My kids love roller coasters. My son, in particular, wants to ride the most extreme, fastest, scariest he can find. Me I like watching from the ground. Seeing their faces when they step off, and then run around to queue up again. The life of the self-employed / entrepreneur / freelancer can definitely be a roller coaster. When you are busy you do not have time to look for new… Read More »Do I have to go Back to Corporate?
It turns out that one of the co-founders, Brian Acton, of What’s App was rejected by both Facebook and Twitter! Sometimes getting rejected for a job can pay off. In the same year (2009) he and a friend and colleague from Yahoo founded WhatsApp the instant messaging service with now over 450 million users just sold to Facebook for $19 billion! That is over $350 million per employee! What… Read More »Whats Upp? – $19 billion For Getting Interview Rejected That’s What
According to recent Ladders.com research, the average time spent by a recruiter reading your resume is now just 6 seconds! Hopefully if the recruiting person is internal or a hiring manager the time is longer, but realistically it still might only be a few more seconds. The article shows images of two different resumes and the heat spots where eyes were tending to focus on in the short time they… Read More »Why are you still sending your resume?
The recent report of an executive recruiter in the UK being fired for e-mailing a job candidate to go away using colourful language – but accidentally copying everyone (all 4,000+ of them!) on the candidates blast list, highlights the dangers of damaging your personal brand and career by relying too much on technology. What is that recruiter going to say when the question comes up "Why did you leave your… Read More »How E-mail Damages Your Personal Brand
Perhaps not surprsingly 57% of North American recruiters and managers have reservations about hiring candidates who have numerous employers or short job tenures on their resumes according to a Right Management study recently. Asia was almost equally cautious at 50% but not going so far east has its advantages in that only 38% of European managers had the same issue. Rather obviously it's stated that these moves will need to… Read More »Too many jobs?……..head east!
One of the questions that is asked in the personal brand assessment I have set up for each of the leaders of the political parties in the upcoming Canadian election is "What car are they and why?" If you want to add your toonies worth click through here to the details on my blog from last week. Talking of cars, I am a very proud and excited husband today as… Read More »What does your car say about your personal brand?
This past week I spent some time as a mentor with PR students from Humber college at their Personal Brand Camp 2. It was great to experience the enthusiasm and thirst for knowledge as well as the considered and respectful approach that the students displayed. Also last week I contributed to the PriceWaterhouse Coopers Personal Brand Week – an online initiative via Facebook and Twitter to share tips and tools… Read More »Are you really differentiating yourself?
This blog post originally appeared in mid-year and has just come on a Top 10 Personal Branding Articles of 2009 list compiled by William Arruda over at Reach – so I thought I would post again to serve as a reminder for some actions to take in 2010 – wishing all a happy and successful new year! The new iPhone 3GS recent launch saw two impacts – Apple dropping… Read More »Is Your Career Like an Apple iPhone, Blackberry or other Smartphone?
In a conversation with a senior management client recently it was interesting to observe that even with a list of impressive and significant accomplishments they were very reluctant to talk about them, even admit them and certainly not willing to put them down on paper. They are currently working for a large Fortune 500 company where a strong internal profile and personal brand is key to getting the next… Read More »10 Ways to Market Your Talent Without Feeling Sleazy
In tough times a network's value can be priceless, but it should not just be for hard times that we decide to network. One of the critical mistakes I see far too often is only calling on your network when you need it. Too many times I have conversations with successful professionals and executives who suddenly are in a situation where they need their network and they are almost literally going to… Read More »What is the networth of your network?