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Whether you know it or not, you already have an on-line presence…even if it is a lack thereof. (Just to be clear, if compromising pictures of you from your Facebook or MySpace page are not easily found, that is and will ALWAYS be in your favor.)  But, if you are one of the many who have not yet established your on-line professional persona, that is actually not a good thing. So the real question is the following:  is your current on-line presence helping or hurting your career?

Google, Bing or any other search engine is now the first tool of recruiters and prospective employers.  Even if you apply for a job via snail mail and a paper resume, you can count on being checked out on-line. If you are nowhere to be found, recruiters will hit “delete” – especially for those more senior level leadership roles and premium professional jobs.  Their thinking:  if you are really SO great that they should hire you over someone else, then where’s the proof?  How are you already displaying those professional chops?   Where is your blog, Linked In profile, or a website where you are quoted or took the time to comment on a current issue in your field of expertise?

It is easier than you think to establish an on-line presence that can become a true career-maker, not a career-breaker.  To find out how to start, check out the article below at MORE.com.  (While MORE as a magazine is targeted toward women 40+, you men and you professionals-under-40 don’t be put off.  This article is an excellent summary of everything you need to know about managing your job search and career in this digital age and turning your professional reputation into a leg-up on your competition.)

The magazine interviewed William Arruda, creator of the 360Reach Assessment tool and personal branding guru.  No one has more practical insights and tools around this topic than William and his co-author Kristi Dixon.   Their book is Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand.

MORE article:

http://www.more.com/2046/3935-turn-google-into-your-personal

Career Distinction book:

http://www.amazon.com/Career-Distinction-Stand-Building-Brand/dp/0470128186/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249929570&sr=8-1

As an executive coach, I love many things about this tool.  First, it can fit anyone’s price range.  Second, it is completely automated and done through email and takes only 10 minutes of time for raters to respond – so the response rate tends to be higher than average and the data more reliable.  And third, I love that this tool provides invaluable insights, whether you are: a leader looking for feedback; a high-potential wanting to advance your career; a job seeker in this tough employment environment; an entrepreneur looking to start or grow your own business; or an HR manager looking for a cost-effective resource to motivate employees to strategically self-manage their own careers.

If you want to give the 360Reach tool a try, here are your options:

• 360Reach Basic – you can use the tool for 15 days and receive all the raw data/feedback sorted by category of respondents.  This option is self-managed by you and totally free.  (Order directly at the 360Reach website http://www.reachcc.com/360reach).
  
• 360Reach Premium – you can use the tool for 45 days and also receive a customized, 20 page report and data analysis, including your personal “brand attributes”, leadership competencies, strengths and weaknesses.  (Order directly at the 360Reach website http://www.reachcc.com/360reach).   Like the Basic option, you self-manage the process and receive the report automatically.
• 360Reach Premium + Coaching – everything the Premium option provides plus two hours of coaching with me.  By working with a coach, you get help and guidance in managing the process and interpreting the data/report.  And a process to help you take the insights and turn them into action.  Contact me directly at julie@greentogreat.com to talk about or order the Premium report and a coaching package.

For more information about the tool and answers to your questions, check out the FAQs:
http://www.reachcc.com/reachdotcom.nsf/relatedlinks/1F797BFBF5E650FAC1256FF9003CB794?OpenDocument.

The 360Reach Assessment is the world’s first and leading personal branding assessment.  It has been used by nearly one million people globally, both by individuals looking to advance their careers and by leaders and professionals within some the world’s largest corporations (including American Express, British Telecom, J&J, JPMorgan, Microsoft, Starwood Hotels and Warner Brothers Studios).

The 360Reach Assessment enables you to gather external feedback on multiple variables:  your personality characteristics (“brand attributes”), leadership competencies, strengths, weaknesses and team roles.  The 360Reach process begins with a self-assessment, followed by an email-based feedback process to collect input from others in your life and work.

Unlike most so-called “360” tools, the 360Reach Assessment is a true 360 degree look at what you are uniquely good at and where you have room to grow.   Using this simple, automated tool you can request feedback from your entire circle of contacts and as many people as you like, from all areas of your life, including: friends, family, your manager, your employees, your peers and your customers.  All that is required for their feedback is 10 minutes of their time, an email address and access to the Internet.

If you are interested in trying this tool for yourself, check back tomorrow.   I’ll post details on how to order the tool — including a free version — as well as a package that includes a customized 20-page report on your unique brand and coaching to move it forward.

Whether you are a leader/manager or a professional/individual contributor, this series of postings is for you.  Below are the three things you need to know, in order, to sell yourself and keep your career moving forward:

1. Know who you are – your values, strengths, weaknesses, and personal “brand”
   
2. Know how you are perceived by others – their interpretation and assessment of those factors
   
3. Leverage that information to market your unique value/brand – your communication strategy and plan so the perception you want becomes the one you get

Yesterday I promised you an on-line tool to help you answer those questions: the 360Reach Assessment.  It is easy, fun and incredibly insightful.  There is even a free version available or for a reasonable price, an upgraded version that includes a customized, 20 page report.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you more about the tool itself – developed by psychologists and personal branding experts and used by over a million people, world-wide, to date.

I’m going to put this on the line today – if you cannot answer my question above in a meaningful way, you are putting your future career and even your current job at risk.  Most of us know that the old system of employment for life passed away decades ago.  But today employment, period, is morphing into an entirely different animal.  I don’t think we know fully yet what that new world will look like, but it is shaping up to be a very different cycle of job deaths and rebirths than we have seen before.

What I mean is that there is a strong case that we are not simply going through a particularly bad recession but rather a fundamental redefinition of the very nature of “employment”.  This new world is likely to be one where jobs simply come and go, more frequently and more unpredictably.  Why?  Because layoffs have become a fundamental cost-management strategy used by corporations, whenever it makes sense to the short-term bottom line – economic recession or not.  So odds are, even the best and brightest among us will likely end up working in and out of corporate jobs for significant periods of times during a 30-40 year career.

As a result, if your career management strategy is to periodically “dust off” your resume and post it on the big job boards (the spray-and-pray technique), you are already headed down the dinosaur path.  Or, if you are counting on your manager to shepherd your career or put you up for that plum promotion, you need to think again.  Because bottom line, you are going to have to sell yourself – repeatedly — if you want to advance your career or land/keep a good job. And you can’t do that if:  a) you don’t know yourself – your core values, your strengths, your weaknesses, and what you bring uniquely to a team or organization; and b) can’t articulate and communicate that effectively to others.

So back to my opening question:  what value do YOU add?  You need to find the answer to that question early in your career, and make it a habit to ask that question again, regularly.  But first take a little time to articulate your answer to yourself and get your story straight, before you start telling everyone you know why you are so good.  In my coming blogs, I will tell you about an on-line tool that can help you answer that question and start to craft your selling story.  It is easy, fun and free.

I have been reflecting on this question a lot lately.  Not from the perspective of personal insecurity or doubt (though I have my days), but rather from the viewpoint of other people:

a)    What real value is this blog for high-potential and high-achieving leaders delivering to individual careers and corporate talent pools?

b)    What gifts or talents am I really using to contribute to the world on a broader scale?

It would be easy to dismiss my pondering as the typical questions of middle age, since I hit my 45th birthday this July.  Many friends and family are struggling with illness and financial challenges, so I am reminded much that life is indeed short and must be lived for the moment.  But perhaps, due to the wrenching shifts in our economy over this last year, these questions are also becoming the fundamental questions of our times.  As one executive I work with articulated so eloquently about his own career and life, maybe what’s becoming more important than success is significance.  There is evidence to suggest our society as a whole is re-defining what it means to lead an accomplished and rich life.  That redefinition by default means that success is not just measured by our own happiness but includes what we can contribute to others and our world.

Whatever the reason, here’s what I know for sure about us high-potential and high-achiever personality types – we are fundamentally goal-driven.  When we are clear who we are and what really matters to us, we can move mountains.  And we’ll never settle for the stars when there is a moon, just beyond our grasp.

So here’s a bit about my moon:  I believe that the ways we have talked about and developed leadership historically have become limited and outdated for our times.  So I’m going to stop writing about leaders and leadership from old ways of thinking, even if those feel “safe” and “proven”.  Instead, I am going to blog about leaders and leadership in this turbulent and changing world, as if our lives depended upon them.  Because I actually believe they might.