are essentially only two viable methods:

• Set up an in-house recruiting team that will proactively reach out to these candidates and have career conversations with them. Until a candidate actually declares they want to proceed with the opportunity, there is no legal requirement for them to apply online. If legal concerns abound, or if you afraid of being accused of “poaching” by your competitors, or if an “in house” recruit team (that actually recruits) is not cost effective then . . .
• Engage the professional services of a good “headhunter” who specializes in recruiting top talent for your company’s particular market niche(s).

(Buyer Beware: Some “headhunters” and recruiters are really nothing more than glorified résumé screeners who tap into the same 17% of the candidate pool that hiring companies do. What a hiring company should look for is a recruiting firm that conducts “cold-call” direct recruiting into the competition to locate and engage talent “buried in excellence” at their current position but still open to other genuine career opportunities.)

Obviously, as I’ve already stated, it certainly is not only the hiring companies that stand to lose in the current “online applications only” environment. Many highly qualified potential job candidates merely assume that they are essentially powerless in such an environment and remain in place, in their current jobs, no matter how distasteful those jobs may have become. In fact, nothing could actually be further from the truth, particularly for those candidates who brand themselves as being unique, creative, persistent and proactive, as someone who clearly stands out from the crowd. (Check out, for example, how one enterprising young woman completely circumvented the “online applications only” game and won her dream job at this link: How Hannah Landed Her Dream Job!)

Another unique, very effective approach to landing a new job in today’s extremely challenging job market involves the candidate launching a direct mail campaign, in conjunction with other job searching activities. Learn all about this tactic at this link: Frustrated by “Post and Hope” Job Hunting? Try This Instead!

Even though the latest jobs report suggest that there may be—at last!—“light at the end of the tunnel,” make no mistake about it: The job market remains brutally competitive and quite challenging. I honestly don’t see that changing much for the next couple of years, at least. But that still doesn’t mean that you, as a job seeker, have to continue walking in “lock step” and totally acquiesce to the “online applications only” hiring process in place at so many companies today. If you truly are an exceptional candidate, if you have truly branded yourself as new, different and better from your competition, i.e., other job seekers, don’t fall for the “online applications only” game. You do have other options to seeking—and landing—your dream job! Make sure you utilize these other options to the maximum!

And, hiring companies: If you truly seek top talent for your open positions, continue to utilize the “online applications only” approach merely to filter and handle the majority of applicants, but also institute steps in your hiring process to go after and hire the top talent that you so badly need to compete in today’s global marketplace. That way, EVERYONE wins!

Author:

Skip Freeman is the author of “Headhunter” Hiring Secrets: The Rules of the Hiring Game Have Changed . . . Forever! and is the President and Chief Executive Officer of The HTW Group (Hire to Win), an Atlanta, GA, Metropolitan Area Executive Search Firm. Specializing in the placement of sales, engineering, manufacturing and R&D professionals, he has developed powerful techniques that help companies hire the best and help the best get hired.

Often, there’s a disconnect, or gap, between the words used in resumes, marketing materials, & day-to-day social marketing, and the personal brand an individual is trying to build.

Personal brand building is impossible if you’re not using the right words!

To make sure that you’re using the right words, I’d like to share a free online tool you can use to visually display the contents of your resume, marketing materials, and social media marketing articles and updates.

Word clouds & word frequency

Wordle.net is a free online software application that creates word clouds, like the example shown, that you can use to make sure you’re using the right words to build your personal brand.

The idea behind word clouds is very simple: the more frequently a word appears in a resume, one sheet, or blog post, the larger the word appears!

Thus, at a glance, you can see if the words you’re using are in alignment with your personal brand and the idea you’re trying to communicate in your resume, blog post, or other marketing project.

Word clouds permit you to do, in seconds, what would otherwise take a lot of tedious time.

Putting Wordle to work

There are several ways you can generate a Wordle word cloud.

Start by selecting the Create tab from the menu at the top of Wordle.net’s home page. Then, choose from among 3 options:

• Copy & Paste. The easiest way to create a word cloud of the words used in a resume, one sheet, or blog post is to simply copy and paste the text into the text box found on Wordle.net’s Create page.
• Enter a URL. Another option is to simply enter the URL of any blog, or blog post, that has an Atom or RSS feed.
• Del.icio.us tags. You can also enter a del.icio.us user’s name to create a word cloud of their tags.

Analyzing word clouds

What I like best about word clouds created with Wordle.net is their immediacy; they instantly appear after you press Go or Submit.

More important, you don’t have to “study” the word clouds to know whether or not you’re using the right words to build your personal brand. The words are either there, or they’re not there!

On the other hand, there are some lessons you can draw from comparing word clouds of different blog posts and marketing projects. For example:

• Noticeable contrast. When you look at a word cloud, the key ideas should appear noticeably larger than the supporting words.  The hierarchy of ideas should be obvious. You should be immediately able to pick out the main points. When most of words used appear the same size on a word cloud, however, it may be a sign that your page lacks a clear focus or structure.
• Alignment. The largest words in a word cloud, or series of word clouds, should support your personal brand. If you print out word clouds for the Pages of your WordPress blog, for example, each word cloud should emphasize the key words you want associated with your personal brand. Likewise, if you create word clouds of your blog posts, or newsletters, for the previous month, the majority should emphasize your key personal branding terms.

Tips for working with Wordle

The easiest way to work with Wordle.net is to immediately print each word cloud. The best way to do this is to use 3-hole paper, so you can save your word clouds in a 3-ring binder.

The reason to immediately print each Wordle.net word cloud is  because you cannot save them to your hard drive or to a private folder online. The only way you can save your Wordle word clouds is save them in Wordle.net’s public folder. This may, or may not, be appropriate.

Bear in mind that, once posted, you cannot return and search for your previously-created word clouds. Nor can you delete a Wordle graphic.

But, remember, we’re talking about a free, no registration, online software application!

Workaround, if you regularly work with a screen capture program, like TechSmith’s Camtasia, of course, you can easily create and save as many word clouds as desired on your computer.

Are you using the right words to build your personal brand?

With little effort and no cost, Wordle.net lets you see–at a glance–whether or not the words you’re using in your resume, marketing materials, and social media updates are the right ones to build your personal brand. Do you use Wordle.net, or a similar resource, to check the words you’re using to build your brand? Share your experiences, as comments, below.

Author:

Roger C. Parker is an author, book coach, designer, consultant who works with authors, marketers, & business professionals to achieve success with brand-building books & practical marketing strategy. He helps create successful marketing materials that look great & get results, and can turn any complex marketing or writing task into baby steps. Visit his blog to learn more or ask a question.

Early in my sales career, I learned that it was necessary to make 100 sales calls in order to make 10 sales. It was not motivating to learn I only had a 10% chance for making a sale. We were then told, the more “No’s” you get, the closer you will be to a “Yes!” The better news was, as practice made perfect, my success statistics would rise significantly – and they did. Hence the motivation to keep on analyzing, tweaking and try, try again.

Rejections provide excellent first-hand lessons. View rejection as your learning opportunity. The mental adjustment in outlook will help tremendously in these regards:

• Recognition of how to improve
• Refinement of what you are truly after
• Enabling a higher salary

Honest introspection will improve your future interviews. Ignoring disappointment, mentally review why someone else was believed to be the better choice. What was said and what was not said? Are you able to tweak your part in the conversation the next time around on the next interview? Is it possible that it wasn’t a great fit after all, and that you will actually be happier elsewhere?

Should you be in the favorable position of having flexibility to be selective yourself, pay attention to all of the factors surrounding you on your next interview and how they compare with the company that turned you down. Is it easier to communicate with the people you are now meeting? Is there interest both ways; you toward the job and they toward your talent? Have you spoken to the receptionist and other staff members? Overall, will you feel comfortable and happy working at this company?

It’s rare that a person will find the perfect job. Likewise, the perfect candidate rarely exists although we each like to think of ourselves as such. Your next career move should for the most part be in alignment with your priorities. Remain true to what holds most importance to you and you will find the better match. In sales we call this the qualified lead.

Persistence is the name of the game. The following story illustrates the points made above. Mid-career, my heart’s desire was set on being able to say, “I sold to that Fortune 100 Company”. The Buyer in charge was quite rude and loved playing games with sales reps without any intention of buying from them. At the six month mark, he took a leave of absence and another buyer came on board who was even worse. By the tenth month, an associate told me she knew the fellow who worked in the basement. I asked for an introduction. At 12 months, due to the friendship established with the fellow in the basement, I celebrated a very large sale!

I learned to never under-estimate anyone, and my personal brand became “Determined.” The learning experience taught me how to more quickly enjoy the Smooth Sale!

Author:

Elinor Stutz, CEO of Smooth Sale, LLC, (800) 704-1499, was honored by Open View Labs with inclusion in their international list of “Top 25 Sales Influencers for 2012.” Elinor authored the International Best-Selling book, “Nice Girls DO Get the Sale: Relationship Building That Gets Results”, Sourcebooks and the best selling career book, “HIRED! How to Use Sales Techniques to Sell Yourself On Interviews”, Career Press. She provides team sales training, private coaching and highly acclaimed inspirational keynotes for conferences. Elinor is available for consultation.

Attending an industry event, association meeting, or even a professional cocktail hour in your city can be a great and easy way to transition the brand you’ve created online into the real world. Consider below three ways to implement your brand in person once you’re there:

Keep The Conversation Going. Since you’re aware about what you tweet and post, try to extend that same expertise when it comes to starting a conversation. It doesn’t have to all industry-related, but keep the talk professional nonetheless.

Having One Presence…On A Card. In 2010, I wrote about the importance of maintaining consistency of your brand online, yet, the same rules about having one presence apply when it comes to networking in person. You should have your information on a business card. Be sure to have your name, title, area of expertise, contact information, and even your social media handles listed. Always remember to bring enough!

Show Your Value. You can extend your brand’s reputation with your new connections by demonstrating how you’re a valuable asset to their network. Try to listen and engage others more than talk about yourself – you may get a chance to offer your expertise or someone you know that is a right fit for the challenge.

Your brand cannot risk remaining online only.  Striking a balance of online and offline interaction will sustain your personal brand in the long run.

Do you agree that personal branding is important offline? How else can you implement your brand in person?

Author:

Heather R. Huhman is a career expert, experienced hiring manager, and founder & president of Come Recommended, a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for organizations with products that target job seekers and/or employers. She is also the author of Lies, Damned Lies & Internships (2011), #ENTRYLEVELtweet: Taking Your Career from Classroom to Cubicle (2010), and writes career and recruiting advice for numerous outlets.

Score each question on a scale of 1-10 (10 = AWESOME). Add up your total score in each category. If you are totally awesome, you’ll have a total of 200 points. If you score below 30 points in any category, it’s time to take remedial action.

Job mastery

How well do I?

1. Exhibit expertise of the particular knowledge and skills that make me a uniquely valuable employee

2. Continue to get educated to update my knowledge and skills for my position and the positions I desire to hold in the future

3. Understand the metrics by which I am evaluated as well as those that my department is judged, and work to excel at those measured behaviors

4. Manage my tasks and actions to contribute to the performance outcomes set for my department and company

Communication with my boss

How well do I?

5. Understand and articulate my boss’ top priorities and reasons for them, and approach my work in that manner

6. Know which is of greater consequence to my superior: people, projects or principles

7. Appreciate my boss’ sense of balancing the need to a) gather information and b) take action

8. Show that I understand and support my superiors’ professional aspirations

Relating to others and gaining visibility

How well do I?

9. Seek to create significant, lasting connections with everyone in my company

10. Communicate using all opportunities to strengthen my ties throughout the organization

11. Manage my intentions and actions to appropriately compete and collaborate with my peers

12. Project my desire to be a resource to others as well as a willingness to be assisted by them

Cultural sensibility, belief and belonging

How well do I?

13. Keep a clear picture of the formal and informal reporting lines in my company

14. Like my company’s overall approach to business, people and the marketplace

15. Believe that I can contribute to the larger goals and vision of my organization

16. See that opportunities exist for me to grow and gain greater responsibility and authority in my company

Good judgment and resourcefulness

How well do I?

17.  Imagine I would be able to step up and fill in for my boss or another superior, if needed

18. Seek opportunities to be increasingly effective and efficient with the tools, workspace and funds allocated to me

19. Build relationships outside of the company that can be leveraged for its benefit

20. Relate to people who have the capacity to mentor me and widen my scope of influence

There’s a wealth of free and low-cost resources to get you back on track. Let me know if there are any areas you’d like to drill down on, and I’ll be happy to send you a list to kick-start your career. Email: Nance@NanceRosen.com

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

Next to a root canal appointment, few things in life are as nerve inducing as the job interview. In this day and age, the face-to-face interview is typically the first time a prospective employee will speak to an actual person. This “actual” person literally has your career in the palm of their hand. They will determine, based on this portion of the hiring process, whether or not the process will continue or come to a screeching halt.

Wow! No wonder you’re nervous. Right?

Below are a few ideas that will go a long way toward taking some of the pressure off of you and making the most of your time with the interviewer.

1. Keep in mind, this company called you. From the stack of resumes they received, something about you gave them the confidence in your qualifications and abilities to want to get to know you better. That knowledge alone should put a spring in your step and arm you with the confidence necessary for a successful interview.

2. Save the bright colors for the first casual Friday at your new job. For the interview, though, keep it neat and professional. Doing so will immediately create an air of quiet confidence that will be evident in how the interviewer responds to you.

3. Few things in life can boost your confidence levels like a good round of exercise. Try to schedule a vigorous workout routine as close to the interview time as possible. Doing so will keep the butterflies in your stomach at bay, and will help you to interview from a standpoint of strength versus weakness.

4. Get plenty of rest the night before. You may be thinking to yourself, “Well, duh.” But believe it or not, many job seekers are so nervous they find it hard to sleep and wind up pacing the floor half the night, only to be exhausted by the time they get to the interview. I don’t have to tell you how adverse this condition can be to an interview.

5. Don’t forget to eat. Studies have proven, time and again, that a nutritious breakfast increases concentration. The ability to focus is essential for a winning interview. And besides, few things are as distracting as the sound of a growling stomach.

In addition to the simple suggestions above, get ready for your interview by conducting a few preparatory steps:

1. Equip yourself with ample research on the company’s needs. Visit Glassdoor.com, Hoovers.com, BizJournals.com, WSJ.com, LinkedIn.com, Forbes.com and the company’s website. Simply Google the company’s name or a combination of the company name + targeted keywords to vet as much detail about the company for which you are interviewing as possible.

Read between the lines about how their current growth patterns, product or marketplace positioning and so forth speaks to present and future needs – their areas of pain.

2.  From that info, ferret out where you sense their needs and your talents intersect. Make sure you prepare at least 4-5+ mini-stories (Challenge-Action-Result format) that vividly describe how you have achieved solutions similar to problems this company has faced, or will face. Paint a picture that YOU are THEIR solution, a better fit than the next interviewing candidate.

3. Prepare for the multiplicity of questions interviewers often ask, such as:

1. Tell me about yourself.
2. What is the greatest value you can bring to us?
3. Why do you want to leave your present position?
4. What qualities do you admire in others?
5. What are your salary expectations?
6. What does ‘success’ mean to you?
7. What is the most stressful situation you have experienced at work within the past year, and how did you handle it?
8. What would your current (or past) employer say about your work?

4. Prepare questions to ask them, such as:

1. What are the greatest challenges you’re facing in your industry?
2. Is your industry/business growing?
3. What is the most important thing I can do to help within the first 30 days of my employment? 60 days? 90 days?
4. What did you like most about the person who previously held this position?
5. To the interviewer: What excites you about this job? What do you like most about this company? I’d like to know something about your background and how you came to work here?
6. What main factors do you attribute to your growth?
7. What do you attribute to the success of your company?
8. What makes you better than your nearest competitor?

5. Have a friend or family member (or hire an interview coach) to act the part of the interviewer. This will go a long way to quieting those nerves by giving you an opportunity to practice your tone and ensuring you won’t verbally stumble during the actual event.

The person interviewing you has one goal in mind: fill a vacancy with the best-qualified candidate possible. You can make their job easier by being that candidate.

So practice, prepare and be cognizant of the fact that this company would not have called you, if they didn’t need you.

Author:

There is no such thing as an overnight success! Just look at the bio’s or stories of  just about any successful small business, entrepreneur, author, journalist or media personality.

They all started somewhere and moved their business and brands in the direction they wanted them to go and were led. Building  businesses and careers over time, takes time.

I am about to celebrate 5 years in business! I can clearly see how over the last 5 years, I have thoughtfully and purposefully moved my business and career in the direction I wanted it to go and more importantly where I have been led!

The process of creating, establishing and sustaining your business brand is a holistic one. There are so many things that go into successful, sustainable branding.  How do we sustain and grow our business and branding over time?

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” Warren Buffet This is so true especially today, from a very smart man, who has a lot to say about being in and succeeding in business.

Sustaining your brand is about what you do and how you are perceived while you are right here, right now and how that compounds over time! It is also the promise of how you want to be remembered long after you are gone.

Here are 7 keys that have served me well in moving my business and personal brand in the direction I wanted it to go to build sustainability and legacy.

Deliver Daily Value
Ultimately what I do and offer has to  bring and deliver value to people’s day and lives by making it better. That’s why people stay and refer others. Apple is a perfect example of this.

Be Relentlessly Consistent
People need to be able to count on me delivering that value consistently to them , so that they always get what they have come to expect from me. I have found this to be true with my 20+ year relationship with American Express.

Create An Easy User Experience
The unified, consistent experience I create for people with delivering my products, services and online presence is crucial. Make that experience easy, friendly and fun. A great example of this is Zappos.com

Always Be Authentic and Personalize
With the new and social media platforms; it makes it easier to be more accessible online and in person and give people a glimpse of me personally yet stay professionally focused. I personally try to interact with as many people as I can daily and weekly. Love Facebook for this!

Foster Mutual Engagement
Invite feedback, ideas and suggestions from your customers and community. Conduct focus groups or surveys either in person or online and harvest information from key people about what’s going on in their worlds and how you are doing. Tapping into your key people bolsters your transparency, authenticity and can yield some very useful information you can apply to your business.

Be Fresh Squeezed and Innovate
It’s so important to be reframing, refreshing, and reinventing the way you deliver your products and services. I have tried to follow important trends and review things yearly! Technology and trends have given us all so many ways to do this. Check out www.trendwatching.com for great ideas!

Rock and Reward Your Customers For Their Loyalty
Show your appreciation to all your customers, but especially the loyal long-term ones. They tend to get lost in the effort to find new customers.  They are the foundation of any long-term success.  How do you make them feel special and appreciated? Reward and pass on your success to employees and customers by giving them incentives, gifts, and premiums.

It takes time to establish yourself and claim your place, but once you do, it’s up to you to keep moving in the direction you want to go and you are being led! Stay relevant my friends and on top of trends, customer needs and market changes and please don’t forget to have fun!

People love to see businesses and brands having fun with themselves!

What brands have impacted you over time and what have they done to keep you loyal?

Author:

Deborah Shane is an author, media host, speaker, writer and branding strategist. She hosts her Toolbox Blog and is in her third year of hosting a weekly business radio show called Deborah Shane’s Metropolis that has over 32K downloads! She is a regular contributor to several national business, career and marketing blogs and websites. Her new book Career Transition-make the shift is available on Amazon.com and all major book sellers. Deborah delivers smart, no-nonsense ideas and solutions, which make her a popular go-to resource for clients, national media and influential blogs.  Visit her at www.deborahshane.com.

We’re masters of social media.  Blogging.  SEO (get me some links!), paid traffic, promoting ourselves online and off.

But I’m willing to wager big that few of us know how to code.

Code = program = be a developer.

And it’s funny, because all of us depend on coders one way or another in our business lives.

This is a big deal

Recently, Andy Young from the UK published an article called: Coding For Success.  I think it’s the most important article I’ve read in a year.  Everyone should read it and take note.

Plain and simple.  You should learn to code.

Young takes aim at common misconceptions about the nature and difficulty of coding, while also deftly describing the macro state of technology, the skills of our workforce, and the economic needs of the future.

In short, too many of us think that learning to code is hard and boring and not worth doing.  “Ah, have the nerds take care of it.”  I’ve shared that sentiment for a decade.  But there are numerous reasons we can’t keep thinking like that.

Coding isn’t just for nerds and techies

First, programming isn’t just for nerds.  Technology is so ingrained in our daily lives that leaving just to the nerds is incredibly stupid on our part.  As a business owner, you expose yourself to needless vulnerabilities.

How?  Do you know how to fix your lead management system if it goes down?  I know I don’t.  At the mortgage company I was CMO at, that system is our lifeblood.  It’s maintained by 8 or so people.  In a company of 750.

For so many of us our websites are our business.  If SuretyBonds.com goes down, or the lead form breaks, I ain’t making money for awhile.  Not cool.  If I knew how to fix it, that’d make me sleep a little better at night.

I’m sure you’ve got a similar situation.  I know problems for a web-based business can come from external sources (power goes out, server goes down, hackers).  But we should be empowering ourselves more by learning to code.

Teaching our children to code, ’cause it gets you a job

Looking at the bigger picture, Young very quickly states that we should teach all of our children to code.  This is 2012.  Software runs everything.  Learning to code should be like learning to read and write.  That’s interesting right?

The ability to code will get you a job.  That’s a fact, and that’s just today.  10 years from now, when 12 year olds are entering the workforce, it might not just be a leg-up on other job candidates.  It might be a requirement to be in the job market.

I’ve implored friends and employees to learn to code.  “If you can program, you’ll always have a job working for me making good money.”  Few, if any, have followed through.  I’m still trying to hire coders.  Every week.

The easiest path to code excellence – self taught

One thing that’s cool about learning to code is you don’t have to go to college to do it.  Save the online degree this time around.  Just click away from this article and start.

You already have a website.  Go mess with WordPress.  Create a custom plugin.  Take some lessons on Codecademy or setup something easy on if this then that (both mentioned in Young’s article).

Don’t buy a book.  Don’t enroll at the community college.  Seriously.  Just get an FTP client and start at the beginning.  Your 2014 self is going to love you.

The ability to code will improve your life

To come full circle, if today you’d consider yourself that social media savant, or the expert in creating info products to sell on your blog, remember the day when you knew nothing about it?  I’m sure it’s been a fun and wild ride getting to where you are today.

It’s not too late to learn how to code (great article from Jean Hsu).  And learning to code will be no different.  So long as you get past the preconceptions about its “nerdiness” and come around to how unbelievably useful it is to be able to code.

Find easy wins in the early days.  You can make the computer take in 3 numbers and spit out their cube?  In a big purple font?  Hell yes!

Soon you’ll be better at managing your website, protecting your business, marketing yourself as a job candidate, and enriching the lives of your children.  Win, win, win, win.

Author:

Nathaniel Broughton is a veteran internet entrepreneur and investor.  Dating to 2002, he has helped produce 3 Inc 500 award-winning companies.  Nathaniel owns Growth Partner Capital, a venture fund that provides SEO consulting, premium link building and online reputation management services.  He is also owner of SuretyBonds.com, a nationwide bonding agency.   Previously he served as CMO of VAMortgageCenter.com, a $65 million nationwide mortgage bank which acquired his marketing firm Plus1 Marketing in 2008.   A resident of San Diego, Nathaniel often writes from his experience as an investor, marketer, and advocate of “networking like Paris Hilton parties – Nonstop”.  Follow him on Twitter – @natebro.

Its easy to get pulled into the idea that your personal brand is all about you. It is your personal brand.

But, the key component to your personal brand actually has nothing to do with you and everything to do with your audience.

Shifting your mindset from a question about you: Why am I awesome? to a question about your audience: How can I help them? is one of the most powerful mindset shifts you can make. This is because, fundamentally, success comes from delivering value to other people — to your audience that is!

To make this mindset shift, you’ll have to take on four tactical steps, so let’s get started.

Step one: identify your audience

You can’t make it all about them if you don’t know who your audience is. In other words, this is a key step. Actually, it is a key step that you will have to repeat and repeat — as your audience is made up of lots of people and is constantly changing. But, let’s start with just a few members of your audience first.

To identify your audience, think of the people you would like to influence, the people you would like to have help you and the people who help to shape your own success.

Action: Write out a list of your top five audience members.

Step two: define their success

Now that you have your list of audience members, dig into each of those people and define what success means to them. Success has many components: not only is there business success, but also personal success.

Success could be putting together a successful marketing campaign, running a marathon, getting a job at Google or even finding a wonderful new wine vintage. In other words, think outside of the box when it comes to success and happiness!

Action: Next to each person you have listed, write down at least three things that defines “success” for each person.

Step three: figure out how you can add value!

Now its time to start thinking about the value that you can offer to your audience. This is where things really start to come together.

Its time to think about what you can do for them: Can you help them produce a successful marketing campaign? Can you help them run a marathon, get a job at Google or find the perfect bottle of wine? This is time where doing research and sharing information is often extremely valuable.

Action: Next to each “success”, write down something that you can do to help them reach that success!

Step four: focus and act

Now that you’ve identified ways to bring your audience value, let’s take it to the next step and focus those ways that you can help into a to-do list!

For example, if you think that you could help someone train for a marathon because you’ve run one before, break that down into a specific to-do list item: send your training schedule or introduce your trainer.

Action: Next to each way that you can help, write down something you could do in less than 30 minutes.

Congratulations, with these steps your brand is now about delivering value to other people. And, you have a list of 15 specific ways to add value to the most important people in your network: talk about a to-do list. Its time to get working.

Author:

Rebecca Rapple has been featured in Harvard Business Review, Business Insider, Keith Ferrazzi’s My Greenlight and more. Your can learn more about the fundamentals of a remarkable job search on her site, The Resume Revolution.

People who love what they do for a living often consider their occupation a career.

Jobs are what you do to pay for college; careers are what you do after you graduate.

It is easy to dismiss a job as unimportant.  Why bother caring about a job that has nothing to do with your career path?

You get paid regardless of how well you perform, so what’s the point in working harder than you have to?

If you’re thinking that after all, a job is just a job, well, think again.

Career development: it’s never “just a job”

Erase the phrase “it’s just a job” from your vocabulary.  Putting minimal effort into a job is only doing you a disservice.

Even the smallest job should be treated as if it is a stepping stone to something else…because it very well might be.

Every job offers you an important chance to wow someone, to lead to an amazing recommendation or to expand your network.

Coasting through work is a lot like coasting through college.  You might pass, but you won’t gain as much from the experience. Consider every position that you hold as a learning opportunity.

Jobs can teach you how to communicate more effectively and improve your collaboration skills.  Your interactions with customers and coworkers at your job will be beneficial when you begin your career.

Besides increasing your skill set, jobs are a fantastic way to build a network.   Though your current job might not be in your desired career field, that doesn’t mean you can’t begin assembling contacts.

The people that you meet at work could help connect you to your dream position.  Having a large network of people that believe in your abilities will make it a lot easier to take the first steps toward your future career.

Moreover, every supervisor that you impress could lead to a strong letter of recommendation.  Having a reference list full of past employers that praise your skills will be valuable when you start your career search.

If you come into an interview with years of mediocre job performances and no positive references, you will create a poor first impression.

Making a good first impression is important, particularly in a difficult job market.

Turning a “job” into a career

No job is a throw away.  There is always something to learn or someone to impress.  If you cannot find any value in your current job, that doesn’t justify indifferent behavior.

Continue to do your best while searching for a new job.  Carelessness in the workplace is disrespectful to your peers and ineffectual to you.

Treat every job like it is a career.  You will care more, learn more and be a lot happier.  A job should be more than a paycheck.

Each position you hold is a chance to grow, so don’t waste those opportunities.  Remember, even the most powerful people in the world had to start somewhere.

Make each job count.  After all, your career is counting on it.

Author:

Erin Palmer is a writer and editor for Bisk Education. She works with Villanova University’s human resources certification and degree programs. Erin graduated cum laude from the University of Tampa with a degree in Writing. She can be reached on Twitter @Erin_E_Palmer.