Tuesday, 28 February 2012

The Personal Branding Guide (for beginners)


Website

Business cards

Blog

Video CV

Twitter

Email

Linked in

CV

Facebook


Website

Website can be free ie make your own and then just use the url it gives you. So if you use wix.com to create the site then your address will be www.wix.com/username/what you've called the site. But if you buy a domain from someone like Namesco you can just point all traffic to your wix address from your professional address. "davidjfitzgerald.co.uk" is actually hosted by wix but the wix address doesn’t show up in the address bar it stays as my professional one.

My website is quite out dated but it just has a ‘quick cv’ a lot more info about me, some of the work I had done and a link to my blog. It just gives a potential employer another look into your personality. You can make it quite professional and fun.

www.davidjfitzgerald.co.uk

See the links to all of the personal websites:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/26/10-steps-to-the-perfect-portfolio-website/

Business cards
These are just something I done I used to leave them with people at interviews or even when I was out and chatting to people who were in marketing. Might be a bit over the top but I had my name, number, email website, twitter on them. £5 for 500 from vistaprint.

Blog
Set-up a blogger profile and if you think you have nothing to talk about then talk about current affairs in your chosen area of work. Or politics as everyone has an opinion on politics or if nothing else talk about your job search / uni course, the trials you face etc.

Video CV
Video cv – there are loads on youtube – I have never done one but was going to before I got a job. I would keep it a min and a half tops and keep it as funny and interesting as possible maybe do it in movie maker where you can add graphics and writing at the bottom of the screen. Even if you don’t want to put yourself in front of the camera make a slideshow to share online http://www.slideshare.net/

Or check out www.prezi.com which is a really interesting way to make presentations.

Twitter
Make sure all your tweets are something that you wouldn’t mind a potential employer seeing. If you have a particular area or industry you want to be in then tweet about that and try to network.

Email
Email address should be firstname.lastname@whatever.com

Have an email footer that links to all online profiles.

Linked In
Make it as searchable as possible which means filling out the profile completely.

CV
I would say keep it quite traditional but link to everything that is mentioned here. Let the CV be the portal to the rest of your online profile. Always send cv’s in pdf format.

Facebook
This is something I kept completely away from all of my job-searching make sure your profile is completely private.


Useful article:

http://mashable.com/2012/02/10/students-job-search-social-media/