Maintaining a curated and professional online presence is a great way for job seekers to showcase their skills and experience for potential employers.
Effective personal branding for your online profiles can be a great way to connect with contacts that can help you with your job search and get you started on moving up in your career. Staying in control of your personal image online is essential for presenting yourself as a good job candidate to potential employers.
If you are looking for a job, then social media networks have made it easier to make your presence known to recruiters. There are a number of different social networks that employers will use to identify potential candidates. In many cases, an unprofessional or unorganized online profile can disqualify applicants and potential employees from being hired. Read more to learn how to optimize your online profile so that you can stand out to employers and get a new job.
Learn About Popular Social Networks for Professionals
When you are searching for a job, strong online personal branding can help you stand out from other candidates. There are a number of different websites where you can create a professional online profile. Some of these social networks even allow you to share an online resume for employers to look at without needing to contact you directly. Here are some of the most popular social networks where you can build a professional online profile.
LinkedIn is the most popular social network for job seekers because recruiters actively use the network to find and reach out to potential candidates. Many professionals choose LinkedIn because it allows you to include your employment history, education, skills and examples of projects from your portfolio. Potential employers can view your profile and reach out to you if they believe you would be a good candidate for a job position at their company.
Creating a professional profile on LinkedIn will give you a good opportunity to connect and network with other professionals. As your network continues to grow, you will start to get more visibility amongst employers and other career-focused individuals in your field. Since LinkedIn is a social network focused on careers, you can easily keep your personal life and your professional life separated.
Professional Facebook Page
Facebook is one of the largest social media networks and it can be used as a powerful personal branding tool for professionals. When you use Facebook to create an online presence, you will need to make distinctions between your professional image and your personal image. Set up a professional account to share your personal expertise, current events in the industry and other career news with others. Be sure to keep family, friends and personal photos off of your professional page and be cautious with your online privacy.
Personal Website or Blog
Using a website or blog to discuss your career and professional interests is a great way to manage the personal branding of your name. You can use your personal website or blog to discuss your career interests and highlight your skills and credentials. Using your website to provide employers with additional information is an effective way to help these recruiters get to know what you have to offer them.
Additionally, you can link your personal website or blog to your other online profiles. However, it is important to keep your website focused on your career interests and professional work.
Tips for Online Personal Branding and Reputation Management
Tip 1. Invest in a Professional Headshot
One of the most effective tools for personal branding is to invest in professional headshots to use for your online profiles. Professional headshots can help you stand out amongst job seekers because it shows that you put more effort into your appearance and presentation. If you are looking to save some money, then see if you have any friends or relatives with high-quality cameras that can take your photograph for a more affordable price. Once you have the perfect headshot, use the same photograph on all of your professional social media networks.
Tip 2. Keep Your Professional Online Profiles Consistent and Up-To-Date
When you are curating your professional online presence, be sure to stay updated and maintain consistency between all of your social media profiles. Use the same photo for all of your profiles so that your image because recognizable and instantly associated with your accounts. When you have a change in your career, be sure to update all of your profiles as well as your resume. Keeping your details current is just one of the many tips to help strengthen your resume.
Tip 3. Google Your Name and Check the Top Results
Try to google your name routinely in order to ensure that the personal brand behind your name is being represented accurately and consistently. Claiming your name by purchasing it as a domain name (i.e. johnsmith.com) is an effective way to curate search results. If you find any negative or harmful results after an online search, then you can start to work to bring more positive results to the forefront.
In order to increase your online presence, try to have an account for every professional social media network such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other websites that pertain to your field of work. By doing so, employers will be more likely to come across one of these accounts as they search through the internet. Creating and managing your professional accounts shows employers that you are motivated to produce content on your own time.
Tip 4. Join and Engage in Online Professional Networking Groups
Even if you are currently unemployed and looking for a job, you can still actively engage in your career field in your personal time. Find out what you are passionate about and would be willing to do every day because it is meaningful to you. Then, do some research to find out if you can make money doing what you love. You can start at an entry-level position and build your expertise and knowledge in the field.
Try to get involved in networking groups on job seeking sites and other professional forums and contribute your expert advice whenever possible. Find ways to engage in meaningful discussions about your niche field. When you find a field that you are really passionate about, work to cement yourself as a qualified and knowledgeable expert.