Many executives forget a job isn’t theirs until they sign on the dotted line to become employed with the company. Receiving a job offer is great, but some mistakes could lead to the offer being withdrawn. You’ve worked so hard to get your executive resume bio in shape to get recognized, land an interview and ultimately get a job offer. Here are some of the common mistakes you need to avoid both before and after receiving a job offer.
Not Being Honest
Don’t tell your interviewer you have another job offer elsewhere if it isn’t true. Similarly, don’t lie about the salary at your current position or previous position. Employers have the right to look at this information for verification before they make a job offer. If you’re caught in a lie, they may question your entire executive resume bio and not give you an offer.
Not Keeping Your References Informed
Your references on your executive resume could be critical in getting you a job. However, any of the top resume writing services will tell you to always keep your references informed when you send in a resume. Employers often call those references, so you don’t want them to be surprised when it happens. You want your references to be prepared so they can discuss your past work most effectively.
Negotiating Too Much or Too Early
Negotiation is part of the interview process for executives. However, there’s a time and place for negotiating, and doing it too early or too often could make an employer uncomfortable enough where they won’t offer you the job. You are entitled to fair pay and benefits, but there has to be some give-and-take as well.
Social Media Blunders
Potential employers almost always look at social media profiles because it gives them insight as to who you are. Use a LinkedIn profile service to get your Linkedin profile cleaned up from a professional standpoint. Also be careful not to post any photos or commentary that could be offensive or otherwise hurt your chances of not looking and sounding professional. Social media is a valuable tool, but it can also be extremely costly when not used appropriately. Professional Resume Services is one of the top resume writing services in the industry. Not only can we help you write an effective resume to boost your chances of landing an interview, but we also have valuable tips about various stages of your executive job search. Feel free to contact us at any time if you’re struggling with your job search.
LinkedIn can be an extremely valuable tool for executives. However, not knowing how to use it properly can also damage your reputation without you even knowing. LinkedIn isn’t difficult to use, but there are some unwritten rules about etiquette that many executives overlook. If you’re going to spend the time to write your executive profile on your LinkedIn page, you owe it to yourself to be familiar with these unwritten rules executives sometimes violate.
Personalize Your Connection Requests
When you connect with someone on LinkedIn, you could use the default message LinkedIn provides, or you could personalize it. Personalizing the request is valuable in many ways. You could state how you met the person, just in case it was at a networking event where they met dozens of other people. Or you could simply say you’re impressed with their profile and admire their work. Either way, a personalized request makes a much better impression.
Adjust Settings When Updating Your Profile
When you need to optimize your LinkedIn profile, you’re likely going to change a lot of different sections of it. What you may not know is all of your connections will see each and every change you make if you don’t update your settings accordingly. Go into the Privacy Controls of your profile and turn off update notifications to spare your connections from dozens of notifications. Turn it back on when you’re done updating it, so your connections will only see the important changes going forward.
Give Endorsements and Recommendations
The top resume writing services will tell you not to put too much emphasis on endorsements and recommendations through LinkedIn. However, giving and receiving the proper ones is important. Don’t ask for an endorsement from someone you didn’t work with directly. On the other hand, it’s not appropriate to give an endorsement or recommendation to someone you didn’t work with closely. These should be personalized and well thought out, so make them meaningful.
Connect With The Right People
If you’re actively searching for a job, connect with people who work in the same industry as you. With LinkedIn groups, you don’t even have to make a connection request until you get to know them as part of the group. It takes a little time to get to know someone through LinkedIn, but a single quality connection is much more valuable than a dozen connections from people you never met or have any association with at all. Professional Resume Services is one of the top resume writing services for many reasons. We not only help with writing executive resumes, but we can also assist with cover letter writing, developing LinkedIn profiles and helping out with job searches in general. Feel free to contact us at any time to learn more about the written and unwritten rules of LinkedIn or anything else pertaining to your executive job search.
How Executive Personal Branding Affects Your Executive Career
Working on your personal brand is more important now than ever before. Executives have typically considered their c-level personal branding as being associated with and representing the company they work for. However, the notion has shifted into marketing yourself as a person rather than as a part of a company. When you work for a company, you still need to brand them as part of your job. The key is to also know when the right time is to work on yourself as well. Not doing so could hurt your long-term executive career prospects. Here are a few ways executive personal branding affects your executive career.
Establish Yourself as an Expert
When you focus on c-level personal branding, you can establish yourself as an expert in a particular industry, rather than for a specific company. Portraying yourself as the go-to executive for many different issues can be very valuable for your career. People need someone to rely on, and if you have the expertise, branding yourself as the person they can rely on can define you in that way.
Learn More About Yourself And Your Goals
Executive personal branding goes beyond writing an effective resume. It’s easy to portray yourself in a different light when you’re representing a company, even when you know it’s not the true you. How you brand yourself could give some insight into your own self, your value, worth and what you’re capable of.
Get Feedback From Peers to Improve Your Brand and Career
One of the best ways to improve c-level personal branding is to always seek feedback from colleagues and peers. You may believe you are taking all the right steps to market yourself appropriately, but you don’t know how you are perceived by others unless you ask someone you trust. Most executives won’t volunteer this information to you, so asking for feedback could open your eyes to some changes you need to make when representing yourself.
Link Your Online Brand With Your Personal Brand
You could be hurting yourself if the person you say you are online doesn’t match the person you are in real life. When you optimize your LinkedIn profile, don’t just write things to make yourself sound good. People will read your LinkedIn profile and have a general perception about you. That perception has to come close to matching in real life, so be sure the two are linked closely and accurately. At Professional Resume Services, we always work with executives wanting to improve their personal brand. We understand the importance of personal branding when it comes to career advancement, job searching and other aspects. Feel free to contact us if you need any tips or advice on branding or any other aspect of your executive career.
When many people think about building a brand, they think about actual companies promoting their brand to drive business. However, executives today have to build their own personal brand as well. Building your brand online can take a significant amount of time and effort, and it won’t happen overnight. Your online brand is how people perceive you in real life, so it’s worth taking c-level personal branding seriously. Here are some of the best ways you can build your brand online.
Be Active on Social Media, But Not Too Active
Social media is great for building your executive brand, but it can also come crashing down in a hurry if you aren’t careful. You also want to limit the amount of platforms you use to just a few so you don’t spread yourself too thin. Having too many social media accounts to manage can become overwhelming very quick. When it comes to your level of activity on social media, you always want to keep your brand in mind. Any time you think about posting something, consider whether it hurts or helps your brand. By considering this every time, you’ll manage your level of activity and only post relevant items reinforcing what you want to be known for.
Embrace LinkedIn
Having a strong executive LinkedIn profile is possibly the best way to build your brand online. One of the first places recruiters go to find executives is LinkedIn. If your LinkedIn profile needs some serious updates, you may consider looking into a service to help you. You definitely won’t be able to build your brand online the right way if you don’t use and embrace LinkedIn.
Use Strategic Keywords to Get Discovered
Keywords on your LinkedIn profile or other online platforms can help you get discovered. This also means you have to be extremely careful about what you post online. There is no separating personal matters from business matters online, so everything you say is tied to your overall brand.
Always Reinforce What You Want to be Known For
Every executive has unique qualities, including you. When you’ve determined what those qualities are, emphasize them on your LinkedIn profile, your resume and anywhere else. This reinforcement can help with your c-level personal branding and help you get recognized by the right people and companies. Professional Resume Services thrives in helping people build their brand online. Whether it’s updating your executive LinkedIn profile, optimizing your resume or brainstorming new branding strategies, we are here to help. Feel free to contact us at any time for assistance on building and maintaining your brand online.
Important Features on LinkedIn You Should Be Using
LinkedIn offers so many features, but it can be difficult to know which ones to use and how to use them. The reality is many executives aren’t using the right features, and some of the features they are using aren’t being used properly. Your executive LinkedIn profile is many times the first thing a recruiter will see about you. When you use these important features in the right manner, you’ll set yourself up to land the job you desire.
LinkedIn Groups
The more LinkedIn groups you join, the better off you’ll be. You can join a maximum of 50 groups, and each of them can help you build your network if you utilize them properly. You just have to be somewhat active in each one and connect with other individuals with like minds. This is a great way to network and make strong connections before actually meeting them in person.
A Quality Headshot
It should be assumed that your LinkedIn profile picture should be a professional one. However, executives still sometimes put photos of them with their family, pet or taking part in some sort of activity. While those photos may mean something to you, it means nothing to recruiters. Stick with a simple quality professional headshot to make the best impression.
LinkedIn Endorsements
Don’t plan to optimize your LinkedIn profile by giving and receiving a bunch of endorsements. While LinkedIn endorsements can be somewhat silly, they can be valuable. You should only endorse people you know personally and can endorse their skills. Alternatively, you should only accept endorsements from people in the same way. Recruiters want to see the quality of your endorsements, even if it is just a handful, rather than dozens of meaningless ones.
Multi-Media Content
LinkedIn allows you to upload photos and videos to your profile, so why not take advantage of it? You may upload a short clip of you giving a speech, accepting an award, working in the community or anything else you think may boost your value and perception. Most executives don’t include multi-media content in their LinkedIn profile, but it’s a feature that could help set you apart.
Concise Headline
Most executives use the headline feature on their LinkedIn profile, but not properly. This shouldn’t be about the job you’re seeking. Instead, consider it to be a one-liner advertisement about yourself. The main goal of your headline is to entice people to keep reading, so make your headline concise and interesting. Professional Resume Services offers services to help you optimize your LinkedIn profile. LinkedIn has many features executives don’t take advantage of, so be sure to contact us to see how you can better utilize them to help advance in your career.
Clean up Your LinkedIn Profile This Summer With These Tips!
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.
Can Your Family and Friends Boost Your Networking Success?
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.
Do You Have a Social Media Strategy for Your Executive Job Search?
It’s no longer enough to look for a job through traditional methods such as submitting an application and resume through job listings. Social media has become essential to the C-level job search. For this reason, LinkedIn profile development should become an integral part of your job search process. Why Is LinkedIn Important?
There are a number of reasons why you need to focus on writing a stellar LinkedIn profile to help you obtain a C-level position. LinkedIn profile writing services can help you:
Promise value to a potential employer and advance thought leadership
Reach recruiters and decision makers
Advance your job search with LinkedIn’s unique features
Network with industry leaders who may connect you to your next position
Prove you are who you claim to be
How to Complete LinkedIn Profile Development
Whether you work with an experienced executive LinkedIn profile writer or you choose to attempt this process on your own, it’s essential to know what aspects of your profile require the most attention to be effective.
Optimize Your Profile – Make sure your profile reflects every position you are considering. Be sure as much of your profile is complete as possible. A complete profile is more effective.
Request Recommendations – LinkedIn allows coworkers and former employers to provide recommendations for individuals. While some people automatically provide these when you connect, you may need to ask others.
Increase Your Network Connections – LinkedIn is designed to make networking online easy. Even before you start searching for a job, you should reach out and connect to other individuals in the industry you are considering. You should also connect with past coworkers, friends, family members and anyone else you know.
Look for a Job via LinkedIn – LinkedIn Jobs makes it easier to use this social media site to find your next job. This tool will suggest jobs based on your profile. Therefore, you should follow companies and industries you are interested in and research recruiters in your industry.
Engaging in LinkedIn can be a useful tool in helping you find your next C-level position. However, without the proper LinkedIn profile development, you may impede your efforts, rather than help you obtain the right position. If your profile isn’t well-suited for your job search, employing the help of LinkedIn profile writing services will ensure your profile makes a good first impression and helps you land the job of your dreams. LinkedIn is the top social media site for executive-level positions.
If you need the help of an executive LinkedIn profile writer, contact us. We can help you revise or create your profile so it appeals to recruiters and prospective employers.
Many executives forget a job isn’t theirs until they sign on the dotted line to become employed with the company. Receiving a job offer is great, but some mistakes could lead to the offer being withdrawn. You’ve worked so hard to get your executive resume bio in shape to get recognized, land an interview and ultimately get a job offer. Here are some of the common mistakes you need to avoid both before and after receiving a job offer.
