Quintessential Careers Press:
The Quintessential Guide to Storytelling that Propels Careers
Chapter 9: Personal Branding as Storytelling
Page 155
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A New York resume writer tells the story of submitting names of two executives to a recruiter who was unimpressed with both candidates, one because his name was nowhere to be found on the Web, and the other because his published-online controversial political views turned the recruiter off. Another career expert tells of trying to look up an old colleague and finding only outdated information on him on the Web. Had he ensured that his online information was current and visible, the career guru would have told him about a great job vacancy.
You can pump up your online presence through branded storytelling in a variety of venues. But, it’s not the means of delivering an online presence that is most important: it’s the content, and specifically, the story-supported personal-branding content. Career expert Deborah Wile Dib, whom we first met in Chapter 4, notes that “companies and recruiters are looking for passive candidates and active candidates with strong brands – clearly defined value propositions and differentiators. They are looking for fit. They are looking for authenticity and passion – the courage of a candidate to be real.”
What better way to be real than by telling your own compelling story? Following are some media in which you can do so:
Social and Business Networks. Many recruiters and job-seekers connect though online business and social networks. Recruiters, who cite such networks as Ryze, Ecademy, Jigsaw, Xing, LinkedIn, Jobster, and the people search engine, ZoomInfo (like these networks because they can learn about prospective candidates, as well as find out who else knows these prospects. They can approach passive candidates through contacts both parties trust. A major job-seeker advantage is that most of these networks provide an opportunity to build a profile on the networking site, thus a chance to engage in storied personal branding.
Blogging. A blog (short for “Web log”) is defined by Jay Cross as “a Website with dated entries, usually by a single author, often accompanied by links to other blogs that the site’s editor visits on a regular basis.” As of February 2006, people were launching new blogs at a rate of 75,000 a day, according to K. C. Jones of TechWeb News. Job-seekers can create blogs to build their personal brand. Consider starting one to raise your visibility to employers and help them get to know your story. Blogs provide the opportunity to reveal your personality. “Blogologist” Alex Halavais, interviewed by Danielle Sacks for Fast Company, notes that a “medium” blog readership of 1,000 people a day can mean an additional 1,000 souls who will have the blogger in mind when a job opens up.
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