Top 5 ways to Market Yourself Better to Help Your Job Search

Look Ma, I’m Not Dead!

It occurred to me, while lying in the hospital, recovering from an emergency appendectomy, that life is too damn short to do work you don’t wanna do.  It’s ingrained in the human psyche to want to do meaningful work, right?  And that when we find meaningful, worthwhile work, it doesn’t seem so much like work as it does a “calling”.

So, to help you toward that end, I have compiled a list of the top 5 ways to market yourself better to help your job search.

1. Join LinkedIn.
   
   • A well-tuned LinkedIn profile can be your best promotional tool.  Not only does it list all of your employment history, it also lists any clubs or associations, educational history, what skills you used, and so on.  It is basically a chronological resume that is accessible through Search Engines.  The most powerful feature, and the coolest thing about a LinkedIn profile, is the recommendations feature.  With one click, you can send out requests to your co-workers (past or present) and ask for a recommendation.  These recommendations can then be viewed by potential employers. I can’t overstate the value of a well-tuned LinkedIn profile.
2. Personalize Your Twitter.
   • Nothing quite says, “I’m only going to do just as much as I need to” like a default-skinned Twitter.  Take some time, download GIMP if you don’t have access to Photoshop, and make yourself a good background.  Then skin the hell out of Twitter.  Things to include: the URL to your blog, what you do, what you’re good at, where you’re located (not exact), and -of course- a picture of yourself, even if it’s just the icon you use.  And if you’re not using Twitter, what the hell is wrong with you?  (For the record, Millennials tend to use Twitter less than any other generation – I attribute this to the “Facebook sandbox”.)  Just be careful what you say: don’t tweet yourself out of a job!
3. Get Yourself a Contxts Account.
   
   • Arguably the coolest, easiest way to spread your information around to anyone with a cell phone and a text messaging plan.  Contxts allows you to sign up for an account, fill in your “business card”, and away you go.  Every time someone requests your “card”, you can be notified – and you get information on who was requesting it.  I’m pretty sure this is a free service, just like Twitter’s 40404 updates, but I’d have to let you know on my next bill.  Some providers block it as a “premium messaging service”.  Overall, though, this is a GREAT way to stand out, and most people will never have heard of it.
4. Upgrade Your Resume.
   
   • Whether you build yourself a VisualCV or just want some friendly advice, you just can’t beat a well-formed resume.  Making your resume accessible in a number of different networks, from Monster to Xing and LinkedIn, will increase your visibility no matter what the job market looks like.  Use Psychotic Resumes as a guide and one of the services outlined in this Mashable article and you’ll be on your way to having a professional-looking resume in no time, even if you’re an ass-clown!
5. Blog + Facebook Ads.
   
   • Nothing shows that you know your stuff better than when you have a website with countless articles dedicated to the subject.  Create a well-designed blog with your own domain name – score.  Not only does your personal website boost your own SEO (and that of your other social media services, because you can link to them) but it also sends a very clear message that you are taking a stake in your own identity.  Free services, like WordPress.com can also be beneficial, but not as powerful.  WordPress does grant you access to an instant, online community, however – so your initial traffic will be better than a built-from-scratch domain name blog.  Because your blogg-ed expertise and other social media tools take some time to get popular, Willy Franzen of One Day One Job came up with an excellent idea to use Facebook ads to advertise yourself to employers.  I’ve done this – it worked well for me, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  Facebook ads are incredibly useful in driving traffic to your blog, website, or anything else you want people to see… so why not use them to leverage your job search?

Coming soon – how to avoid online schitzophrenia.  AKA – there’s only one you, so be that person all the time.