Unify your message without rehashing the same old story…
- In all likelihood, hiring executives, recruiters, and HR personnel will Google you first and check out your online identities, especially your LinkedIn profile. Therefore, as you would do with your resume, make sure that it reinforces your professional brand and showcases unique attributes and accomplishments.
- For your online social profiles, no need to rehash everything that’s already listed on your resume. These tend to use livelier, professional language in terms of first-person narrative that maintains its own personality. It’s your chance to make an emotional connection with your audience. (NOTE: for IT and engineering professionals especially, here’s your chance to demonstrate your unique value beyond just your technical prowess. Showcase your social / people skills and character).
- Make sure that your personal brand message is unified across all profiles. You want to reinforce your messaging wherever you can to make your personal brand irresistible!
Highlight on your resume that you’re on trend and tech-savvy…
- Add links to your social media profiles (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.) to your resume.
Tailor all career marketing documents to your target audience…
- As with a resume, it’s important to incorporate relevant keywords to increase your online searchability and findability rankings with recruiters, hiring managers, and HR departments.
- Make sure all your online profiles and your resume tell the same career stories (e.g., dates, companies, facts, and figures, etc.). People tend to question the validity of information if they find inaccuracies.
Brevity is the order of the day…
- In today’s world of information overload, make sure that both your resume and online profiles are easy to navigate. Career marketing—whether offline or online—uses eye-catching power words, planting hooks and emotional triggers that make you memorable and shows your audience what you bring to the table.
- Use graphics, symbols, and / or other visual branding elements to punch up your resume and online profiles.
- Nowadays, with all the information people are bombarded with on a daily basis, it’s important that your career-related data signals your unique promise of value to your audience — within 6 seconds of picking up your resume. Templates and dead verbiage aren’t going to give you that irresistible vibe (i.e., “Hey, I’m a confident, influential technology professional / leader with great ideas, business acumen, and a great sense of humor.”)
