If you only had one chance to create an unforgettable and irresistible memory on an online hiring manager, how would you use it? Here’s how to make impress hiring managers before you meet them using the career-building power of the internet.
I bet you will want to have all the information you need at your fingertips and be the best you can be to make that impression. There is a definite advantage that online interviews and career buildup has over physical meetings; it is your duty to make sure you are on top of your game.
Before you walk through that door to meet face-to-face with your hiring manager, make them look forward to meeting you.
When firms, through their hiring managers, require you to pitch yourself through email, online registration, or profiling, it gives you the opportunity to keep his eyes on you, forgetting every other person vying for the same position. Unfortunately, not many people pull it off. Here are workable ideas that can help you prepare adequately for that opportunity and a successful career, starting with a successful interview.
1. Get an Insider’s Recommendation
A sure way to begin to work your way into and through a fast growing company is to get someone to put in a word for you. It is not a bad idea to stand on a willing shoulder of another to achieve your dreams, especially if your referrer has a good reputation with the company. The first proof of your competence and suitability for the job might be what someone else already thinks about you.
You may think that is a difficult task, especially if you cannot readily think of someone, but I have a solution for you. Make use of your mutual connections on LinkedIn to establish a network. Check out the profile of the hiring manager and see if he has a shared interest with you or another person, preferably in your targeted department. A kind word on your behalf to the right people, who can make things happen, can have a tremendous effect on your consideration for the job.
A similar strategy is talking to a staff member of the company for an informational interview to get as much information as you can. This informational interview can prepare you for the all-important question of what you can add to the company. It is challenging for employers to resist a potential employee who already knows so much and provides ready solutions or ideas to matters he identified. If possible, create a presentation out of your new ideas to serve your panel of interviewers and give them convincing reasons not to look beyond you.
2. What does Google Say about You?
A hiring manager will search for you on Google, and you can prepare for that by making sure your top most results will show up first. There are two anchor points you should take note of—create or recreate what you want Google to display about you and improve the details by removing unwanted items or adding important items to your profile. Check for embarrassing moments you don’t want your employers to find and remove them.
Before you know your Google results, start by practicing a search to see what anyone will readily get about you. In other words, what information will portray you to be the best fit for the job? Is there any item that may give a contrary opinion about your personality? Check for tags and keywords as well as some social media posts that may be implicative, and do something about it.
Owning a personal website with your name is a sure way to improve your results. It is easier to trust these platforms that will contain your personality, career path, experience, and ongoing projects and contributions. A personal website allows you to put them all in a single platform, and more importantly, owning your own space means you can optimize your searchability by keyword improvement.
Finally, what do your social media handles have to say? What are your recent tweets and Facebook posts and shares? These platforms not only give a hiring manager an idea of your opinion on sensitive and nonsensitive matters, but employers also want to understand how you think from your organic search results.
3. Show your Leadership prominence in the Industry
As much as your employer believes the company has a responsibility to train you to improve your productivity, the interest of the manager still hinges on your leadership ability. This vital quality is evident through conviction by the productive engagement of the big guns in the industry. What relevant experience, training, seminars, workshops, and team projects have you been part of in the past? Feel free to share your candid thoughts on leadership responsibilities.
Apart from using LinkedIn to create a professional profile, you may also think of starting a professional blog with consistent articles.Creating an engagement platform for current trends and new achievements in your industry shows the hiring manager more of what you can do. Moreover,monitoring the advancement of competing companies in the same sectors and watching what they do differently, making suggestions to your potential employers, is another way to show a hiring manager what you’re capable of doing.
Furthermore, think of forums, discussions, surveys, groups, and pages online that are relevant to your field and be an active part of them. Your participation in conversations and the way you present your points (in active communication) to the benefit of the other person is one leadership quality most employers cannot overlook. Push for an opportunity to brighten the day of anyone who is looking for someone like you.
4. Get Practical – Send in a Demo Project!
Get the ball rolling by setting up a sample project as a demo of your talents and abilities. It is often said that the best way to show you can do something is to go ahead and do it. Perhaps, the most crucial emphasis here are your problem-solving skills as they relate to out-of-the-box thinking.
Imagine there is a way of running things before you are hired and before being assigned to any duty in your targeted department.You have gone ahead and taken the challenges facing the organization and highlighted ways of solving them. By doing that, you have highlighted your own space in the company and carved out an impression in the heart of the hiring manager. Apart from showing your problem-solving skills, it adds that you can be very innovative and proactive, which are prominent in company growth.
In your sample project, get all the important information you can. Use a similar company as a case study and relate the problem with a past review of another firm.Think like each of the stakeholders and government agencies in terms of new policies and many immediate challenges that may spring up. When there is any need for a reference, use only the ones that the company will readily absorb in the industry,not a harsh competitor that may arouse suspicion.
5. Stand Out on LinkedIn
In the professional world, LinkedIn is a powerful tool for employers and employees alike. It helps keep a profile of your personality and contains important information about you. If used correctly, the platform creates an opportunity to build a brand, land the right job, and grow an extensive network. Therefore, the need to keep an updated LinkedIn profile in landing your dream job cannot be overemphasized.
However, it is not just enough to keep a LinkedIn profile; you must appear in both active and passive search results there. For the former, the right keywords in your job title will land you a good place in the results, but for others, you can think about promoting your profile to the relevant employers. Using organic search results mean you pretend you are the employer. What keyword(s) would an employer most likely type to get the best person for the intended position? Make sure your job title carries that, and you stand an excellent chance.
When you appear among the search results, you need to make a good professional impression to the hiring manager. Remember this is not Facebook where you can be as free and casual as you like. On LinkedIn, searchers are not looking for time wasters, and they might not have the luxury of that precious time to spend on only one candidate. Build a relevant profile and cap it off with a suitable profile picture of your area of expertise.
Next, get yourself on the radar of the hiring manager and create an exciting summary that is readable in just a few seconds because that is the amount of timeyour employer has. Use bullets and score points. You are creating something beyond a strange impression and carefully build on it.
In conclusion, be organized and avoid any ambiguity. Remember you have much time to present yourself and all your qualities. Moreover, putting everything in place means you won’t have to worry about missing out on a vital detail. Create a flow from everything representing you online to what you are sending as a sample project and avoid contradiction or obscurity.
You deserve the best, and the best is right about here as you implement the tips above. Go ahead and create a fantastic reputation that goes before your real experience. Arouse the desire of the hiring manager to look forward to meeting you and land yourself that dream job!
About the Author: Marsha Kelly Marsha Kelly sold her first business for more than a million dollars. She has shared hard-won experiences as a successful serial entrepreneur on her Best4Businesses blog, where she also regularly posts business tips, ideas and suggestions, as well as product reviews, for business readers. As a serial entrepreneur who has done “time” in corporate America, Marsha has learned what products and services really work well in business today. You can learn from her experiences to build your business.