Author Archives: Dorothy Dalton

5 Personal branding tips for women

Personal branding for women requires a different approach

Stand out!

According to Connie Glaser, author and women’s leadership expert, societal expectations for female behaviour promote modesty and collaboration, but these characteristics don’t necessarily lead to professional advancement. This requires actions closely associated with standing out from the crowd rather than blending in, by being able to identify, articulate and promote our USPs.

It’s personal brand, not personal bland.

We know that women are competitive and are more than willing to be highly visible in all sorts of other arenas (homes, husbands, kids, recipes, gardens, b.m.i.) But how can women overcome this reluctance to self-promote professionally and develop a badly needed personal brand, which for many doesn’t come naturally?

Snow boarding is a learned skill. So are driving and dancing. But women do learn how to do all three.

Women can also learn the process of personal branding

Tasteful self – promotion

It’s not necessary to stand on a soap box proclaiming brilliance to the world. Women can do some or all of the following to promote their success stories:

5 personal branding tips for women

Self-insight : Women need to be able to identify, recall and articulate those successes, both on demand and even when not requested. There are no short cuts.
Use powerful vocabulary: there is no need to appear boastful. If you ran a team of 100, or closed a deal worth several million – simply say that. It’s not necessary to embellish by telling people what a great sales person or manager you are – that will now be evident. Powerful action words such as led, ran, created, drove, initiated, generated, leveraged should feature regularly in self- evaluations. If in doubt just give numbers.
Harness modern technology: women are great at building relationships and should leverage these to generate recommendations for their LinkedIn profiles, creating websites showing testimonials and by keeping copies of any complimentary emails and performance reviews for future use.
Accept praise and compliments graciously: bite your lip on lines such as “it was nothing ” or “it was a team effort” or ” I got lucky“. It is OK to say “I worked really hard and am very proud of the result.” Don’t forget we create our own luck. There maybe no “I” in team, but there is definitely an “I” in fired.
Create a strategic network. Extending brand reach by widening your reputation. Set up a professional profile on a platforms such as LinkedIn, Xing or Viadeo. Tap into your Facebook network for professional purposes as well as social relationships. Being known as a strong resource will be always be helpful. Find people to support, sponsor and mentor you, not just to chat to! Return the favour. Let people around you know what your goals are and that you are ambitious.

Women also have to be prepared to ask for support. They seek specialist advice from others in every area imaginable: physical fitness, snowboarding, their nails, health issues, styling, children and marriage guidance, but place far less emphasis on professional support.

This is an additional barrier which needs tackling.

If you need help strengthening your Personal Brand – get in touch NOW!

Nip-tuck : new career strategy for men

28 Replies

Men consider nip-tuck and other cosmetic surgery to promote and protect their careers

Remember, you heard it here first! Nip-tuck is becoming part of a career strategy for men to beat down competition from younger men and women and to beat age bias.

It wasn’t that I didn’t believe him, I simply didn’t take it too seriously. I couldn’t understand how sporting a “6 pack” could make a difference. Presumably it’s not on display in the workplace, or at least not the offices I go to, so more appropriate for the beach or bedroom than the boardroom. So I was surprised to hear in the media, suggestions that the number of nip/tucks for men showed a higher increase in 2011, than in any other demographic. Only cursory research showed similar trends in Australia and the United States. One of the reasons cited was to gain, or maintain, professional credibility and advancement.

Increase in Nip-Tuck procedures

Male surgery now accounts for 10% of all cosmetic procedures in the UK, with a tummy tuck seeing a 15% rise in popularity, as men turn to the knife to eliminate or reduce their middles. The second most popular procedure for men, rising by 7% was the removal of ” moobs” – man boobs (gynaecomastia). This surgery was followed by liposuction with an 8% rise, along with rhinoplasty (nose job), blepharoplasty (eyelid surgery), otoplasty (ear correction) and face and brow lifts.

Appearance of control

I immediately picked up the phone to William. We went through some lawyer-speak for ” I told you so” and then got down to business.

He elaborated “A forgotten demographic is the 50 something executive, by anyone’s standards probably successful, but feeling the pressure from younger professionals, both male and female, coming hard on his heels, through the ranks. Many will have to work longer than they anticipated. Some have re-married and have young children even at this age. Our culture places great emphasis on physical appearance as an outward sign of what is basically power, control, high energy, seeming competent, capable and in charge. Old-looking men with straining shirt buttons over bulging bellies don’t give off that impression. We work long hours, have business lunches or sandwiches at our desks or on trains. Combined with family commitments, we struggle to get to the gym or take the exercise we need. For many this is a quick and relatively painless solution.”

He put me in touch with George, a gentleman no stranger to the scalpel, with two cosmetic procedures already notched up, a tummy tuck and eyelid surgery, as well as Botox injections. Clearly my tips on Touche Eclat had fallen on deaf ears. “I work in a client facing environment and was starting to look a bit paunchy, saggy and tired. Companies don’t like to work with people who look as though they lack energy and permanently seem in need of a vacation. It was well worth it and I have no regrets!”

Whatever happened to the revered elder statesman role?

But anyway who is going to see this perfectly re-constructed abdomen in a professional environment I asked somewhat directly? George did smile when he expanded “t’s about confidence, my suit fits correctly. I just feel better.”

Is 60 the new 40?

To repeat what I said last year, this rising trend to attempt to create washboard abs or any other age reducing surgical procedure, simply to stay ahead in the career game, seems a sad commentary on our times and corporate cultures.The ultimate irony of course is that youth unemployment figures are at an all time high. Could it be that our rejuvenated 50-something Boomers, with their nip-tuck ops and newly achieved 6-packs are getting in the way?

If 60 is really the new 40, and nip-tuck procedures are taking off, then things are not going to improve any time soon for Gen Y.

What do you think?

Women and salary negotiation. Do you know your own market-value?

7 Replies

Salary negotiation from a position of strength

We wouldn’t dream of selling our homes without knowing it’s value on the market. Why do we approach salary negotiation from a place of ignorance or misinformation,

Price awareness

We live in a culture where most women know the the value of their homes on the property market. We are reminded daily of minute percentage movements on global stock exchanges and unemployment figures. Women know the price of most things from the cost of a business suit to a plumber or a baby sitter. They account for 85% of consumer purchasing decisions. What most don’t bother to check out is the value of possibly their greatest asset. Themselves.

I have had two contacts this week from women who have discovered signficant salary differentials either between themselves and their male colleagues, or general market benchmarks for their job.

Women and negotiation

There is much information in the public domain to suggest that women don’t negotiate hard enough, or even at all, in the area of compensation. This insidious differential starts across the world at entry-level in a wide variety of sectors and stays with many women throughout their careers. This is true, even for those who have invested in their personal development to acquire an MBA. Research shows that women generally earn 80% of men.

And when they do try to negotiate, unlike their male counterparts instead of being viewed as enterprising dynamos, they are seen in much less favourable terms, frequently as money grabbing b$x*£€s. At a time of economic austerity many are reluctant to step up and re-negotiate.

Basic minimum

The most important thing for women is to have an idea of their own value on the open market. If they decide they don’t want to negotiate their compensation package, this decision should be taken from a position of being well-informed. No one would dream of putting their houses on the market without checking out the value, then why do it to themselves?

How to check?

Network: with people in your field and sector. Asking people what they earn in many cultures is considered to be indiscreet and on par with asking a woman about her weight, age or credit card number. However it is possible to get ball park figures and salary range via sensitive discussion.
Advertisements: many job advertisements carry salary scales. Keep a watchful eye on job boards and the press in the same way you might monitor house prices.
Online resources: there are many free salary survey resources online. Check out salary.com, glassdoor.com and payscale.com which has a global reach.
Overview: It’s always useful to have an overview of what’s going on in terms of salaries (especially as they’re being frozen). Most business media carry regular pieces on this topic and LinkedIn has a Compensation and Benefits Forum where general compensation issues are discussed from a management perspective.
General package: get up to speed not just on the salary segment of your compensation, but on where your total benefits package lies on the market spectrum. If your salary is lower, do you have other perks which are just as important such as remote working or flexi-time? Perhaps you can’t leverage a higher salary, but are there other benefits that might be useful?

We would never consider buying or selling anything without being aware of its value. We simply have to stop doing this to ourselves.

What do you think?

If you need help with your career transition – get in touch now.

Could LinkedIn get you fired?

8 Replies

Social media and the corporate cake

Could LinkedIn get you fired? I have observed and somewhat portentously anticipated, storms brewing in cyber space.

The corporate mindset appears to be several steps behind the outside world. In many areas it is now playing catch up, but nowhere is this more self-evident than in the area of employee engagement in the social media arena.

So it didn’t come as a surprise to read that an executive had been forced out of his job, not for uploading or being tagged in compromising photos, sending out risqué tweets or saying he hated his job on Facebook. No. He simply posted his professional CV on LinkedIn and checked the contact box ” interested in career opportunities.” This seemingly was against company policy.

Having and eating the cake

The executive in question John Flexman of BG Group, responsible for graduate recruitment, is pursuing a court case for constructive dismissal. This pre-supposes that any interest in career opportunities, by default has to be external only and brings no benefit to the existing organisation. It was also claimed that Flexman had divulged confidential information by listing reduced staff attrition as one of his achievements. Now there is possibly more to this than meets the eye, but nevertheless there is still a court case hanging on the premise of the supposed inappropriate use of a LinkedIn profile. Could LinkedIn get you fired if you choose to use it to promote your own goals as well as those of the organisation?

Double standards

We live in a world where many catalogue and communicate every waking moment and thought in their daily lives. Most of us have no interest at all in what people are eating, or the quality of the weather, restaurants or roads in Manchester, Mumbai, or anywhere else for that matter. This is in stark contrast to the corporate world where confidentiality agreements are common place and covert deals struck behind closed doors are the norm.

But having said that, organisations tap into this disparate information in the public domain to keep their fingers on the pulse of their customer bases. They extract key nuggets of market and competitive intelligence, tracking our spending patterns and other consumer trends, as well as keeping tabs on the competition, from what would appear to us regular mortals, to be totally inane data. Research shows that a high percentage of companies also use social media for identifying and screening candidates as part of their own recruitment processes, with 86% of businesses now saying they use LinkedIn and even Facebook.

Ring fencing

This issue raises a number of questions. Do organisations such as BG Group want to have their cake and eat it too? Are they happy to use social media platforms to achieve corporate goals, but not thrilled when employees use these platforms to meet theirs?

But more importantly, shouldn’t the role of management be focused on motivating its employees to be committed and engaged to a company, rather than ring fencing them, making it difficult to leave? Would that perhaps account for a need to reduce staff attrition?

Could LinkedIn get you fired? Most definitely.

Do you need help with your LinkedIn profile – get in touch NOW.

Poor timekeeping – Running late – Life as a bus

6 Replies

Poor timekeeping

I have to confess that in my time I have indeed been guilty of some erratic timekeeping. I was very much “a one more thing before I go” type of girl and a great subscriber to the phrase “fashionably late“. But then I worked for a manager who would monetize the communally wasted time whenever any of his team was late for a meeting. It was actually quite shocking. If we had all been held financially accountable, our pay cheques would have been significantly lighter.

When I transitioned into sales I had to replace “better late than never “ with “never late is better”. Arriving late isn’t actually a recognised commercially winning strategy. As a head hunter being on time is critical particularly in a candidate driven market when first impressions count. As a coach ditto.

Running late

I have become acutely aware in recent weeks how erratic general timekeeping seems to have become and how easily the phrase “running late “, has slipped into our daily business and social vernacular, including my own. Very often people apologise, (sometimes they don’t), explaining that either they, someone, or something else was “running late“, as though they were a bus service, entirely passive and had nothing to do with it at all.

It can be a feature of some cultures where late arrivals are factored into the time allocation by the organisers. Some webinar organisers say let’s wait (for 5, or 10 minutes) for everyone to arrive. But what about the people who arrive on time?

Clearly there are always unforeseen circumstances. Only recently I scooted into an important meeting with only minutes to spare. A journey scheduled to take 10 minutes, took 45, due to traffic congestion. But, I wondered, are we all becoming more tolerant of poor time keeping? It’s as if we are communally raising our hands saying ” I know life is tough for you. It’s Ok – I don’t mind waiting here wasting my own time….. I’m a bus too ?”

Whatever happened to William Shakespeare’s “Better three hours too soon, than one minute too late?”

Consequences

A candidate was recently late for an interview. He hadn’t properly checked the company’s address the night before and arrived 15 minutes late, having been to the wrong building at the designated hour. What should have been a walk in the park (he was the preferred candidate) became an interview nightmare, as his anxiety levels rose and he fluffed even routine questions. A hiring manager similarly kept a candidate waiting so long that she eventually left and then withdrew from the process.

Julie Morgenstern, author of Time Management From the Inside Out, tells us that the first step is to make promptness a conscious priority, but also we need to gain an understanding into why we’re always late. Poor timekeeping can be very costly, both directly but also via damage to our reputations suggesting we are unreliable, untrustworthy and/or disorganised.

Reasons for poor timekeeping

The reasons she maintains tend to fall into two categories: technical or psychological.

Technical Difficulties

Morgenstern advises establishing patterns by keeping a time log of all tasks and finding out exact how much time each task takes. Then factor in a margin for some unforeseen contingency.

Psychological – Inability to say no
Dr. Linda Sapadin, PhD, author of Master Your Fears believes there are deeper underlying implications of poor timekeeping, which are linked to procrastination. Very often many of the difficulties come from lack of confidence and an inability to say no, or even to tell another person we have another appointment in our diaries.

Do you choose to be late?

If we are always late by the same amount of time, there could be a number of reasons – but no doubt, it’s about us! We might be:

Rebellious – not doing what’s expected
A crisis maker – need an adrenalin rush to get going
Attention seeker – which comes with being last through the door and going through the apology ritual.
Power playing – I’m more important than you are, sending a message of disrespect.
Avoider – you don’t want to meet the person, or attend the meeting, so leave it until the very last-minute.

Importance of good time keeping.

Poor time keeping pre-pandemic quite often resulted in threats of dismissal after the second or third offence. Today attitudes seem to have relaxed, but there has to be some sort of agreement of what is acceptable and what is not. For those who turn up on time it is extremely rude and disrespectful. Respecting someone’s most valuable commodity – their time, is also a key part of executive presence and how you show up. A reputation for poor timekeeping does not enhance your personal brand.

So next time instead of saying something “ran late“, perhaps we should all just be honest and own what it is. You need to admit to being having poor timekeeping skills and that we are bad planners, power players, attention seekers or avoiders.

Hopefully you can add you are working on it.

Updated 2021

If you struggle with prioritization – get in touch NOW

Name(required)

Email(required)

Website

Message

CAPTCHA Code

Mad Men poll from the Economist : Women and MBAs

5 Replies

: Mad Men meets Stepford Wives in outdated Economist poll

Named Editor of the Year in 2012, Mr John Micklethwait is Editor-in Chief of the Economist. Given his background, as a leading figure in global intellectual and business media, one would assume that he is a pretty smart and savvy gentleman.

The Economist is normally associated with balanced, neutral, informative reporting on the issues of women in the workplace and business. I am a regular reader. So, I was astonished this weekend by a departure from their usual high level, objective content, into the tabloid style enforcement of gender stereotypes.

Loss of balance
Why on earth would his publication send out such a thoughtless, sexist poll asking if women with young children should consider waiting before starting an MBA? Here is the text which reads like something from Mad Men meets The Stepford Wives:

Juggling the twin demands of an MBA programme and young children is bound to be tough. But it is not impossible. According to one student, interviewed here, it means devoting days to classes, afternoons to her daughters, and evenings and Sundays to school work. Still, multi-tasking can be a mistake. Children demand your full attention and trying to concentrate on it and your assignment at the same time inevitably means you do both poorly. One answer is to hire a babysitter. But this can be costly….”

Out of date
Notwithstanding it came out the morning after the major office party night of the year, and a few brain cells might have been lost. Perhaps Mr. Micklethwait was having a day off. Or maybe the The Economist is short of readers and needs something a little contentious. Perhaps the 21st century notion of dual career families has completely passed them by. The expectations of women, especially Gen Yers in the area of the roles their partners play in household and childcare responsibilities, are very different from their mothers’ generations. Not only that there are actually significant numbers of men who want to be actively involved in their children’s upbringing. My own questions would be:

Why don’t they pose the same questions to men?
Where are the fathers in the childcare process? Why are they coming home when the children are asleep?

Only one-third of MBA students are women. Surely the poll and business schools should be trying to establish how to attract high calibre women without imposing the ” Mummy penalty”, rather than going into the family planning advisory business which serves to re-enforce out dated thinking. As one MBA candidate in a career workshop in Paris told me last week, as a married man with children he felt he was perceived as offering employers stability, echoing Curt Rice’s fatherhood bonus theory.

This is perpetuating any number of outmoded stereotypes:

That childcare is the exclusive role and responsibility of the mother.
MBAs are for men
Women who are both mothers and professionals will “inevitably” do both roles poorly.
Women who focus on the achievement of their own goals will feel guilty.

Here is the story of one woman, Lynn Barbour who broke the curve. I suggest that J.L.H.D of The Economist, Atlanta interview her as well, to show how it can all be achieved successfully. Lynn says “While formal strategies of employers and business schools need to be strengthened to increase the percentage of women in MBAs, I believe most of the change required starts with individuals” There must be a multitude of other women who have done the same and would not be OK with their partner coming home when the kids are in bed!

There are many reasons why women don’t make it to the top, but I suspect fitting in a nappy/diaper change around an MBA assignment will not be one of them. Gender stereotypes reenforced by an influential, global press publication are far more likely to strengthen any barriers, than make dents in them.

Perhaps what we need is a female editor for the Economist.

What do you think?

Portfolio Careers: impact on workplace & jobseeker

5 Replies

A Portfolio Career “a tapestry of a variety of eclectic employment experiences; employment in a series of short-contract or part-time positions“

Not new but on the increase

The term Portfolio Career is being used in current business vernacular with the same type of smug and superior “in the know -ness,” as we might have seen when the atom was split or the wheel invented. I always smile indulgently! The concept of a portfolio career is actually far from new. What is new is the number who have embarked on this career path.

“Moonlighting” has long been a euphemism associated with individuals aspiring to break into such professions as acting, music, arts, writing etc, or others running more than one job. As companies abandon the corporate “cradle to grave” employment concepts, and move towards the leaner and meaner machines of more recent times, we had already started to see the beginnings of this seismic shift some years ago. Business Week referenced the changing work place practise of Perma Temps, as organisations began to seek flexible ( = disposable) workforces, to allow rapid response to fast changing business conditions.

I view and review literally hundreds of CVs in any given week. Although predicted by all the trend spotters, the shift to individuals having an increasing number of jobs and spending less time in each, is becoming very marked. I am often asked to avoid “hoppers/movers/jumpers”, but that is now an outmoded concept, particularly as younger age demographics move between jobs more strategically, with periods of employment, also punctuated by stints in further education.

No alternatives

Portfolio careers and the wearing of many hats was once associated with mid- career or older professionals, perhaps after redundancy seeking a better work / life balance, or when there were no other options. It was considered a fall back position. We are now seeing younger Gen Yers build up this type of career, not because they particularly seek an improved quality of life, but because they have to tap into different parts of their skill sets, simply to get a job, any job. This is also apparent when coaching career changers pursuing MBA courses, when I have come across a range of skills from Project Management, entrepreneurial roles, to professional photography, all in the same student. The real challenge is to create an interesting and credible career profile to showcase success stories, transferable skills and the lessons learned from such diverse backgrounds and interests.

Choice

However, there are people who simply prefer the variety, flexibility and freedom offered by tapping into a wide range of skills, so they choose a wider portfolio career, over a more traditional focused one. At one time a portfolio career was considered to be higher risk than a corporate role. Today, I’m not sure that is the case. Portfolio careers suit disciplined, self motivated people with strong time management skills, who have a variety of skills and interests, as well as the drive to go out and market and monetize them. Portfolio careers are also generally associated with adept networkers and can be a great route to gaining experience in a new field, whilst maintaining a part-time role in a traditional job in line with a professional background. Many do just that.

Challenges

The real issue will be for the demographic which doesn’t voluntarily choose this more entrepreneurial style of career strategy. Flexibility for companies is key, of course, but if organisations aren’t careful, they can wind up searching for new talent in an alienated and demotivated workforce, which has struggled to gain skills in a wide range of unstructured and less professional environments. It also means a quantum shift from lazy and uninsightful “copy / paste” recruitment methodologies, sadly relied upon by companies and some search consultants alike.

Do you need help managing your career – get in touch NOW!

Career changers and social networking

6 Replies

For anyone embarking on a job search related to career change and developing what is now called a “personal brand” for the first time, I outline the steps and options involved for career changers and social networking. As I do so, I am always aware of two things. Faces turning ashen with panic and then groaning, as clients, whether individually or in groups, mentally try to calculate how much time this process is going to take out of their already busy day. There is a reason it’s called net “working” (not net “vacationing”). It is indeed a lot of work, it does take time and much of it is doing stuff people have never heard of before (and wouldn’t choose to do if they had!) .

Authenticity

Today, job search is personal, flexible and strategic. Sadly there is no template or blue print which can be reproduced, although guidelines can be given. What works for one individual, will not work or sound authentic for another. The whole point of it is also to be unique and stand out, not to be a clone of your neighbour. The learning process is intuitive, as we move away from the old style rigid approach. This does indeed makes life far harder for any job seeker today and it is time-consuming. However, authenticity is key, which is why we have to run, stroll or even crawl, the hard yards for ourselves.

Strategic alliances

As recessionary thinking starts to hit us again after a very brief interlude of optimism, the job market looks set to shrink. Economic downturns touch even the brightest and the best. It’s imperative that developing a personal brand and raising visibility becomes a daily part of all job seekers’ routines – before there is a crisis. Social networking is a great way to supplement and enhance actual networking, although ( and I stress) not a substitute for it.

Simple basics

1. Select a primary platform – for most people this should be a professional network (e.g. LinkedIn, Viadeo, Xing) to showcase career success stories and background. The largest English language one is LinkedIn for anyone seeking a career in an international arena, I would always advise a profile placed on this platform.

As a minimum I would suggest the following activity:

Send out 1 update a couple of times a week to develop or establish your reputation. If you have a blog so much the better, otherwise any nugget of information that could be interesting taken from the press or other media related to your new function/sector. Twitter is a good source.
Post 2-3 comments 2-3 times a week on posts submitted by your connections. LinkedIn groups used to be good for that but they are pretty much dead now. The content should be related to your target career.
Identify and connect with 5 -10 new connections in your target sector every week – preferably ones you hope to meet in person either live or via video conference.
Research companies in your target sector.

Connect with other platforms – extend your reach via Twitter and Facebook, Instagram and even Tik Tok. Organisations do post jobs there. Employers are also strengthening their Employer brand on these platforms and offer increasing opportunities to inform and connect with job seekers. Trend spotters are suggesting that these platforms are changing the job search landscape. Although their figures are US-based, Europe is usually only a few steps behind. Get ahead of the game. Even a British spy agency is seeking code-crackers via Twitter and Facebook.

- Post content via Twitter.
- Share content from others ( RT).
- Comment on or “Like ” a blog or LinkedIn update.
- Post an update or a note on Facebook.
- Share a video on Insta or a LinkedIn story – professional one of course.
- Locate followers and friends that might be helpful to you.
- Pay it forward – share any new updates with your peers or other job seekers in your network.
- Partially automate when you are busy. Bufferapp hits Twitter and Facebook. I would advise not to over do it, especially on LinkedIn. Engagement is key.
- Filter out the white noise of LinkedIn updates start muting and unfollowing the people and discussions that don’t interest you to clean up your LinkedIn feed.

One of the advantages of Social Networking is that it’s self scheduling – so any of this can be fitted around other activities and in a piece meal fashion. It’s a question of carving out 10 minutes of time, 3 times a day which may make a difference. Yes, initially it might take longer, but as skills are honed and knowledge acquired, it can be whittled down to become rapid fire productivity. Eventually you will think in terms of the time this is saving you.

The real question is perhaps not if can you afford the time, but can you afford the risk of not allocating those key minutes, in the current economic climate? If you don’t take time to plan now, you may find you have more leisure than you planned for to live with the consequences.

Do you need help with your personal branding? Get in touch NOW!

This post has been updated in 2021.

Funky or Functional? The USP dilemma

6 Replies

Creating an effective USP ( Unique Selling Proposition ) is key for any job seeker or career changer. It a major, invaluable tool in the job search tool box and will serve as a basis for:

One sentence bio either written or oral
Your online professional profile tagline (120 characters with spacse on LinkedIn)
Any introduction (occasion appropriate!)
Telephone message
Twitter profile (160 characters)
Job fair pitch ( MBA, entry-level)

Tough

Dreaming this up is an agonising process for most of us. We struggle to find a balance between finding something that is authentic, words that don’t sound fake, crass and pushy, using keywords for online effectiveness, but at the same time something that can be delivered verbally. All the time conveying a benefit, in an occasion appropriate way. What might sound great in a networking meeting could clear a bar in seconds. On top of this, we want to sound unique. It’s really tough. How do we differentiate ourselves from the thousands of highly qualified professionals, entry-level or MBA candidates who might be on the job market

The following questions need to be addressed: Be FABulous

Who are you?
What makes you special?
Where and how do you add value?

To achieve this, there is no way of getting around the basic career management and strategy tool of identifying transferable skills and gaining self insight. I use the CARS method (Challenges, Actions, Results, Skills) also known as STAR. I am always astounded by the number of individuals who actually try to create a career strategy without going through this process. But like a string of pearls, your skills and qualities will be threaded through your experiences and serve to make you unique. Tie these into you passion, vision, values and goals for an overall picture of what is YOUR critical make-up.

Add key metrics to highlight your success stories. Sadly, there are no short cuts and those that try to do just that, eventually become unstuck. This means if individuals don’t know who they are and what they’re good at, how can they expect anyone else to know?

Use also the Be FABulous format – Facts, Achievements and Benefits.

Funky or functional?

Some have a gift for personal insight and seem to produce the right words which reflect their personalities:

” dedicated business development ninja” ,
“Pharma Research funketeer, successfully combines science ( PhD), business ( MBA) and innovation “
“IT Solutions consultant, marries the achievable with the sublime.“

Keywords

Others are more cautious about being bold with creative vocabulary. They also have a point, as keywords in this part of their online profiles generally carry a higher SEO. Many frequently use a job title or student status, whether because they understand this, or they are simply less creative – who knows. This is fine of course, but clearly not unique and is a waste of prime real estate. It is therefore a good idea to add some keywords to your jazzy content, relating to hard skills such as academic qualifications ( PhD, MBA) , any certifications (CPA, CIPD, LLM ) or sector titles (business development, pharma research, economic analysis, or IT solutions). These are searchable words that recruiters use when they identify candidates.

Career Changers

Career changers can reference a previous career with a target role, function or sector:

“Dedicated business development ninja (Exec MBA) aspiring to leadership role “
“IT Solutions delivery expert, marries achievable & sublime, passionate about sustainable energy”,
“Pharma Research funketeer (PhD), business minded ( MBA) innovative and creative, transitioning to marketing “.

Own, Anchor, Deliver

Generally, arriving at this short sentence takes a lot of thought and juggling with vocabulary. Research on LinkedIn and check out other headlines. No one else can do it for you but getting feedback is always helpful. Do others perceive you in the same way as you perceive yourself? Don’t be afraid to change and play around with your results until you get something you are totally comfortable with, provided of course that you are not constantly changing your key message, tweaking is fine. It’s an organic process and nothing is set in stone. That is the beauty and a superb advantage of online content, it supports intuitive learning.

To go through this process requires insight and then ownership of your success stories. You then have to anchor them in writing to help you deliver an impactful message.

But don’t forget, it’s not enough to identify, create and articulate your key message – you have to promote it too.

Need help creating a USP? Check out the individual coaching programmes.

Personal Branding Conflict: Who Owns Your Online Contacts

4 Replies

The question of who owns your online contact is a murky issue

But a problem waiting to happen.

Personal Branding as a career management tool for all employees and job seekers has been strongly encouraged since Tom Peters urged us all to become our own Chief Marketing Officers. Today, many employees network strategically in both their personal and professional lives to create an effective career strategy and now have strong personal brands.

But could it be we are headed for a clash?

Click To Tweet

Personal vs Corporate

This recent development is proving to be challenging for some businesses, as they are becoming aware of a growing need to manage employee individuality within the context of their own organisational structures. Some are now playing catch up. I had two interesting conversations this week. Both made me think that there ‘s trouble brewing out there in cyber space, the ramifications of which we have yet to fully understand.

Who owns your on line contacts?

Click To Tweet

And according to a report by DLA Piper, Knowing your Tweet from your Trend, I am not alone in these concerns.

Complex

Many column inches have been given over to employee content on social media, where the nature of some tweets and Facebook updates has resulted in disciplinary action and even dismissal. But what about the unchartered territory of the ownership of contacts and connections with whom employees are engaging? Whose are they exactly? Organisations are struggling to exercise control between an employee’s business and personal life on social media, where the divide is often indistinct. This is particularly true on LinkedIn, which now has one billion members globally.

Who owns your LinkedIn connections?

The first chat last week was with an executive search associate who told me that his company was now using LinkedIn as a date base and had all but stopped using their own in-house applicant tracking system. It was simply easier to keep up with changes in potential candidates movements on-line and saved a huge amount of time for all concerned, cutting data inputting costs totally he told me. Little warning bells jingled in my ears. “What happens if the consultants leave?” I asked. The response was that the connections would be transferred to the practice partner. At that juncture, the little tinkles, became massive gongs, as the company had no contractual legal procedure in place to cover this.

A recent example

Fast forward to the end of the week. Simon was a Business Development Director with a Financial Services Consulting organisation. On Friday, he was called into his bosses office and although he was clearly aware that business was slowing down, he was shocked to find that within two hours he had been “let go” and cut off from the company server. Amongst the mountain of paperwork he has been asked to sign, is a clause asking for his LinkedIn password to transfer his connections to another sales person in the company. Now Simon is a very strategic and creative networker.

He invests a significant amount of time cultivating a meaningful network, both physically and virtually. According to Simon, his associates and superiors never committed to online networking. He maintains that his contacts have been developed over his entire career and have nothing to do with his employer. Another element he says is he is also well-connected personally via his family, high-profile school and university and is not about to hand those details over without a fight.

The company differs and is arguing that many of his connections were cultivated as an integral part of his role with them, on their time and need to be returned. Both are seeking legal advice. How do we decide if a contact is a personal or a business one and what happens if those connections are inter-changeable?

Legal Action

According to The Telegraph, a British court has already ordered a recruitment consultant to hand over his LinkedIn contacts to his previous employer. In this particular case the consultant had started trading on his own account before then end of his contract, which muddies the water slightly. But if the data for all his connections is in the public domain – are they “his” in the first place?

Personal Profiles

LinkedIn profiles are indeed personal online resumés, reflecting individual achievements and success stories, rather than company branding messages. Some individuals are very savvy about the use of this platform and maximise the opportunities it offers both personally and professionally often times merging the two areas. Others are lethargic and disinterested, with incomplete profiles and minimal or no activity. It is also against the terms of LinkedIn to share your account details with anyone, although that is clealry happening with V.A and social media management services taking on these activities.

DLA Piper suggests that only 14% of employers have policies in place which regulate social media activity outside the workplace. Failure to provide clarity on the ownership of connections will result in many unforseen ramifications. It will also cause confusion on the value of personal branding as a career management tool and perhaps impact the energy individuals put into online networking.

So should employers be able to claim individual online contacts when an employee leaves?

Click To Tweet

Would you take the time to build up your online connections and create these strategic alliances, if they become the “property” of your employer on departure? For me, it’s no different than asking the employee of yester year to hand over his/her Rolodex or Filofax on departure. When a client interfacing employee resigns or is fired, there has always been a commercial risk of them taking their contacts with them. This is why many organisations have non-competition clauses in their contracts. Whether contacts are actual or online in my book, will not make any real difference.

Or will we see a return of the adage – “Never mix business and pleasure” ?

Want to make the most of your Personal Brand – get in touch NOW!

(Post updated 2023)