Have you Googled Yourself Lately? Why LinkedIn and Google are Important for Your Job Search

Have you Googled Yourself Lately? Why LinkedIn and Google are Important for Your Job Search

If you are looking for a job, you probably have looked at getting on LinkedIn and some other social networking sites.  If you have created a LinkedIn profile, it should show up on Google’s search engine. 

In some recent talks I gave to job-seekers, I asked my audience if they had Googled themselves.  Surprisingly, not as many people as you may think have done this.   In my book, How to Reinvent Your Career, I discuss the importance of Googling your name to see what it displays.   You can be sure that employers will do this.

It is nice that search engines like Google can help people find you.  One way to help improve being found is to be on LinkedIn.  There are other benefits to being on LinkedIn. According to a recent article in WSJ.com, “One of the least recognized aspects of LinkedIn, says founder Reid Hoffman, is the fact that it allows people to help other people.” I personally like the Q&A feature of LinkedIn for this reason.  Not only can you ask a question, but you can offer your expertise and help others. 

According to Hoffman, Linkedin is an important part of the career search.  I agree.  He also asked an important question: “There are millions of other people out there. What do you do to put yourself in the right place for people to find you?”

I often give advice for things you can do to be found.  LinkedIn is high on my list.  However, if you are interested in finding out more ways to be found, check out some of my career videos. 

How to Get a Job by Understanding  Emotional Intelligence

How to Get a Job by Utilizing a SWOT Analysis

How to Get a Job by Utilizing Camtasia and Powerpoint

How to Market Yourself by Using Social Media

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How to Ace the Job Interview by Understanding Introverts and Extroverts

For those of you who have taken a Myers-Briggs MBTI personality assessment, you may already know if you are an introvert or extrovert.  It gets confusing to some as many say extrovert.  Myers-Briggs uses the term extravert.  What is important is that you understand the differences between how introverts and extroverts/extraverts prefer to process information.  Why is this important to acing the job inteview?  Watch the video below for more answers.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WUsPftGVEM&fs=1&hl=en_US]
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Marlo Thomas Asks What Would You Do Differently – My Answer is Nothing

I was just watching a video by Marlo Thomas where she was asking people what they would do differently knowing what they know now.  In my book, How to Reinvent Your Career, I included a chapter about this very subject.  The following is an excerpt from that chapter where I discuss why I don’t think that many things we choose are really mistakes because they have led us to where we need to be now.

Think about the choices you made when you were young. Would you choose the same things now? Maybe not. Maybe you weren’t ready to take on the things you can now do. I doubt I would have been as good a professor if I hadn’t had the 25-plus years of experience in the working world to help me add to my lectures and discussions. 

Perhaps that degree you got in Sociology or Education or some other field no longer interests you. Perhaps you need to go back and get more education in a new area of interest. People change and interests change. It’s OK to say that what you were interested in when you were 20 is not the same thing that interests you now.

One of the reasons we change is through the life lessons we learn. We may take a job that leads to another job that we had no intention of doing in the first place, but makes us much happier than we thought it would. You have to factor life experiences into the equation of what brought you to the place you are right now.

How to Get a Job: Why Employers Value Emotional Intelligence

Check out why it is so important to understand how your emotional intelligence may impact your ability to get a job.  If you are interested in reading the book by Daniel Goleman that I refer to here, it is called Emotional Intelligence: Why it Can Matter More than IQ.   In our book,  It’s Not You It’s Your Personality, Toni Rothpletz and I write about the major personality tests that employers use.  We include a very detailed chapter about the importance of understanding emotional intelligence in the workplace.  

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDN9rdUoYfc&fs=1&hl=en_US]
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How to Get a Job Using a Personal SWOT Analysis

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTf4Xypl9go&fs=1&hl=en_US]