Personal Visibility – The Power of You!

The entire professional world is lurking online––searching, parsing and taking advantage of search engine efficiencies offered by the latest technologies to help them find the right person for a myriad of opportunities––social and professional. Face-to-face interaction has mostly been relegated to some later date when one passes the first impression gauntlet in the virtual world. If When someone sees how you portray yourself online, what kind of first impression will you make?

Will they be intrigued and want to learn more about you or just yawn and move on to the next person? In today’s world, passive recruiting is rampant and opportunities are plentiful as the economy continues to improve. Employers and recruiters have better tools than ever with which to search and discover and with a pond like LinkedIn to fish in; why would they need to look anywhere else? LinkedIn is a quarter of a billion strong and growing in terms of membership and in the absence of a little forethought and planning as to your profile content, you simply blend in to the vast sea of sameness. You won’t get that all important second look, much less an offer. In today’s free-agent marketplace, online recruiting of the passive kind is your friend… you can always say no.

Search engine functionality has improved to the point that anything and everyone can be found. If your profile is constructed properly, positioned strategically and coordinated with the proper keywords and phrases, you will be found so you might want to start looking the digital equivalent of professionally polished. Passive recruiting has always been popular among search firms but the transparency caused by today’s search functionality has given worldwide access to anyone interested in performing a search. That includes the larger search firms all the way down to the one person HR department. Maybe it’s a start-up looking for advisors or a board looking for expertise. Someone, somewhere is attempting to match people with opportunities… are you discoverable? Moreover, are you presentable?

Believe it or not, people are looking at your profile and googling your name far more than you might think. Just know this: Whether its a coworker, neighbor, recruiter, boss, or friend, you never know who’s looking so be prepared and take advantage of the tools available to you. These tools can and will work on your behalf around the clock––just like having your own agent and publicist. What could be better than that?

Ask yourself a simple question: Are you positioned squarely in the path of discovery? One thing is for certain in today’s world… being visible promotes opportunities.

Don’t miss out on yours!