A Tie Is a Noose, Thought Inverted It May Be

After nearly three years of Covid-fueled disruption in the way we work, some new truths have emerged for workers in the tech industry and the people who employ them. Among those truths:?Remote work is here to stay.

COVID gave many the opportunity to review whether they were happy in their roles, and new ways of working left many feeling empowered to strive for something other than just a salary,?leading to mass resignations and the coining of the term the Great resignation.?

“Your?Salary?Is The Bribe?They Give You?To Forget?Your Dreams.”

The past year, however, has brought a new kind of global threat: war in Europe. In addition to the humanitarian crisis, the Russian invasion of Ukraine?has all helped push the global economy into a period of uncertainty.?

...And as a result, we are now witnessing a rather worrying (and rising) trend of mass lay-offs.?

The severity and widespread nature of the layoffs has driven up the competition in the job market and reversed the power shift (in favour of the candidate) that was brought about by the great resignation. So as potential employers look to fill any open roles they will likely be seeing something similar to this:

Personality Trumps Brand

In order to stand out in the now-flooded job market, it will be crucial to develop a strong personal brand. One of the key benefits of developing a personal brand is the ability to differentiate yourself from what, in the eyes of recruiters and hiring managers, is a fairly homogenous group of potential candidates. That’s a plus in any industry and is especially important when looking for a new job. Here I’d like to introduce Gestalt thinking. If you’re not familiar with Gestalt thinking:

If you look like everybody else, you don’t have much chance of being recognised or being remembered. If you’re in a room with 15 other people, that you’re competing with you have a 1 in 16 chance of being remembered.?

But if you look different from other people, because of how our brains work, what people will see is them and you.?

The key is that you have to stand out, you have to look different from everybody else and you have to be really clear about what it that you stand for.?

Now I’m not just talking about the industry, subcategory, job function, or role, but a niche that is much smaller than that, that you need to own and show that you really stand for something.??

The reason being that, whatever you think is your USP, there are 1000s, 10s of 1000s, 100s of 1000s and in some cases millions of people that identify in the same way as you.

.. and if you think you’re gonna stand out and call yourself a thought leader, think again because there are 113,000 of them?(on LinkedIn).

Bring your Personal Brand to Life with Online Visibility

It is important to have a complete profile that tells your story, rather than just your roles and responsibilities In previous jobs.?

Imagine you have to go to the airport, you’re running late for your flight out to the presidence club and you have the choice of 2 modes of transport?…

Which are you picking?

Everyone is gonna pick the second one & we all do this. We all look at something, assume we know what it means and then extrapolate that to its logical conclusion.

However, it may be that it’s not a real car, maybe it doesn’t have an engine, or… if you’re living in France at the moment, maybe it doesn’t have petrol In it.?

But we assume that’s where we’d go if we had to make that journey. We all jump to conclusions. What we need to make sure of is that the behaviour that we have and how we appear on social, make people jump to the conclusion that we want.?

Now bare in mind that hiring managers will be trawling through hundreds, if not thousands of candidates and a mountain of CVs, so they are likely to be looking to jump to the conclusion as quickly as possible. Our social profiles are an opportunity to grab their attention and hold it long enough so that by the end of the process they feel that they know us better than any other candidate and that we are the obvious choice.?

There are 2 levers that we can pull to ensure this happens:

1. Passive Social Presence - our profile, professionalism, attractiveness, intelligence, how fun we are. It's essentially the book of who we are.?
2. Active Social Behaviours - how we engage, what we say and how we act.?

Passive Social presence:

The 1st thing about the passive social presence is that our profile has to be complete, engaging, stand out and tell a good story. If someone has 2 choices it’s likely they are going to spend more time with the one that they are enjoying more, is more complete and gives a clear representation of the person.?

It’s all about hooking people in and getting them to invest as much time as possible in you and as little in the other candidates, so that at the end ion the process they feel they know you better than they know the others.?

Active Social Behaviours:?

We also need to make sure that the active behaviours and the effect they have on the profile, build a belief that we know what we are talking about?and that we are the obvious choice.

Every article, recommendation and endorsement leave a permanent footprint on your profile, and this helps people to have confidence that you know what you're talking about.

If 100 people have recommended you and you’ve written 100 articles, clearly you're the expert.?

... At least, more so than that other person that has no recommendations and has written 2 articles.?

Networking:?

Another important part of these active social behaviours is our network. Now, people that are newer typically have a smaller network. Those that have been around for longer might have larger networks, but often they are not in the right place.?

So it's all about manoeuvring our network in front of the people that we want to be seen by.

Think from a targeting perspective.

If I want to work at Unilever - I’m not in a good position as I have 2 connections out of 110,000 employees.

Oracle on the other hand I’m in a better position, I’ve got hundreds of connections, and these people are the entry points to these businesses.

If I post something, the majority of people that see it are going to be from the companies that I have the highest number of connections within, and this is something that I can influence by changing my behaviour.?

I need to ensure I’m targeting those organisations that I want to be seen in front of.?

If I want to work at Oracle, I need as many connections as I can at Oracle.

... And part of the process of being successful in the current job market will be around growing the visibility and influence that we have within those organisations that we want to work for.

Clarity is crucial

So what we need to do is ensure that we’re moving these towards a more strategic view, where you’re crystal clear about why you are on social.?

Not about posting your lunch, holiday pics etc. Although they may be some of the activities that can be done. But it’s about identifying whom we want to be influential in front of, positioning ourselves in front of them, and then finding the hooks that enable us to have conversations that will inevitably lead to conversations about open positions.

I’ll be setting aside some time each day for 1-on-1 profile reviews/workshops. So If you’re looking for your next role and wanting to ensure that you’re profile is positioning you as the obvious choice for future employers, then drop me a DM and we’ll grab a virtual coffee.?