No matter how you look at it, getting laid off from your job is never fun. You may have been expecting it for weeks or months, or you may have been caught completely off guard. Regardless of the circumstances, there are some things you should do and shouldn’t do immediately following a layoff.
You may be tempted to send out dozens of resumes and cover letters frantically in an attempt to find a new job as quickly as possible, but that could possibly be the worst strategy you can use. Instead, here are some do’s and don’ts to consider if you’ve been laid off.
Don’t Feel Sorry For Yourself
Feeling sorry for yourself and telling others about it doesn’t move you forward. Getting out of your rut of being laid off can be difficult, but it’s a necessity. If you must, take a day to reflect on the situation, but then let it go. Visit an executive resume writing service for professional help on brushing up your resume. The professionals there can give you words of encouragement based on experience, since they work with all types of clients and have plenty of success stories to share.
Take a Break Before Starting Your Job Search
You should take a little break before immediately jumping into your next job search. It’s human nature to take a little while to rebound from a layoff, so you need to make sure your mind is in the right place before you start talking to potential employers. This downtime would be the perfect window to optimize your LinkedIn profile, but give yourself enough time to recover before making connections.
Reconnect With Your Network
Reconnecting with your network is something you should do even before you send out dozens of resumes and cover letters. Be sure to optimize your LinkedIn profile first, though, so your connections know exactly what you’re up to when you reach out to them.
Take Time to Devise or Revise Your Career Plan
You may have been taken by surprise with your recent layoff, so take some time to come up with a new career plan. That may involve incorporating multiple streams of income or switching industries completely. Your opportunities are endless, so take all the time you need to put together your next career plan!
Professional Resume Services works with people who have been laid off all the time. Our executive resume writing service excels at helping people get back on their feet and into the jobs they want. Feel free to contact us if you need help following your layoff.
A job search has many ups and downs. You could be on cloud nine when you receive an opportunity to interview, but then fall back down when you don’t get the job. Keeping a level mindset is difficult, but necessary during your hunt for a new job.
It’s easy to take a break from your job search. But many people find their break that was supposed to last only a few days ends up lasting a few weeks. Not improving your personal branding every day is only making you take a step backward. The best way to stay on a schedule, and stay motivated, is to set a timeline. Here are some tips on how to do so.
Set a Goal and Plan to Meet it
Setting a goal without a plan to reach it is simply a wish. Everyone operates differently, though. You may choose to set multiple smaller goals to reach during a certain timeframe, or you may choose to solely set your sights on the end goal. Either way you choose, having a plan will help you get there.
Using the top rated resume writing services can help you meet your plan and goals. Not having a polished resume could be setting you back and getting you looked over for jobs you qualify for. Having a professional help you write your executive resume can help expedite the job search process.
Don’t Be Complacent
Complacency can be a big detriment to your job search efforts. If you’re not going to apply for a job one day, then use your effort to optimize your LinkedIn profile as much as possible, just to keep you moving forward. It’s important to note employers may have a position open for immediate hiring, but they may not be hiring immediately. Don’t wait around for them to contact you. Continue on with your job search so you can stay on your timeline and not suffer a setback.
Be Immediate, But Not Pushy
When you meet with a recruiter, it’s important to show immediacy, but not be too demanding. Recruiters know you’re looking for a job; otherwise, you wouldn’t be talking to them. You can damage your c-level personal branding by overstepping boundaries and being pushy just to meet your timeline.
Professional Resume Services understands the importance of setting a timeline and making attainable goals for your job search. Our top rated resume writing services can help you stay on schedule with a job search, so feel free to contact us if our services can help you in any way.
While most companies are hiring professionals and executives throughout the year, the summer months tend to be a little slower. With people taking time off to go on vacation and spending time away from the office, the hiring process takes a little longer than usual. For job seekers, this is the perfect time to clean up your executive LinkedIn profile. Most people don’t spend enough time updating their profile, which could have a few downfalls. Here are some tips on how to clean up yours this summer.
Update Everything
Read your entire executive LinkedIn profile word-for-word and update anything that has changed. Chances are you’ll think about several skills or experiences you’ve developed or had since your last profile update. Having updated information about yourself is one of the keys to the best LinkedIn profile development.
Filter Through Your Endorsements
You may have gotten several LinkedIn endorsements from friends or family that simply aren’t relevant to executive jobs you’re looking for. The amount of endorsements you have isn’t nearly as important as the quality of the endorsements. Filter through all of them and remove any of the unimportant ones so a recruiter will see only the relevant endorsements.
Focus on Your Summary
The summary section is the place where you sell yourself to potential recruiters and connections. If you aren’t a strong writer, you can always reach out to a professional LinkedIn profile writer for assistance. The summary needs to be specific and straight to the point without a lot of fluff. Writing the best LinkedIn summary is an art, so seek help if you need it.
Keep Your Profile Straightforward
Your executive LinkedIn profile should be treated differently from your executive resume, but they do have some similarities. Don’t use a lot of filler words on your LinkedIn profile just to make it longer. Being clean and concise with your words will look more impressive to a recruiter than having to scroll down through blocks of text. If you’re actively looking for a job, make it clear. If you’re currently employed but keeping your options open, make that clear as well.
Professional Resume Services is here to help you with your LinkedIn profile development this summer. Whether you need advice on tidying up your profile, or if you need a professional LinkedIn profile writer, feel free to reach out to us at any time.
Networking seems so simple, but so tricky at the same time. Many professionals and executives believe they will have easy access to a job if there is a family member or friend in the company. However, this isn’t necessarily true. And even if it is partially true, you have to be careful how you approach the situation.
When it comes to personal branding for senior level managers, always having a professional approach is critical. You could be putting your family member’s or your friend’s reputation on the line by asking for a favor. Here are other things to consider.
Use Them, But Don’t Abuse Them
There’s no harm in asking someone you know to help you get your foot in the door. But you don’t want to make them go out of their way and potentially damage their own reputation and success on your behalf. As you know, c-level personal branding takes a lot of time and effort to build, but can be damaged instantly. Don’t abuse your close connections by pressuring them to fight for you, especially if you may not be completely qualified.
Verify Your Qualifications First
The best thing you can do right away is ask your close connections whether you are qualified for a position they have available. You should also learn how to optimize your LinkedIn profile before you even reach out to them, just so your information is current. The worst thing that can happen to both your reputation and your friend or family member’s is to make the effort to get your foot in the door, only to find out you don’t meet the necessary qualifications.
Understand Their Risk in Helping You
Family and friends can boost your networking efforts, but also take into consideration the risk they are taking in helping you. They’ve worked hard to get in the position they are in just like you have. If they recommend you and you don’t fit with the company for some reason, their own c-level personal branding could take a hit. Sometimes it’s not worth the risk for them, so take that into consideration before asking any favors.
Professional Resume Services can help you with your networking efforts. Whether you need to learn how to optimize your LinkedIn profile or brush up your resume, we are here for you when you need us. Feel free to reach out to us at any time.
The summer generally isn’t viewed as the best time of year to drum up new business or make new connections. With many people going on vacations and spending more time traveling, the networking events are much more rare during the summer. However, this presents a great opportunity for other avenues of networking that could prove to be even more valuable. The thing about personal branding for senior level managers is you can never stop improving your brand. Here are some reasons why the summer may be the best time for you to do so.
People Are Generally More Relaxed
Since many businesses hit their slower months during the summer, you’ll notice people are more relaxed than normal. This means they should be more willing to connect with you, whether it’s finally grabbing a cup of coffee or going to brunch. Taking a relaxed and casual approach when networking during the summer can improve personal branding for senior level managers more than you think.
Use Downtime to Improve Your LinkedIn Profile
Summer could also prove to be the best time to work on your executive LinkedIn profile. Companies may not be hiring much during the summer, but working on your LinkedIn profile development during the slow periods will help you be prepared when business starts ramping up again. This is also the perfect time to get your name out there by joining LinkedIn groups, reaching out directly to connections and sending out resumes. Utilize LinkedIn as much as possible now and you’ll reap the benefits later on.
Always Be Aware of Networking Opportunities
The summer months offer some of the most unique networking opportunities when compared to other times of the year. You don’t have to be dressed in professional attire in order to make a connection. Listen to conversations at the beach, at sporting events, kids events or anywhere else you may be. As much as people say they don’t want to think about work when they are at different places, many conversations will inevitably lead that way. You never want to miss the opportunity to work on personal branding for senior level managers.
Professional Resume Services has plenty more networking tips like these to get you through the summer. Whether you need assistance with your LinkedIn profile development or identifying other networking opportunities, feel free to contact us at any time.
Networking is one of the most valuable actions any professional or executive can take for a variety of reasons. Whether you have a job you like or are seeking a new one, networking has plenty of value. However, if you don’t network properly, you could find yourself frustrated at the lack of success it’s getting you. Networking can work for everyone, but it doesn’t mean you can just go through the motions and land your dream job as a result. Here are some of the most common mistakes executives make in their networking efforts.
Not Warming Up Your Contacts
It can be easy to lose touch with your professional network. With such a busy schedule, combined with not personally seeing your connections frequently, contacts can quickly and easily go cold. However, the key to c-level personal branding is to always work on improving your image and brand.
Any LinkedIn profile development professional will tell you if you reach out to a cold contact and act like you just saw them yesterday, your efforts won’t yield very good results. Just like you have to build a relationship with any new contacts you make, you have to warm up the relationship with current contacts.
Being Too Vague
When you visit the best executive resume writing services, they aren’t going to tell you to be vague on your resume. The same goes with networking. If you don’t enter a networking event with a clear goal in mind of why you’re going, you’ll leave with an empty feeling. Before you even attend an event, write down a list of things you want to accomplish, and most importantly, what you’re looking for in your career. Anticipate questions people may ask you so you know how to answer.
Networking With The Wrong People
It’s also possible you’re simply talking to the wrong people. In most cases, if you’re new to an area or industry, you can’t talk to your past connections and expect to get anywhere. That’s why LinkedIn profile development is so critical in networking, since you can make connections no matter where you are. There are plenty of LinkedIn groups available to help you get acquainted with the right type of people before you even meet them.
Professional Resume Services provides not only the best executive resume writing services, but can also help with your LinkedIn profile development. Feel free to contact us if you are struggling with your networking efforts in any way.
LinkedIn is a powerful tool for professionals and executives—when used correctly. One of many ways you can properly utilize LinkedIn is by participating in different groups. Joining a few groups can boost your LinkedIn profile development, since you’ll naturally gain more connections as a result. However, you have to be careful with how you approach these groups. Here are some great tips on how to optimize your LinkedIn profile and expand your network by joining groups.
Choose Your Groups Wisely
You can join up to 50 groups on LinkedIn, but you don’t have to actually join that many. Consider joining groups related to your industry, your social life, interests, hobbies, school affiliation and other similar groups. The more groups you join with relevance to your interests, the better chance you’ll have of expanding your network properly with people you can relate with.
Observe Group Conversations
Once you join a group, you might not want to jump right into conversations. People in groups are generally familiar with one another, so they may not like it if you barge in on their discussions. Instead, sit back and observe conversations for a few days or a couple of weeks. See how the group members interact with one another, so you’re able to fit in more naturally once you become more active in the group.
Introduce Yourself
After you’ve made your observations and determined the group is a good fit, make a nice introduction to the group. Tell them to visit your LinkedIn profile to learn your background, but also tell them things about yourself that aren’t on your profile. The more you tell about yourself, the wider range of people you’ll be able to relate to. When you’re trying to boost your LinkedIn profile with more connections, relating to people is the best way to go.
Be Active
When you’ve introduced yourself, be sure to reply to any comments welcoming you to the group. From that point on, people are at least familiar with your name and would enjoy having you in discussions. One mistake people often make is not being active in a group, so other members will forget about you. Activity in LinkedIn groups is the best way to expand your network.
Professional Resume Services is dedicated to helping professionals and executives boost their LinkedIn profiles by giving the best tips on LinkedIn profile development. Feel free to reach out to us any time for tips on how to optimize your LinkedIn profile and expand your network at the same time.
LinkedIn is the most popular social media platform for professionals, but it doesn’t mean everyone utilizes it the right way. If you have questions about how to improve your LinkedIn profile development, you’ve come to the right place. Many people have legitimate questions about LinkedIn, so we’ve done our best to gather the most common questions and answer them for you here.
1. How is LinkedIn Different From Other Social Media Platforms?
LinkedIn is viewed more as a professional social media platform rather than one designed for entertainment. People use Facebook, Twitter and other platforms to connect with friends or catch up on the latest celebrity gossip in real-time. That’s not what LinkedIn is about. Any LinkedIn profile service will also tell you to clean up your other profiles so it doesn’t tarnish your LinkedIn profile.
2. What Information Should You Include on LinkedIn?
Many people make the mistake of making their LinkedIn profile look exactly like their executive resume. A good LinkedIn profile writing service will tell you to use your resume as a base for information, but go into more detail about accomplishments and achievements on your LinkedIn profile. This is your chance to show your personality a little more than you can in a resume. Use the opportunity to brag on yourself as well!
3. How Important Are LinkedIn Groups?
Be selective about the groups you join and participate in them frequently. This is a great opportunity to meet new people in your industry. If you’re searching for a job, you may find your next employer in these groups. There are thousands of different groups, so definitely use them to your advantage.
4. Can You Find A Job Through LinkedIn?
Sometimes you’ll see job postings via LinkedIn, but you probably shouldn’t rely on them. The key to good LinkedIn profile development is to get your profile noticed by recruiters or hiring managers. Even if you don’t see actual job postings, it doesn’t mean you can’t get your foot in the door to land an interview with a well-developed profile.
5. How Can You Best Utilize Your LinkedIn Profile?
Highlighting your achievements and building on your resume are the best ways to utilize your LinkedIn profile. Be sure to remove any unprofessional pictures or anything you wouldn’t want an employer to see. Be active on LinkedIn and you never know who you may cross paths with along the way.
Although these are the most common LinkedIn questions, we know you may have many more. Feel free to contact us at any time with any of your burning LinkedIn questions.
