Bohan and Bradstreet

October 2017


Candidates: Can We Find You?

Wednesday, October 11, 2017  by Bailey

Whether you are actively searching for a new opportunity or not, it is very important that you refresh your online profile periodically. The key to a successful presentation is to maintain a professional look, populate the page with applicable keywords and to clearly show demonstrated successes within your career. Remember your audience and speak to them. A potential employer wants to see where you have added value in your career history so you must include case studies where you have positively impacted the company. That being said, this is an online profile not a resume. The following are a few hit or misses on your online presentation to think about:

Keep Your Photos Professional:

One of the biggest mistakes for your professional profile is to use a "selfie". Keep the informal pictures for the other social media platforms and invest in a professional portrait for your profile. At the very least, dress in professional attire and have a friend take a photo with a neutral background. The photo is the first thing a potential employer or recruiter sees and you want to be taken seriously. Don't be overlooked because your photo depicts you on leisure time. 

Keep Your Content Personal:

While your photo needs to be dressed up, your content can be slightly dressed down from your resume. You don't need to fill your content with impressive resume speak. Rather, your online profile should illustrate success stories while keeping it personal. For example, "I was tasked to improve the following process and was able to successfully complete the task weeks ahead of schedule." or "I identified some redundancies in company spending and successfully streamlined our payables by x% by establishing new vendor relationships." Keep the message targeted to the audience: I can add value and here is how I have demonstrated added value in my career. Great attention should also be paid to your headline which is the things that makes one want to click through to read more or pass you over. Use keywords that describe your top skill and a phrase that captures how best you propose to add value. 

Refresh Your Skills and Keywords:

As you continue with your career you are mastering new skills and as you move up the ladder, you are gaining new responsibilities. It is important to continuously update with your most recent and best established skill set. Too many skills can muddy the water so be careful to edit the list so that you are presenting your highest quality work and skills that you want to focus on in your next endeavor. Many employers and recruiters search via keywords rather than titles so it is important to focus this list on what you want to be known for or better yet, how you want to be found.

 

 

 

 

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