How To Reinvent Your Career Path After A Layoff

How to Reinvent Your Career Path After a Layoff â€" Step 3: Reach Out and Touch Someone Note: For the earlier post on this collection, “Step 2: Get Comfortable with the Social Web,” see right here. A Note on Personal Branding In this series, I’ve been avoiding the “branding” word as a result of I think it’s somewhat artificial. You don’t need to be the next Pepsi or Coke. You want to be you, one of the best you potential. You want to play to your strengths, differentiate yourself from everyone else and emphasize what you need to provide a possible employer. Of course, you must think about how all of that can benefit them and help them solve their issues. But all in all, you should work to create an authentic voice for yourself. That’s what displays who you're. Otherwise, you sound like generic advertising copy â€"- and who needs to hire that? That said, let’s transfer on to the subsequent step in my profession reinvention process â€" getting my name out there and networking. Below are the assorted ways I leveraged my community and “model” to find new alternatives. Surfing Social Media Week You never understand how one thing might lead to one other. As a freelancer, I noticed that in action all the time. While I was on one job, I’d be supplied the following. So after I noticed that Social Media Week was being held in Washington, D.C., I went. What is it? I wasn’t certain, myself, however I figured I ought to go and find out. Did I care that I was older than nearly everybody else who confirmed up on the seminars? No. I saw it as a chance to ask people questions. What have been they doing? Who did they work for? What did they like about it? Did they ever hire freelance writers? People like to talk about themselves, and I learned lots from these networking alternatives. But for me, the seminars have been the meat and potatoes. Even though I was generally out at sea, I began to develop an ear for the lingo. I additionally began to see how individuals were serious about social media, how they were using it, its potential, what it has to supply and maybe where I may fit i n. There were seminars on websites and SEO (search engine optimization), creating content material, marketing, advocacy, disaster administration, building a strong Web presence, social media and social change. I even listened to an interview with a advertising guru in regards to the importance of being “favored.” It was like going again to high school. I took 10 seminars and, when the week was accomplished, I’d made one robust contact that’s growing into a friendship, learned the way to use Twitter and felt rather more assured that I was heading in the right direction â€" that social media can be a communications laboratory and a powerful method to attain individuals and drive change. With all of this heady stuff, I realized I had to reinvent myself and build a strong social media presence. Fortunately, I was already off to a great start. But there was much more to do. New Skills = New Opportunities In recent years, I’d made advocacy videos for several nonprofits and thought that may be an area the place I may acquire some extra expertise â€"- I could write proposals and advertising pieces for nonprofits. I’d also taken workshops on advocacy and social media at Social Media Week. So I thought I’d gain extra expertise at The Foundation Center, which provides regular lessons on fundraising and how to use their databases to seek for grants. If you’re not acquainted with it, the Foundation Center is a big library of information about grants, foundations and tendencies in philanthropy. They have a physical presence in several major U.S. cities, together with New York and Washington, D.C. They have a lending library, and you can even access much of their materials online, together with lots of their programs. For many startups, crowdfunding websites like Kickstarter in all probability make more sense in terms of fundraising. But for established nonprofits and individuals who n eed to provide companies to them, The Foundation Center is an important useful resource. It was great taking their workshops while pursuing my job search â€"- one other type of skill constructing, staying present and doing something I felt optimistic about. I also appreciated spending time in knowledgeable area. My expertise there led me to reconnect with a former shopper who runs a nonprofit. I informed her about my experiences on the Foundation Center and that I was in search of writing opportunities, including fundraising. She knew somebody who wanted assist with securing funding and related us. So, exploring a brand new opportunity + reconnecting with my old network = my first task! Unfortunately, that lead didn’t wind up panning out. (Still ready to listen to on it.) But it was a begin, and it showed that reaching out does make a difference. Your Blog as a Virtual Calling Card I’ve been writing a weblog for about three years. I put a lot of effort into it, typically spending the equivalent of a day or so as soon as per week to analysis, write and edit a publish. Often that’s also how I’d spend part of my weekends. I started to see the blog as important to my effort to reinvent myself as a writer -â€" it was like a digital calling card. It also added some construction to my week while I was unemployed and enabled me do what I take pleasure in: researching one thing that caught my fancy and then finding a enjoyable approach to write about it. Blogging was the start of my effort to reinvent myself. My website was a part of that, too. But I had to find a method to invite individuals to discover my weblog and site, and that meant I needed a presence on social media. How I Learned to Love LinkedIn At first I didn’t understand why I should care about LinkedIn, and my profile was perfunctory at best. I also didn’t like the idea of an internet site deciding how I must be introduced â€"- it was organized an excessive amount of like a typical resume. If I wished to post one thing necessary (say, my new freelance gig), no downside. But then if I determined to attach with a new particular person, that replaced my publish about the gig, and when every thing is equally necessary, nothing is important. I felt the positioning was in control, not me, so I pretty much ignored it. That was a mistake. After reading recommendation on websites like Career Attraction, I realized that whenever you’re on the lookout for a job or reaching out to individuals, nearly everyone appears at your profile on LinkedIn. So how you come across there may be really necessary â€" and I was trying fairly lame. I began to rethink who I was and how I wished to current myself. First Impressions Are Everything The very first thing people will have a look at on LinkedIn is your image and the headline describing who you are. I needed a picture that looked skilled however fascinating, so I ended up utilizing a black-and-white picture of myself sporting a suit and tie with a pleasant smile. I also labored actually hard on finding a headline that may stand out from the gang. I was speaking with a pal, a former VP of Communications for a serious nonprofit, about my job search. I was feeling very pissed off on the time, having tried all these official-sounding but boring titles like “Communications Professional.” I was redefining myself, so I needed to search out one thing snappy that may also inform individuals what I was about â€" and one thing I might back up, too. My good friend’s response? “Bottom line, who are you?” Thinking of all those times I freelanced as a employed gun, I responded, “I’m a Samurai warrior.” (I think I actually pounded the desk after I mentioned it.) “ I come in, do my job with excellence, kill the dangerous guys (tight deadlines, lack of path, troublesome material, and so on.), ship the product and journey on to the following job.” Maybe it was my passionate supply borne of frustration, but she stated it gave her goose bumps. “That’s what you must write,” she mentioned. Here’s how it ended up, subsequent to my image: Samurai warrior â€" fighting in your behalf to create killer copy, standout running a blog and highly effective however swish video. A lot better than “Media professional with years of experience writing, running a blog and producing video.” Granted, if I had been applying for a job at a bank, this headline wouldn’t fly. But I saw myself as working with creatives, so this description appeared becoming. The third most essential a part of your LinkedIn profile is your summary. My first stab with LinkedIn ignored that half â€" another massive mistake, given that most individuals spend just a few seconds checking you out. Here’s where I might take the Samurai warrior idea to the subsequent level: I wield my keyboard to reinforce your model, educate your folks, inspire your audience, celebrate your heroes and encourage change. There’s a little more copy and contact information, but you get the concept. Why LinkedIn Groups Rock Joining groups on LinkedIn is another nice way to get your name on the market. Every time I write a brand new blog post, I publish it on my exercise web page and then submit it as a discussion within the groups I belong to. I attempt to solicit comments to my posts, and after I get them, I reply on the weblog or within the LinkedIn group the place the remark was posted. It’s about creating a dialogue and building a presence. People begin to see you and listen. They turn out to be curious and check out your profile. These are all opportunities to connect with individuals and tell them extra about yourself. What I additionally like about that is you can begin off talking about your weblog submit instead of your self, so it’s a softer and nicer intro -â€" and more authentic. Spreading It Around You ought to be doing the same with Twitter, Google+ and Facebook. Google+ is like a LinkedIn alternate universe, simply smaller, so there’s more opportunity to face out. It’s additionally extra user-pleasant. Facebook is one other case. I’m very blended about it for a enterprise presence. I may be lacking something, but it simply doesn’t seem as critical, and I pretty much only go there once I have a new blog submit to promote. I did make a separate business website for my blog, and I publish to that and to my personal site each time I actually have a brand new blog publish. I’m nonetheless a Twitter beginner, however studying as I go and hoping to make better use of it. Every time I write a new submit, I tweet about it, often several times using totally different phrases. If I discover one thing cool that I don’t want to write about however nonetheless want to share, I’ll tweet about that. And, if I’m on the lookout for cool stuff to write down about, I might explor e some of the people I comply with to see it there’s anything there worth pursuing. I’ve even gained a number of followers alongside the best way. To make the most of my presence on these platforms, my email signature features a link to my blog and my Google+ and Twitter profiles â€" just another way to connect every little thing and build your presence. Of course, I didn’t do all of this in per week; it occurred over several months of experimenting, researching and studying. But know that there is gentle at the end of the tunnel when you’ve been laid off. It may be a longer journey than you’d like, nevertheless it’s only a matter of putting one foot in front of the opposite to get there. (Click right here to tweet this thought.) Stay tuned for my last post in this series, by which I’ll discuss some additional steps in my reinvention journey and share the teachings I in the end realized from it. How can you use these steps to increase your personal network and online p resence? Dan Bailes creates killer copy, standout blogging and highly effective but graceful video â€" wielding his keyboard to boost manufacturers, encourage audiences, celebrate heroes and encourage change. Blogging about innovation, creativity and vision on TheVisionThing, he may be found at danbailes.com. Image: Flickr