Corrected-Job-Hunt Intelligence-Promote Your Personal Brand on LinkedIn with Hashtags

Published: Tue, 04/18/17

Job-Hunt Intelligence

By Meg Guiseppi

Using hashtags on LinkedIn – and other social media – is a simple way to:

  • Promote your personal brand promise,
  • Draw people to you,
  • Motivate people to want to connect with you, and
  • Potentially influence people to help you meet your career goals.

LinkedIn is one of the last of the big social media platforms to join the hashtag party, although they briefly toyed with them in 2013. As of September 2016, hashtags are back on LinkedIn, maybe for good.

In case you’re in the dark about what hashtags are and what they do, I’ll start with a description:

Hashtags are used to categorize relevant keywords and phrases. They are a way to label themes or topics in social media messages, to categorize them, and make messages with these keywords easier to find and follow online.

In other words, hashtags are used with keywords to make the keywords show up more easily in a search. If you post an update using a hashtags, people looking for information about those keywords will be more likely to find your updates, and become aware of you and your personal brand as a source of good information on that topic.

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By Meg Guiseppi

Your personal brand is more than the brand statement you use as your elevator pitch when you introduce yourself in real-life encounters or to market yourself in your paper, digital, and online career marketing communications (resume, bio, Linkedin profile, website, etc.).

Your brand is your reputation – the perception of you held by the external world. It is the combination of personal attributes, values, drivers, strengths, and passions you draw from that differentiates your unique promise of value from your peers, and helps those assessing you determine if they should hire you or do business with you

You need to identify those qualities and characteristics within you and communicate a crystal clear, consistent message across multiple channels – online and offline – designed to resonate with your target audience.

I'd like to take you deeper into defining your brand than I did in my earlier Job-Hunt article, Creating Your Authentic Personal Brand Statement.

I developed the following 10 brand assessment and defining exercises based on my training as a Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist, and use them as I guide my clients through executive brand development. Be prepared to devote time to this. In the end, I think you'll find your efforts eye-opening and invigorating.

 

By Meg Guiseppi

Research, strategic planning, preparation and rehearsal for interviewing are more important than ever in today’s job market. Many job seekers don’t take the time, or don’t know what they need to do, to outshine the competition.

Part of job search preparation, and therefore interview preparation, includes working on personal branding. Knowing and communicating your personal brand and unique ROI (Return on Investment) for your target employers will position you as a good-fit hiring choice for them.

Sameness won’t “sell” you to employers. Branding will help you differentiate what you bring to the table that no one else does. This is what you really need to put across in interviews. You’re not the same as everyone else. Make that abundantly clear in your interviews.

Also, remember that many interviewers aren’t particularly good at interviewing. The better prepared you are to own the conversation and keep it focused on what you want to cover, the easier you make their job, and the more you improve your chances.

Here are the steps to take to brand your interviews. You should have already done some of this work, when you initially prepared for job search and created your personal marketing materials – resume, biography, LinkedIn profile, online profiles, etc.

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Editor’s Choice


Job interviewing expert Beth Colley offer strategies for handling this tough question. If you've been terminated or fired, you're in good company. But that doesn't make answering the question, "Why did you leave your last job?" any easier. It's best to talk about the situation positively as a learning experience. Don't dwell on the experience. Answer the question, briefly and positively (examples below), and move on.
Author and job interviewing expert Laura DeCarlo shares the smartest way to answer this question, often among the first questions asked at the start of the interview. Like the "Why should we hire you?" question, this is an opportunity to market yourself, presenting yourself as the solution (right candidate) for their problem (a job to fill). So, tell them the things that emphasize how your accomplishments and experience make you an ideal candidate for the job you are seeking.
When answering this question, it’s easy to think about all of the things you dislike about your current job, but don't go there. Unless you are part of a well-publicized corporate implosion (e.g. Enron) or reorganization, stay positive in your response. Start by responding with “What I really like about this job and company that is different from my current one is…” Job interviewing expert Beth Colley offers sample responses for answering this question successfully.
 

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