Looking For A Job in Web 2.0 Market

Looking for a job? Forget your resume; work on personal branding.


“22% Of Employers Check Your Facebook Profile; 1/3 of which reject candidates because of their FB” (link)


This is a tweet that I sent out early yesterday. Amazingly, a few hours later I had a phone interview with one of the leading companies for voice over IP communication. After we talked about some of my online marketing experience, the interviewer asked me for my Twitter user name. We were following each other before I could say Abra Kadabra! How great is that. Well, it is wonderful if you are projecting a professional image on your twitter or any other social media channel account. If you are not prepared – it could be the point where you lose that job.

You might think, this is not the case for every type of job search and this kind of candidates screening approach is more likely to be relevant for online marketing professionals. I agree this is probably the case most of the time; however, you must be aware of the different purposes people use social media for today. It is no longer just a fun place to play at. Marketers, Recruiters, Employers and Businesses use these channels for marketing research, business development and candidates search.

So how can you change your personal branding?

These are some steps I took myself back in January when I realized the power of personal branding.


- Be Strategic – What kind of image would you like people to see in this specific channel? If you have several desired images (professor/singer), create different accounts on Twitter or YouTube where it is easy to have multiple accounts and keep the content separate. Decide what you would like to project on facebook and be consistent.


- Create separate accounts for yourself and be as active as if it was for your corporate account. Are you using your company twitter account? That is nice, but it doesn’t contribute to your personal branding. Create your own presence, even if you are already engaging under a corporate account.


- Clean Up – once you decided what is it you want to project, clean up any content that does not fit with your image. Un-tag yourself from pictures on facebook, Sort your web albums and delete any pictures that may not give the image you are aspiring to get, edit your community – some people may be get more value from you and contribute to the conversation in your other channel.


- Content – choose your content carefully while you have your personal image in mind - status changes, tweets, sharing information about events you are going to, groups that you belong to – all reflect on you as a person. Share work you have done, provide links to news or information you have in other websites that can reinforce your image.


- Be Yourself – Yes, you have to be strategic, but it doesn’t mean you should pretend to be someone you are not. The different images you are trying to project are all real parts of the whole you. The key to personal branding is to be aware of the different parts of your personality and professional life, be comfortable with them and control where and when you share those with others.