This article first appeared in the Indian publication me.inc.

In the United States, a population of just 300 million, more than 2,000 people on LinkedIn share the exact same name as criminals on the FBIs most wanted list.

In India, with 1.2 billion people, imagine how much the odds increase that an inaccurate representation of you might show up on some background check, or even just a casual Google search by a potential employer. Organizations like Price Waterhouse Cooper make googling candidates part of their standard operational procedure. Yet many serious professionals don’t take these three easy steps to regain their online identity.

Step One: Re-Brand

In the hiring process, by the time someone Googles your name chances are they’ve already seen your resume. They Google you because they want to learn more about you. They’re curious. But when they do, all kinds of versions of you show up on the results page. This can be really frustrating for a company.

Do you know who Marion Morrison is? Well, his career didn’t take off until he changed his name to John Wayne. Maybe you’ve heard of him?

Perhaps your re-brand isn’t as drastic as a full name change. Andrew V. was wrongfully accused of shoplifting and this dominated his search results. His buddies at work wouldn’t stop teasing him about the high-ranking search result. So he started using his middle initial.

When thinking about your own re-brand, maybe it’s just using a middle name or initial. Maybe it’s initialling your first name and using your middle name. Maybe your new brand includes an MBA at the end of it.

Any small change you make to your online name will help employers narrow down their search so they can learn more about the real you.

Step Two: Be the New Brand Everywhere

You can’t just update your name on your resume. The new brand needs to be everywhere online. That means you must update your LinkedIn profile name, the URL for your LinkedIn profile. If you publish anything online, like a slideshow or photographs, your new identity must be attached.

Make a list of each piece of online content out there, including profiles, files, images, videos etc. Then slowly work your way down the list updating your name.

Step Three: You Must Own Your Domain

I waited too long to buy my own domain name. Now, the person at joshuawaldman.com glibly squats on my online property unwilling to sell it to me at a decent price. Don’t let this happen to you. Buy a domain name for your name as quickly as you can.

Because of the way Google works, domain names that match search queries have a better chance or ranking. So if your name is Yogesh Kumar and your domain name is yogeshkumar.com, you’ll have a chance of ranking #1.

Domains are cheap. Services like NameCheap offer domains for less than $10, that’s Rs. 544. Not a bad price to pay to make sure your next boss get’s the right first impression of you.

If you don’t want to build a website, just sign up for about.me and redirect your domain to your about.me profile, like what I did with joshuawaldman.net.

Please leave a comment below to share your story of how you reclaimed your online identity.

Joshua Waldman is the author of Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies and speaks internationally with career service organizations on how social media can get people hired fast. To learn 3 easy tricks for getting job interviews by next week, check out his 20 minute training video.

Guest post by Mona Abdel-Halim:

While holiday activities may be keeping you plenty busy this season, it is important that you stay dedicated to your job search. Businesses aren’t taking the whole season off, and neither should you.

Lucky for you, there is good news for those individuals looking to job search this season. Not only will you have less competition this time of year, but employers are still hiring, just like any other season. Now, they just might have year-end goals to fulfill and job spots to fill for the coming year.

Try to balance your job search with fun holiday activities this season. You must remember to enjoy your holiday season, but taking this time while everyone else is lounging to really ramp up your job hunt will serve you well. Listed below are a couple of tips for this holiday season’s job search.

Network at Holiday Parties

While your job search might not be your favorite topic of discussion at holiday parties, it might be beneficial to enter into this conversation. Holiday parties are full of relatives, friends, and friends of friends. All of these people will be open to employment conversations and just might be able to help you by either providing you with leads or advice.

You should take this chance to network at holiday parties while people are in a giving and positive mood. Remember to make it clear that you are open to any advice that they can offer and that you are trying very hard on your own in the search.

Stay Positive and Make Connections

You must keep your spirits high during your job hunt this holiday season. Holiday parties are great opportunities to network with your family and friends, but there are many other options available at this time. The holidays are a great excuse to get back in touch with peers and past colleagues. Send out a quick note of warm wishes and include some updates on your life. Whether you are maintaining or renewing a connection, holiday cards are great for making contact and breaking the ice.

Do you have more tips for job seekers on keeping up with their job search during the holiday season? Leave us your feedback in the comments.

Mona Abdel-Halim is the co-founder of Resunate.com, the world’s only search engine optimizing resume builder. You can find Mona and Resunate on Facebook and Twitter.

Recently, I discovered www.yesware.com, an gmail add-on for salespeople that allows you to track your emails. Since job seekers try to sell themselves to companies,?I figured out that this tool is brilliant for applicants to easily keep track of their application emails. Yesware works like a newsletter service. It embeds a tracking pixel in your email, and your email still looks like the same. There is just a tiny picture (one pixel) attached for tracking purposes.

Once you have the pleasure to not go through an applicant tracking system (online application forms) and you already know the email address to send your application to, this tool becomes indispensable. After you installed it in Gmail and activated the tracking, it will notify you whenever an application email gets opened or the recipient (an HR manager) clicks on your links in that email. Now, you know when to follow up and you can see if your application emails are working or if you should edit your message.

After tracking your email, you can see how often the recipient opens your email and clicks on the included links, and you can see the location and if it was opened from a mobile device or desktop computer. This way, you can easily keep a record of the emails that you send out. However, this tracking doesn’t always work. Some emails do not get tracked and some load the pixel without the intended recipient actually reading the email.

Since links can be tracked, I would suggest to include your resume as a link in your application email; either use LinkedIn or save your resume somewhere online. The free version comes with 100 tracking events per month, which should be enough for the purpose of tracking your applications but there are also other services available like http://bananatag.com/.

Good luck on your job search and happy tracking!

Ivo Bottcher is a Social Media enthusiast who works with Small Improvements, a simple SAAS performance and peer review software solution. Besides HR, he also contributes and conducts research in the fields of International Relations and German-American business. Connect with Ivo on LinkedIn or Twitter.

If you’re feeling intimidated by the interviewing process you’re not alone. Confidence and clarity in an interview require preparation. The advice in this book can lessen beginner’s mistakes and sharpen your effectiveness.

Take Some Advice from the Interviewers Themselves

This book doesn’t give you textbook answers to common interview questions because “textbook answers don’t work—that’s not what interviewers want to hear.”

Instead it’ll provide you with examples of questions and expectations of REAL PEOPLE, human resource directors and senior managers, who conduct interviews in many fields.

Know What You Want and Go Get It

The CEO of a real estate development firm advises, “Have good reasons why you want to work for my company. Relate them to what you have learned about us before you come to the interview.”

This idea of understanding what you want from the job before you even start the interview is important.

It’s an exciting prospect to picture yourself arriving at an interview feeling confident that you’re in the position to choose rather than simply hoping and praying that you are chosen. Enisman not only believes that this is possible but teaches how it can make you an even more effective interviewee.

Enisman’s Strategies for Using Social Media for Interview Prep

As we know, social media can be a very effective tool for job searchers. It’s no surprise that it can aid us in the interview process as well. Here are a couple of Enisman’s tips:

1. Use LinkedIn to find people who work for the company you’re interviewing with. Ask them for insights into their own hiring process as well as the culture of the company.

2. Check out Facebook for a company page and potential employees to contact.

3. Check Twitter to find out what others are saying about the company. You may even find the person you will be interviewing with.

4. Use social networking platforms to look for others who are going to interview or have interviewed with the company. Forge connections and ask questions about their experiences.

5. Don’t let your Facebook profile hurt you. Remove any unflattering or immature content.

6. Let your Facebook profile help you. Prospective employers will look you up because “your profiles on social sites are now part of your resume.” Use the space to highlight your qualities and accomplishments.

Be Prepared to Work Hard

The information and preparation strategies in this book are extensive. You will learn about many interview situations and how you should behave in each. There are even tips on dress code and follow up which are equally important parts of the process.

Enisman leaves no stone unturned and you’ll benefit from her thoroughness if you’re willing to approach the process with an open mind. She reminds us, “THIS IS NOT WORK. THIS IS AN INVESTMENT! If you invest others will too. Right now, finding a job is your job.”

Work hard and land the job you really want!

For more information on Ellyn and how she can help you with career exploration, job search strategies, resume transformation, and interviewing skills visit her website: http://collegetocareercoaching.com/

Imagine you are a small company, and you are growing rapidly despite the naysayers in the news about the economy. It’s time to hire a full-time sales person.

Will you spend $600-$800 to post on Monster?

Will you enjoy being spammed when posting jobs on Craigslist, just to get an entry-level person?

I doubt it!

I would prefer to get a referral to fill my position. And I trust my friends on Facebook and Twitter to be my referral network for several reasons.

First, it’s free.

Second, I know these people who may know other people I know.

As a matter of fact, this is exactly the thought process going through the minds of thousands of hiring managers every day.

And the benefit to you is that you get to reply to the job minutes after it has been posted.

Are you Tweeting yet?

Twitter Resources for Job Seekers

1. TwitterJobSearch.com
2. TweetMyJobs.com
3. Follow @Microjobs and use their service to grow your network
4. NearbyTweets to look for job openings in your area.
5. Read Teen’s great new book on Twitter job seeking

This Post Was Featured on:

Use the right terms

In today’s job market, companies are increasingly getting creative with their job titles and descriptions. What might have once been referred to as to as a secretary or office assistant position might now be called “administrative technician” or office support team member.” And that’s not even at the extreme end of the job title spectrum. In an effort to catch the attention of top talent, companies have integrated “ambassador,” “ninja,” “evangelist,” and other innovative monikers into their job ads.

This trend got its start in the tech world, where everything from employee benefits to office culture to job descriptions is steeped in progressive thinking. Now, the practice of creative position naming has trickled down to more traditional fields, with the thought that today’s younger crowd will feel more empowered by a less defined title, and that offering meaningful descriptors will increase their level of commitment to the position.

While some consider this trend to be waning, a simple search using Indeed.com’s Job Trends tool shows that these phrases are still lingering across the web. Essentially, what you should know is that it’s becoming clearer that the job market is now home to roles that run the naming gamut. This means that while you might be focusing your search on “manager” jobs, that might not be what the industry is looking to fill.

Because of this, it’s a good idea to expand your search terms. Get creative and start making a list of words that could apply to your ideal position. Also, since pinpointing job titles can be tricky, there is a variety of other keyword tactics that you can use to broaden or refine your search as needed.

Here are some types of words to think about:

• Industry-specific terminology—Make a list of relevant terminology (even annoying buzzwords and jargon) that you would expect to find in job ads from your field. For example, if you are a graphic designer, think about “digital media,” “online publishing,” and other related phrases.

• Abbreviations—Include abbreviations that could be used in relevant job ads. Are you a Registered Nurse? If so, try swapping RN into your search.

• Career level—If you are a recent graduate, or you’re looking to make a career change, refine your search to hone in on entry-level jobs. This could mean adding “associate,” “junior,” or “assistant” into the mix. Even “recent grad” or “recent graduate” might offer additional results.

• Responsibilities—What specifically can you do or have done? Since job advertisements generally talk about the scope of a potential position, inputting your specific capabilities and experience could generate results that you may not have thought to explore.

• Education—Potential employers often search for someone with a specific educational background. So, including terms like “bachelor’s degree” or other educational qualifications could trigger additional results that are a match for you.

• Certification—Many jobs require certification, such as nursing or trades. So, it could be prudent to incorporate terms related to industry-standard credentials.

• Skills—Do you possess skills or knowledge in a specific area of using a popular technology? If so, make sure to include those in your search.

• Job type—Think about using keywords that describe your desired job format. “Full-time,” “part-time,” “freelance,” and “contract” are just some of the terms that could narrow down your search.

Additionally, it’s important to include geographic terms into your search. And, while appending your search with a specific city name is always a good first try, don’t forget about adding region, suburb, or county names into the mix. Keep in mind that hiring managers don’t generally write jobs ads using the words you would expect. In fact, in an effort to make ads stand out, they are often written with the opposite intention.

O*NET OnLine

An additional resource for generating keywords is the U.S. Department of Labor’s O*NET OnLine, which catalogs careers and specific details about associated education requirements, job tasks, and more. This site offers a multitude of search options, including the ability to browse careers by skills, interests, or tools of the trade. Further to this, you can view titles conveniently categorized by areas such as industry and job family.

Google AdWords Keyword Tool

If synonyms aren’t your strong suit, you may want to check out Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which can help you find additional related words and commonly-searched phrases related to whatever you type in.

This tool can be ideal for expanding your (hopefully) already rich keyword list. Plug in your current terms, then jot down any new relevant terms the tool generates. The Keyword Tool also includes a “competition” column, which tells you if a particular phrase has high, medium, or low competition. In this context, high competition will signify that a phrase is present on a large number of pages, while a low competition phrase will mean that it is less commonly found by Google. So, focus on the high competition phrases to maximize your results.

Once you’ve established a solid list of keywords that are in line with your particular interests, skills, credentials, and qualifications, you’ll be ready to approach your job search in a whole new manner. You could be amazed at the opportunities that are waiting to be uncovered.

Don’t forget that HR departments are searching too

One last search-related fact to think about during the job hunting process is that HR departments in large companies utilize search too. Once you find the postings that interest you, make sure to include the words that appear in those postings in your application (as long as they are actually relevant to your skill set, education, experience, etc.). Many companies are now utilizing automated screening programs that look for relevant keywords in cover letters, resumes, and even LinkedIn profiles. This Lifehacker post does a great job of outlining how you can do this.

Ready to get started?

By incorporating the above-mentioned tips into your online job search, you could be opening the door to the career opportunities that really align with your strengths, goals, and interests.

Jennifer Kwasnicki is a career and education writer for Trade-Schools.net and Trade-Schools.ca, where she helps to provide potential students with detailed resources on schools, careers, and more. She is also a writer for the blog, Classrooms, Careers, and Crossroads.

Warning: what I’m about to share with you might actually get you hired faster than you intended. Only follow these instructions if you want a job at your dream company within a few months and you are willing to do whatever it takes to get it.

These two techniques are based on a single human characteristic, ego.

Almost everyone googles themselves. Even Lady Gaga googles herself, as if there were any risk of her not showing up! Most busy executives take the time to google themselves too. And if they don’t, then their admins or customers do.

Oh, and guess what the cheapest ads are to buy on Google and Facebook? That’s right, someone’s name. Are you catching on yet? Let me break this down step by step.

Prerequisite 1: Know Your Dream Company

For this ninja technique to work, you should first know who your top 10 dream companies are, and the names of the executives (or managers) who might have some say in hiring you.

This is the easy part because LinkedIn will most likely have that information for you. Start by browsing the various industries on LinkedIn. Follow this link to a page that has been hidden by LinkedIn: LinkedIn Browse Industries, and select your prefered industry.

Next filter you list of companies down by the characteristics you prefer such as company size or location.

Finally, search within these companies for contacts with roles you suspect would be in a position to hire you. For example, if you want a marketing job, find the VP of marketing. If you want a developers job, find the director of product development.

Prerequisite 2: Show Your Body of Work

The way click ads work is this: someone Googles a search term, like their name. Since you’ve put a bid on that term, your ad shows up. If the ad get’s their attention, someone will click. You pay when they click. And that person is taken to a website.

If you don’t have a website, then you need to get one NOW. All you need to do is buy a domain name ($10/yr). Then either set up a blog, or redirect it to your online portfolio, like Vizify. The idea is that when your target person clicks, they see information that is relevant to them and they perceive that you can provide value to their organization. This next story will illustrate why your web presence is so important.

Google Ad Words and Human Vanity

This technique came from Alec Brownstein, who is now sitting in a corner office at the top floor of his dream job (metaphorically of course). His story starts with a Google Ad Word campaign. Alec knew we wanted to work at Young & Rubicam (Y&R) New York. So he researched the names five creative directors, whom he admired the most.

Next, he took out a Google Ad Word campaign for each of their names which only cost him less than 15 cents per click and no more than $6 in two months. The ad read: Hey, [creative director's name]: Goooogling [sic] yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun, too” with a link to Brownstein’s website, alecbrownstein.com

After two months, Alex received calls from four of his five target people. A few months after that, he had job offers from two of his target creative directors.

Summary:

1. Find five or ten names of people you want to talk to in a company

2. Take out an ad for each of their names

3. Link the ad to your website to demonstrate your body of work with an easy way for them to contact you

Facebook Ads and the Power of the Second Degree

This next technique comes from Ian Greenleigh who found that most managers and leaders are so proud of their success, that they usually fill in their entire Facebook profile, including their role at their company. This revelation helped him get hired at his dream company, Bazaar Voice, in a few short weeks.

Ian took out an ad in Facebooks Ad Manager platform and directed it just to people in a specific geography, who had a specific role in their bio. This is what his ad looked like:

And it directed people to a page on his website called, “5 Reasons You Should Hire Me”.

Ian was surprised how many people offered to help him. And he found that although Bazaar Voice didn’t respond directly, someone with a connection to his dream company did respond, and offered to make an intro for him. The power of his second degree. In his own words, “This was a great conversation starter.”

1. Identify the job titles of the people you want to work for

2. Take out a Facebook ad focused on just them

3. Experiment with different ads, and different targets

4. Direct them to your website where you can start a conversation

Joshua Waldman, author of Job Searching with Social Media For Dummies, is recognized as one of the nation’s top authorities in Social Media Career Advancement. To learn Joshua’s secret strategies for shortening the job search and getting the right job right away, watch his exclusive video training

Hi Joshua, I’ve been working at a high-end boutique in SoHo for about a year now while still trying to apply for corporate jobs.  Should I put this retail sales (fashion) position in my profile at all?  I’ve been told my having a retail job on my résumé might jeopardize my career path.

I’m a Communications major (1992) and have worked in sales/marketing in the past.  I’m working on toward a marketing certificate at NYU’s School of Continuing & Professional Studies.

Thanks – Victoria

————————————————————-

Victoria,

You might not like that I will begin my answer to you with, “It depends.”  Don’t kick me!

It depends!

It depends on which company you are applying to. It depends on your personal brand. It depends on how full your résumé is without it.

Let’s tackle each dependency one at a time.

A Customized Résumé Is No Longer Optional

In earlier posts, I mentioned that LinkedIn’s drawback is that it allows you only a single profile. In a way, this is where you might pack in as much as you can.

However, when applying for a specific company, just using a LinkedIn profile, or any other generic résumé, is not really an option.

The days of spray-and-pray are long over.

Hal Thomas, who was a guest in a recent webinar, did extensive research on  his target company. He determined that they value creativity, have a non-conservative/innovative spirit, and require blog writing as a prerequisite skill.

Therefore, he customized his application to include a link to his blog, a Wired magazine cover mock-up, and a résumé filled with creative positions.

If your target company works with fashion companies, or requires you to have frequent customer interaction, then including your retail experience might be good.

On the other hand, if the target company is more conservative, and your role would not include customer interaction, then including your retail experience adds little value.

All Decisions are Branding Decisions

A new flight attendant came up to the CEO of Southwest Airlines and said, “I would like to serve chicken salad on our flight from Chicago to Las Vegas. Will you approve that?”

To which the CEO replied, “Will serving chicken salad make us the ‘Low Cost Airline?’” The flight attendant smiled and walked away.

So now I ask you, will including retail at a high-end boutique make the Victoria you want to be obvious to other people on your résumé? The answer may very well be yes.

But to answer that question, you’ll need to know what your brand is first. Try reading Tom Peter’s original article about personal branding or read Chris Brogan’s ebook. Both are great resources to get started.

The One-Pager

I need to make this clear, I am not a résumé expert, neither in certification nor in practice. However, I have talked with enough hiring managers in my research to know that if you are first entering the workforce, there is absolutely no reason to have a résumé longer than one page.

That doesn’t mean you can’t talk about the other stuff.

However, the lower you are on the rung, the more competition. And that means the more résumés hiring managers have to read just to make one choice.

They will LOVE you for making that job easier.

If you believe you can’t fit it all into one page, then it’s time to make some executive decisions based on your personal brand. Then supplement your cover letter and résumé with links to your online résumés, like Visual CV.

I want to leave you with one thought. If we were to consider our job search as just like running a business, then the idea of strategy begins to make better sense. What I mean is that the core of every business decision is rooted in a single thought process:

Will this decision fit within my strategy?

I recommend all job seekers take a weekend and really write out a business plan with that strategy. It is a lot of work to do this; however, when you come up against decisions, it will be easy to hold it up against your plan and get your answer.

Who knows, you might get multiple offers. Now that would be a good problem to have!

Image compliments of Masters in Human Resources Degree Guide

• Nando Rodriguez, Senior Social Media Recruiter for North America and Charlene Narcelles, Talent Acquisition Manager for North America at Olgivy and Mather and co-founders of InterviewingU
• Amanda Pirtle, Director of University Relations and Emily Cloud, Marketing Associate at Nestlé Purina
• Will Houghteling, Education and Community Partnerships Lead at Google+
• Thomas Knolls, CEO of ClippPR, former Community Architect at Zappos

I’ve interviewed Nathan Parcells, InternMatch’s Chief Marketing Officer to find out what the end of the Cover Letter is all about, you can read it here:

This mandatory piece of candidate hiring material is an increasingly bland way for allowing candidates to showcase their experiences, skills, and education to employers. At a glance, most cover letters are identical — this certainly isn’t an accurate depiction of an employer’s talent pool.

The retirement of the cover letter is necessary due to the fact that online platforms and newer marketing techniques can provide candidates with a more accurate representation of previous experiences and skill sets. This is especially true for positions and fields that require internship and job candidates to showcase their ability to thrive in an innovative, creative, and digitally focused environment. The traditional cover letter doesn’t allow for candidates to readily show this type of mandatory know-how.

Gone are the days when long-winded cover letters and print resumes effectively showcased the experiences and skills of internship and job applicants. Companies sometimes receive hundreds or even thousands of cover letters and resumes for each position — making the hiring process both time-consuming and costly.

Today, the hiring process requires speed and accuracy. Employers need potential intern and job candidates to quickly and creatively demonstrate their ability to impact the company. Many companies are also taking a turn toward providing more online-focused products and services, making it necessary for potential candidates showcase their digital aptitude earlier in the hiring process.

Aside from providing direct links to their resume and online portfolio, intern candidates can stand out to the participating companies by thinking outside the box to display their personality traits and experience.

We ask candidates to tweet the employers they’re interested in with a list of three attributes that make them a great candidate. Rather than just rambling off key strengths, ‘Kill The Cover Letter’ candidates should only inform employers of the attributes that make them the best match for the values, mission, and culture of the company.

Candidates are also asked to use a picture to represent what they can bring to the table during their internship. This is the time for creative candidates to provide a completely out-of-the-box approach to showing off what they have to offer.

As companies transform, hiring methods must also follow suit. Non-traditional methods of hiring — social media challenges and creative applications — are becoming increasingly popular as companies look for new ways to recruit and hire the top talent within their industries.

More innovative and digitally-forward companies were the first to jump on the bandwagon, but it’s only a matter of time before more traditional companies and industries will put an end to the cover letter and the standard hiring process in an attempt improve their hiring methods.

Social media applications allow employers to cut down on the time they spend reading long-winded cover letters and humdrum print resumes. Many companies use cover letters and resumes as a screening step in the hiring process.

Why not eliminate this step altogether and move to using a process that is a better indicator of how successful a candidate will be in their given role? This will save employers time, money, and more quickly showcase which candidates have what it takes to make it in the position and overall company.

What can a candidate do to apply?

Interested candidates should start by exploring the website, social media feeds, and listed positions of the companies participating in ‘Kill The Cover Letter’ to get a feel for their team and culture. Using Twitter and #killthecoverletter, intern candidates can apply to as many employers as they’d like by by sending each of the following items below as a tweet to the employers they want to work for:

• A link to your resume/online portfolio
• A link to your favorite blog with an explanation
• A list of the three attributes that make you a great candidate
• Link to a picture that best represents what you can bring to the table
• Anything else that is relevant and exciting for employers to know about you!