Personal Branding with Your Word Cloud

Posted: February 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

So what’s a personal word cloud? 

It’s a colorful image made up of special words that reflect the real you.

Email Size Word Cloud

It’s makes you look sharp on all your 21st century media (web site, social networking, email).

And it’s also an easy tool to help you illuminate your goals as you manage your career.

In this article, you will see some examples and get detailed instructions.

First, how did I stumble on this? I was discussing my resume with Martin Buckland of www.aneliteresume.com, and we touched on “personal word clouds” as a new concept.   

Martin coaches and creates resumes … starting with a single powerful compelling word that reflects one’s personal brand. 

Martin

That task he leaves as my homework – to come up with that ONE word that illuminates a whole career.

It was so hard for me to settle on a single word.  So I took a initial word list, and added words using font-size and boldness as emphasis.  I ended up with MANY words of different colors, sizes, and styles.

Homework was due and I had no ONE word. “It just looks like a word cloud”, I apologised for not having chosen just one word.

” Hey”, said Martin “why don’t you create a real word cloud out of this.  You can use it to differentiate your email signature. You are more technical so you do it and show me how”.

Then his clincher:  “This is great, I could use it to brand my emails too”.

Wow. That’s how Martin turned my lemon into sweet lemonade.

Let me share with you what I did from there.

George Ridout - Lead and Learn

Personal Branding: Make Your Email Signature Speak Out

Posted: February 7, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Branding, Career Management, Email Signature, Job Search, Personal Branding | Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Want to boost your personal branding?

Here’s a tip that will set you apart, make you stand out, and speak volumes about your personal brand.

It takes just a few minutes and your signature line on every email you send will reflect the Real You.

Create a special type of image and place it in your email signature.

The others will have a photo or a logo. Fine for them.

You can display a Word Cloud that talks about who you are and what your brand is.  That will differentiate you.

The words you want to show, and their relative size, will be your UNIQUE branding item.

So, what does a personal word cloud look like, and how can you get one.

That’s easy.

1. Go to www.wordle.net and take a couple of minutes to create your word cloud.

It’s a lot of fun. Wordle does all the work for you.

Just paste in your resume, your profile, your mission statement etc. and let it rip.

You can even play with colors, fonts, styles, etc.

Then save the image.

2. Go to your email site (such as Gmail) and update your signature line with the image.

For example, go to Gmail;s settings page and insert your Word Cloud using insert image.

You can even use the image to link to your web site or social network site (e.g. linkedin).

You’re all set.

From now on, your emails will have a unique personal branding

Best Social Networking for Your Career – part 1

Posted: January 17, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , | Leave a comment

At last week’s HAPPEN meeting in Burlington, the guest speakers ran a workshop on online social networking. It impacts your job search in many significant ways.

Martin Buckland of and Barbara Mackie, experts in career use of social media, ran a pragmatic and eye-opening seminar, peppered with audience participation:

  • Martin Buckland, Executive Career Management Services Professional at Elite Resumes
  • Barbara Mackie, professional Social Media expert, Blogger, and Editor at Elite Resumes 

The half-day session included live access to the sites that Barbara and Martin highlighted:

  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Blogging Sites such as WordPress (which hosts Martin’s blog)

At one point, Martin asked the group to hold their palms together and pray for an internet connection – and we got one!  

Best practices and plenty of tips were the outcome of the session. The audience was a mixed one in terms of experience in online social networking sites, but this was accommodated well by the workshop facilitators.  Tips for everybody.

The overall message: for Pete’s sake,

  1. BE SURE TO establish an online presence for yourself and you will get not just noticed but noticed by the people who you can associate with for mutual value.
  2. Establish a strategy for yourself with social media 

    3. 

     

For LinkedIn

  • KEY TIP: Status updates every day. Rotate among many relevant and apt statuses that you have in a word document that cover your activities and your job search intent in various words
  • TIP: Compose status updates that are a bit seductive or even compelling, such as “Likes a challenge to motivate teams” or “Seeks a new xyz opportunity accomplishing abc”
  • TIP: Customize your LinkedIn URL
  • TIP: Visit the LinkedIn Learning Center – click on all tabs to learn
  • BEST PRACTICE for easy of finding you: Put your LinkedIn profile on your resume and on you email signature line
  • BEST PRACTICE for ease of matching up:  Put Your Whole Resume on your profile as text
  • BEST PRACTICE for Recruiter Invites: Always YES invites to connect with them, sending a nice message such as “Thank You for looking at me” and tell them a little about yourself and how you can be of value such as “Actively engaged in job search looking for opportunity in mechanical engineering in xyz area & I also have an MBA”

Martin and Barb had much more to say as they are both a wealth of gems of information.

I highly recommend that you visit elite resumes and catch up with the changes for yourself.

Welcome to 21st Century Career Management

Posted: January 16, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Career Management, Job Search | Tags: , , , | 1 Comment

Welcome to 21st Century Career Management.

We will be exploring the full suite of career management functions, and I will share with your part of my journey.

This blog will highlight some of the great figures in career management: authors, speakers, counsellors, consultants … and their methods and tools.

You will get a bird’s eye view of some snippets of advice I have gleaned from speakers, books, videos and web tools.