Month: March 2020

Find a home on the web to showcase your successes, such as your own website or a personal page.

(And work this in to your traditional resume too.)

1. Use a recently and professionally taken head shot, that faces directly into your profile, with on-brand backgrounds.
2. Write your profile in the 3rd person, as it makes it easier to communicate positions and achievements powerfully.
3. Or, write your profile in the 1st person, to build personal chemistry and connection.
4. Whether writing in 1st or 3rd, infuse some personal style into the professional and spell-check.
5. Focus on the impact and benefits of your project delivery; don’t focus on your job description responsibilities.
6. Use your name and target keywords to be found in search engines.
7. List the skills and expertise that you wish to be known for.
8. Request (and give) endorsements, recommendations and testimonials (give more than you get).
9. Connect contact information, such as telephone, email and web addresses.
10. Embed publications, presentations, videos and articles into you profiles.
11. Regularly post updates and join in relevant interest groups for connection, visibility and credibility.

Now we can know about you.

1. Your professional profile is not a history or biography, it’s a marketing strategy.
2. Marketing strategy means knowing your markets’ need and how your offering fits.
3. You can’t include it all, and your strategy must guide your content decisions.
4. A good profile is a magnetic career-brief supported by business project snapshots.
5. Replace objectives with career successes, achievements and contributions.
6. Forgo job descriptions and think in projects highlighting goals and objectives.
7. Consider project details as either being informational, valuable or critical.
8. Critical means delivering tangible and intangible business benefit and change.
9. Showcase the critical, edit-down the valuable and drop the informational.
10. Think impact and highlight one key thing you achieved in each project (critical),
11. Support each critical item with business and project accomplishments (valuable).
12. Ruthlessly edit, set aside, and edit again to be shorter, more powerful and on-brand.

Projects take all sorts.

But good brands focus on one thing not many things.

• The Fixer – You’re the go-to-person who can make anything happen.
• The Simplifier – You’re the “cut to the heart of it” pragmatist.
• The Innovator – You’re the “big hairy audacious ideas” generator.
• The Whiz Kid – You’re the talented Gen. Y hire on rocket fuel.
• The Rock – You’re the “Don’t worry, we’ll get it done” calming influence.
• The Organiser – You’re the project management extraordinaire.
• The Mediator – You’re the “no one walks away angry” team player.
• The Negotiator – You’re the influential, win-win mediator.
• The Connector – You’re the networker who always knows someone you should know.
• The Influencer – You’re the guy who’s never met a challenge you didn’t love.
• The Guru – You’re the oracle who’s happy to share their knowledge.
• The Juggler – You’re the one who keeps the balls in the air, and never drops one.

Stop wearing stress as your defining badge of project-honour, and focus on the strength you want to be known for.