Personal brand Archives - Page 4 of 4 - The Voice of Job Seekers

Would Your Personal Brand Compel You to Quit Google?

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Before you leave your job this time, have you considered the quality of your personal brand? Have you invested time in building your brand? Are you making efforts in learning more to hone your craft/skill and add value to your current or future coworkers? This show will help you get started. Fearful? Yep, this show is for you.

How are you building your personal brand? We would love to hear from you!

Here are three ways to provide feedback:

Call and leave a voicemail at 708.365.9822
Email: mark@thevoiceofjobseekers.com
Go to TheVoiceofJobSeekers.com/73, press the Send Voicemail button on the left, which will activate your laptop microphone, then leave a message

By the time that Michael Peggs of MichaelPeggs.com was working for Google, he knew what he wanted to do for the rest of his career. After four years of a workplace had accessible recreation and free food, he was ready to move on. After he officially resigned he created a goodbye video that he uploaded to YouTube. He didn’t realize that this video to date received over 510,000 views!

Three years before leaving Google, Mike (or Peggs) created a blog where he wrote about careers and social media. He has been featured in Fast Company, Huffington Post, and Business Insider. He is now helping individuals and companies reach their brand building goals through story-telling.

Here are some of the highlights of our conversation:

Mike was intentional in building his personal brand

Mike’s video “I Quit Google” has received over 510,000 views. The video was done after his official resignation.
He made himself more attractive at his blog, “Career 101” that added his views, perspective, and value to future employers. He thought of himself as a product and brand before his job at Google
Mike positions himself as a brand and has planned it that way because it’s woven into every conversation that he has included his parents, clients, or employer

Mike prepared and sought advice about his personal brand

He had an internship every year in college especially during the school year. He worked for Goldman-Sachs for several years which helped him to stand out for other opportunities
In addition to his internships, he started several businesses such as a t-shirt company and a food delivery company (he credits this experience as his foray into tech)
One thing he learned as an entrepreneur was to have an “exit strategy” especially when he worked for Google. Mike says he spent four years in building “a story.”

Mike was looking to “fail forward” to strengthen his personal brand

Mike stated how much he loved Google, but I asked him as would others, “Why would you quit a company you loved?” I thought he had a pretty unique answer here (around 10:50)
When he realized that he was no longer going to grow at Google, in order to grow, he needed to “fail, fail fast and to fail forward!”
Mike said that our, “… feelings about failure is one of our impediments to progress…” and we act when “…our faith is more than our fear.” People should work with mentors and coaches to help them instill the faith he/she needs

If you are a career professional, I would love for you to contribute to the show. Do you have additional advice to offer? Do you agree or disagree? If you leave feedback, leave your web site or blog URL and I’ll mention it in the show and include it in the following week’s blog post. Enjoy the show!

About Mark Anthony Dyson

I am the "The Voice of Job Seekers!" I offer compassionate career and job search advice as I hack and re-imagine the job search process. You need to be "the prescription to an employer's job description." You must be solution-oriented and work in positions in companies where you are the remedy. Your job search must be a lifestyle, and your career must be in front of you constantly. You can no longer shed your aspirations at the change seasons. There are strengths you have that need constant use and development. Be sure you sign up to download my E-Book, "421 Modern Job Search Tips 2021!" You can find my career advice and work in media outlets such as Forbes, Inc., Fast Company, Harvard Business Review, Glassdoor, and many other outlets.

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Cheat on Your Job With Your Spouse #7: Personal Brand

Ever ask coworkers about YOUR personal brand?

As much as you want to separate your professional brand from your personal, it’s difficult unless you take control of it at the job and home.

My son once saw a fitness club called, LA (like the Spanish word La) Fitness. His cousin, brother and my wife laughed hard because they thought he mispronounced it. I could understand why. The fitness club didn’t punctuate L and A so naturally, he pronounced it La not L.A.

The LA Fitness folks got out in front of their brand so people will pronounce it L.A. Just like you need to get out in front of your personal brand and do the same. What do you want to be known as?

Well, what do your coworkers say? What does your spouse say? They’re probably right.

About Mark Anthony Dyson

by Mark Anthony Dyson

My Online Brand Earned Me a 10% Raise

Editors Note: My guest blogger today, Keith Townsend is the founder of virtualizedgeek.com is which he offer his take on cloud computing software and high tech products. He has a very unique perspective on using social media for the job search, particularly blogging.

Your “online brand” should be part of your overall personal brand strategy. What do I mean about a personal brand? Well if you haven’t started with defining and managing your personal brand and career, you should start here. Once you understand what a personal brand is all about you can then start to tackle your online brand. I’m not talking about the typical “Facebook can get you fired” management. If you’ve followed Mark Dyson’s blog at all you already know how to avoid poisoning your employment opportunities online by not protecting your social media identity. What I’m referring to is more detailed than just avoiding regretful posts or pictures. I’m talking about nurturing your online identity to fit your career goals.

When people think of me professionally going forward, I want to be considered an “IT Infrastructure Leader” or an authority in the specific subject field within Information Technology that I focus – IT Infrastructure. When you perform a search on my name or my area of focus area, I want my name to come up in the search results. I’ve been focusing on improving my online brand for the past 2 years and it has paid off. First, I’ll share my story and offer lessons learned.

I lost my job in April in 2009 as Director of Network Services for a small software company. It was one of the most difficult searches of my career. That’s when I decided that I needed to increase my profile. I tackled my online brand from 3 directions.

1. Social Media

2. Blog

3. Commenting

From a social media perspective I’ve always been a big user of LinkedIn. It is the de facto location of my resume online. But, I had been resistant to Twitter. I had already invested a large amount of time building up both my Facebook and LinkedIn friends list. To focus on yet another social media outlet seemed too much trouble. When I get to my blog you’ll see why it was worthwhile.

My blog www.virtualizedgeek.com has by far become my most important arsenal in my online brand. It allows me freestyle commentary on a range of technology topics. It provides a service to people looking to discover more information on a topic I’m passionate about and it’s almost free advertising for my professional brand.

On the flip side I have to spend time advertising my blog and the best way to do that is via twitter and commenting on like blog and websites. What I realized is that you don’t have to have a large number of followers on Twitter for it to be effective. If you post relevant content you’ll get picked up. I’ve been retweeted by Industry giants such as VMWare and GigaOM which all drew attention to my blog. I utilize my wordpress.com login and my Facebook brand page which all link back to my blog.

How did this get me a raise?

Well, I’m pretty happy with my current job but since I’ve elevated my online presence, I consistently get cold calls for employment opportunities. As I said before when someone searches for resource with my skill set online I want to be at the top of the search results. I received a call from a well-known IT services company and took the time to go to the interview process. They made me an offer I couldn’t ignore. I took the offer to my current employer and countered with a 10% raise in pay.

This was a result from me not looking for a job or promotion but just cultivating my online brand.