The hallmark of a credible personal brand online is the ability to create content that backs up your qualifications. How credible are you?

To answer this, we developed a Hireability Dashboard that breaks down the components of your personal brand online and grades the strength of each. Last week, I talked about our tool that grades the visibility of your personal brand. Today, we’ll talk about credibility: are your actions online backing up your qualifications?

The credibility portion of the Hireability Dashboard is broken up into tabs: your blog, other blogs mentioning you, social bookmarks mentioning you, and news mentioning you.

The first tab, Your Blog, analyzes the strength of your blog based on who’s linking to it, and your blog’s Technorati authority. The more authoritative your blog, the more your credibility score rises.

The next tab, Blog Mentioning You, tracks blog posts mentioning you. The more other bloggers talk about you, the more your credibility rises.

The next tab, Bookmarks Mentioning You, keeps track of any content you’ve created that other people Digg, Stumble, Reddit, Delicious, etc. As other people like, favorite or thumbs-up your content, your credibility score rises.

The last tab, News, keeps track of news articles that mention you. The more you show up in the news, the more your credibility score rises.

The Next Step

Now that you’ve gotten a taste of some of our tools, it’s time to find out: How credible is your personal brand online? Create a free Brand-Yourself.com account now and start managing your online reputation with our Hireability Dashboard. See you there!

Every day, an increasing number of job applicants get hired through social media rather than the traditional apply-blind-with-a-resume route. Over 83% of employers go online to get more information about potential applicants, so it’s essential to have a strong web presence and social networking skills. It was no surprise when I found out that Doug Haslam in my Personal Branding Group on BrazeenCareerist was hired via twitter.  I took the opportunity to interview him to give you the inside scoop on how he used Twitter to get a job.

1. How did you get started with social media?

Back in 2003/4 I was starting to see the rise of blogs, and contemplating from the outside how they might affect my work (as a marketing manager at a small research company at the time).  I ended up leaving and getting back into PR agency life before I could act on it, other than a tentative start at my own blog in early 2005.

2. What were your first impressions of Twitter, and why did you start to use it?

Very first impressions? I don’t need to know what my friends are doing at every given moment– this was October 2006. In Late February 2007, I started to see some of these friends get some real utility out of twitter (see this post for a very brief description)

I  finally gave in on on March 1, and still was skeptical of the noise, and wrote this post but followed only a week later with this one.

3. How did you create a job opportunity through Twitter?

What I did to create opportunity was to network with other PR people. One of those was SHIFT Communications principal Todd Defren. We were actually direct-messaging back and forth about some industry questions we had for each other (I would often come and comment on his blog, even though we were technically competitors), and at one point he flat out asked me if I would consider putting myself up for a position that was opening.

4. What is your current job, and do you use Twitter for it?

I am an Account Director at SHIFT Communications, overseeing an account team and working with clients at the program strategy level. I do use twitter– I’ll promote news for clients and the agency on my own account (with disclosure), but more importantly advise clients on their own use of twitter (among other tools).

5. Now that you’re a Twitter success story, what would you recommend our readers do to follow in your footsteps?

Find people to network with – people who are in your industry as well as people in your clients’ industries. The conversations you start and take part in will enhance your standing as an engaged careerist, and a plugged in worker.

Conclusion

Doug notes, “If people you need or want to reach on Twitter aren’t on Twitter, go where they are – that’s most important.” That could be LinkedIn, blogs, Facebook, or anywhere else they’re active online.

Doug’s story is an inspiration to job seekers everywhere, demonstrating that you can get a job through social media if you use it properly. There is a lot of clutter and noise on the web, so make sure you connect with the right people and turn that connection into something real.

If you know anyone else who has had success via social media to get a job, let us know so that we can feature them!

---

Brand-Yourself.com is a platform to diagnose, manage and monitor your online reputation for career success. Did you know that 83% of employers use the web to research job applicants? If you’re ready to proactively control your Google results and get hired, rather than cut from the applicant pool, try us for free and start controlling how you’re perceived online. Go ahead. Take our tools for a spin.

A senior-level executive recently told me he was so impressed with a resume sample of mine that he was tempted to copy some of it. Instead, he decided to work with me to create one capturing his own unique promise of value and written for his career target.

You probably know that thousands of good resumes are readily available online and thousands of resume books are full of thousands more.

Because strategic resume writing is always changing to meet the needs of hiring decision makers, it’s a good idea to take a look at up-to-date samples by top resume writers to get a handle on new trends in formatting and what kind of relevant key words and content to include.

But it’s not okay to actually use the content. Why?

► A great resume uniquely brands that specific job seeker. What you read in a sample may sort of  sound like you, but it isn’t really you.

Don’t you want hiring decision makers to clearly know what differentiates you from everyone else and why your value proposition and ROI make you the best hiring choice? You can only do that by differentiating your resume with your own personal brand message crystallizing your own unique combination of key attributes, pivotal strengths, and passions.

► The achievements on the sample couldn’t possible be the same as yours. The situations, people  involved, numbers, and facts are all different.

Your own approach to solving the problem that led to the achievement will provide the evidence to back up your personal brand promise. Don’t settle for some generic achievement that sounds good, but doesn’t specifically brand how you make things happen.

► Your resume needs to target the specific kind of job you’re seeking and resonate with hiring  decision makers assessing people for that job.

The sample that’s tantalizing you can’t possibly align what you have to offer with the stated qualifications for the job(s) you’re seeking. You HAVE to determine the key functional areas  required for the job and pump your resume with your expertise and contributions in those specific  areas.

► The formatting of your resume depends upon the compelling content you’re working with and  how  best to position your value promise.

Create the content first and then decide on the format. Don’t just choose a template and fill in the blanks.

► Even though the resume samples you see probably have fictionalized names and other identifying  information, they’re most likely real resumes written for real people who may still be actively job  searching.

The resume sample that you copy may be in circulation right now for the same jobs you’re interested in. It may be hitting the computer screens or desks of the same recruiters and hiring decision makers you’re trying to impress.

How do you think it will impact your chances, if someone reviewing your resume realizes it’s suspiciously similar to another one they’ve got in their files?

► “Using” published content is stealing and violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

ANYTHING published online is automatically copyrighted to the author, whether or not they clearly state the copyright. Integrity is a critical attribute for any business leader worth her or his salt. Certainly, your ethics should dissuade you from plagiarizing.

If that doesn’t stop you, do you really want to risk a law suit that could possibly tarnish your online and offline brand reputation?

There’s just no way around it — you have to invest the time and do the work yourself or hire a professional (and still expect to do some hard work), if you want to make your mark in today’s overly-competitive executive job search landscape.

–

Related series of posts:

Best of Executive Resume Branding Tactics and Advice

A C-level/Senior Executive Branding, Online Identity, and Job Search Strategist, Meg Guiseppi loves collaborating with forward-focused corporate leaders to differentiate their unique value proposition, demystify the new world of executive search, and strategically position them for job search acceleration. She is one of only a handful of career professionals to hold both the Reach Certified Personal Branding Strategist and Master Resume Writer credentials. Meg is also a Certified VisualCV Creator and Certified Professional Resume Writer. For a wealth of insider tips on personal branding and executive job search, visit her Executive Resume Branding Blog/Website. Follow Meg on Twitter.

Over here at Brand-Yourself.com we have been chugging away creating new functionality and materials to give YOU the best experience possible. Over the past few months we have taken all of your thoughts, ideas and feedback to create the best system possible to manage your online reputation. Our site right now is currently up and running but will be completely updated in the next few weeks to make sure we meet your needs. Thank you to everyone who has been involved in the process, it has been one amazing ride. Now, onto news that you should be aware of!

• Facebook hits 300 million users, says it’s cash-flow positive: This is HUGE news for the social media/networking world as Facebook continues to be the most dominant one out there. With over 300 million users, not only does this give you the unparalleled power at your finger tips to meet almost anyone you want, it also means that anything you put on Facebook can be viewed by just as many people; double edged sword. Now for all the tech based start-ups and entrepreneurs out there, this proves that the social networking business model can work at some level, woot!
• We were on Hott 107.9 yesterday with the 40 Below Summit http://su.pr/A3wbmc: This was to help promote the 40 Below Summit that will be taking place in Syracuse next Friday, September 25th. The 40 Below was created to connect, engage, and empower young adults in Central Upstate New York. As such, we will be giving a presentation on “How to Market Yourself in the Facebook Generation” in the IMAX theater, it’s massive! This is something that we’re really excited about, so if you’re in CNY next week please stop by and support us, you won’t regret it.
• The Collegiate Entrepreneurs’ Organization (CEO) has chosen us to be a speaker at their conference: It has been our dream and aspiration to be able to speak to such an amazing gathering of students, which has finally come true this year. The CEO conference brings together over 1,500 aspiring entrepreneurs from around the country to the amazing city of Chicago in mid October.

For those of you who missed it this week, we had some really amazing posts ranging from how to supercharge your personal brand to using your personal brand in the interview and how to create a winning personal branding statement.

• Social Media Used in School
• Personal Brand Statement: 7 Winning Step to Creating One
• One of the Best Interview Tools: Your Personal Brand
• 10 Step to Supercharge Your Personal Brand

Hope you enjoy them and please engage in the conversation!