Your University Name    the Competitive Edge

<< back to previous page

The social transparency phenomenon that has occurred with the rise of the web means tremendous opportunities for job candidates like you to gain visibility. One example is through the use of the video bio. Catharine Fennell, Founder and CEO of VideoBIO, discusses how to leverage video to inject “the personal” into your profile while at the same time taking control of your personal and professional reputation online to stay a step ahead of your competition.
Now that you have less time than ever before to “wow” your target employer with your story, you’ll want to know what sells and what doesn’t.  Deb Dib, resume expert, offers a must-use strategy and critical tips for creating an effective resume that lands you your first interview.

Tip #1: Think strategically... not structurally.

When creating your resume, you need to think strategically. The trap is people think structurally and think that filling in the blanks is what makes a resume and so they hope for the best.

Here are questions to ponder on when thinking strategically:

There are 2 key things that you need to know about your resume and LinkedIn profile:

  1. Market your value. Your potential employer needs to know not just what you've done but how well you've done it.

Do more than list your MBA. Showcase your MBA, don’t just mention it:

  1. Include it, even if you haven't finished it yet.
    Different ways that you can say you're finishing or midway through an MBA:

In order to envision yourself at the job of your dreams, you need a clear sense of how you might fit in to a company’s culture, whether it’s a healthy business or lagging in the marketplace, and if your desired salary range is realistic
How do you decide which jobs offer competitive salaries and which companies reward their employees in ways that make sense for you to target a job there? 
Think of all the cover letters your target company receives and how important it is to make your letter stand out.  Consider, too, the competition you face when interviewing and how critical it is to be a well-informed candidate.
In addition to the opportunities social networks offer to enhance your own visibility, the web contains valuable ways to identify quality contacts.  Sean Campbell, market research expert and co-author of Going Beyond Google: Gathering Internet Intelligence,
A surefire way to send a powerful message to your interviewer is to arrive fully prepared to talk, in depth, about his or her business. 
Every interviewer speaks a certain language. The best thing you can do to convince your interviewer that you are the right person for the job is to communicate your story using that same language.
Talking about yourself can be difficult for some people, whether because of shyness or not wanting to appear boastful. Beyond B-School Executive Vice President and expert interviewer Michael Goodman
You have worked hard for your job interview and now is your opportunity to shine. Yet, high stress at interview time can affect your performance.

The interview is the sales opportunity that you've been waiting for to truly differentiate yourself from other candidates in ways that a resume cannot. I will share with you tips and strategies to follow when preparing for an interview performance that will help make yourself memorable, establish trust and confidence, stand out from the competition and strongly communicate your value to the interviewer.

Preparing for the Tough Interview Questions
with Alan Carniol

To prepare for tough interview questions, Alan Carniol recommends doing this exercise:

Ask yourself this: What is the question that could cost you the job offer? Take 30 seconds to think about your answer and then write it down.

This presentation covers what is going to make the difference in any kind of video interview job interview. In this Part 1 of 2, Ross Macpherson answers the following questions about video interviewing:

Introduce yourself ( "Hi, my name is Ross") and then say something around your focus or value proposition ( “I help companies...”, “My expertise is...” )

When you are called for a job interview, some common questions asked are:

  • “Tell me about a time when” – Is a behavioral type of question that could be part of different questions asked or a series of behavioral questions.
  • “What would you do if” – Is a situational type of question.

What would someone find -- and determine about you -- if he or she Googled you? William Arruda, personal branding expert,
Movies in 3D are much more alive than two-dimensional pictures. The same is true for job candidates and their resumes and credentials.
The social transparency phenomenon that has occurred with the rise of the web means tremendous opportunities for job candidates like you to gain visibility.
Using color in your career marketing tools is another way to stand out and be recognized among all your competitors.  William Arruda, Personal Branding Expert, explains how and where you can use color as part of your job search strategy.
As important as it is to sell yourself, it is critical to get others to speak highly of you. Find out from Personal Branding Expert William Arruda how testimonials, recommendations and endorsements will help you in your job search, and find out about the many ways you can secure them.
Think of all the cover letters your target company receives and how important it is to make your letter stand out.  Consider, too, the competition you face
With 79% of hiring managers looking to the web for candidates, it’s imperative to take advantage of social media.
We primarily know about and use Facebook to connect socially. But social media guru and author of Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies Joshua Waldman
Afraid to Tweet?  Don’t be. Learn why Twitter is social media guru and author of Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies Joshua Waldman’s

The ‘Groups’ option on LinkedIn offers the most important opportunity to proactively grow both your personal brand and your professional network.  In his how-to, click-by-click presentation, Jason Alba demonstrates how to use the ‘Groups’ feature to identify the right contacts for you and shows you why you’ll want to add this social networking strategy to your repertoire of job search tools. 

How can you build your unique brand to get the job you want?  In under 10-minutes, William Arruda, personal branding expert,
Companies promote their brands to differentiate themselves in the marketplace. As a business professional, you need a similar strategy to stand out from the competition.
What would someone learn -- and determine about you -- if he or she Googled you? William Arruda, personal branding expert, Founder of Reach Personal Branding and Co-Author of Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand, explains how you can measure your own online reputation and offers detailed advice on ways to enhance it.
With 79% of hiring managers looking to the web for candidates, it’s imperative to take advantage of social media to build awareness and value among potential employers.
Movies in 3D are much more alive than two-dimensional pictures. The same is true for job candidates and their resumes and credentials.
Learn from branding guru how to grow your worth
Afraid to Tweet?  Don’t be. Learn why Twitter is social media guru and author of Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies Joshua Waldman’s
With 79% of hiring managers looking to the web for candidates, it’s imperative to take advantage of social media.
We primarily know about and use Facebook to connect socially. But social media guru and author of Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies Joshua Waldman
It’s important to think differently in order to get doors to open for you along your career path.  Darrell Gurney, a Recruiter and Career Advisor who specializes in Networking, has made his own career encourages you to build your career through connections and relationships, focusing on who you know, not what you know. He also advocates working to get in the back door of a company, as everyone else is trying to get in through the front.
Finally – here is an efficient and effective job search methodology to develop a target list of employers, fast.. Steve Dalton, author of The 2-Hour Job Search and Senior Associate Director of the Career Management Center and Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, details how to get that first job interview by creating a specifically prioritized list of target employers in 70 minutes.
Having so many career options as an MBA can be an asset as well as a detriment in your job search. It can make it difficult to narrow your focus to a particular position or field. MBA Career Strategist Susan Whitcomb presents a step-by-step strategy in her 3-part series for assessing your unique strengths and determining your career direction. Here, in Part 1, she focuses on matching what employers seek with your own skills and interests; or, as she explains it, finding the right “FIT.”
Now that you understand what your target employer seeks, in Part 2 of her series Susan Whitcomb turns to the Internal “FIT” -- clarifying your own identity as a job candidate to determine the optimum career match for you.
In the final segment of her 3-part series, MBA Career Strategist Susan Whitcomb addresses crossing the more challenging job search bridges – attempting to switch either job functions and/or industries when lacking the specific skills or experience needed to land the job you want. Here is Susan’s step-by-step strategy for staying on track to meet your goals.

Knowing when to enter into a discussion about compensation is critical.  If you know when you should talk about it you will be in a position to negotiate from strength.

To be an effective negotiator, you must know your market value.  The presentation covers the three key variables in the formula.

If the final offer is not high enough, consider negotiating for benefits that are in addition to salary.

How to customize your headline, the 120 characters that appear right under your name to build your brand online.

Suggestions for creating a compelling Summary, the first section of your profile that a visitor sees, right under your name, headline and photo.  It is your “first impression,” so make it as strong as it can be.

Use the top third of the resume to grab attention and sell yourself in a convincing way.  Show what you offer in a way that can be read in 7 to 10 seconds.  Make the reader stop and say “this person has what we are looking for.”

Answers to the 5 most asked questions about resumes

The presentation covers a method for contacting a dream company cold, without a referral or contact.  The strategy is a high-yield approach with a solid return on time invested to open doors.

I’m Patty Buchek, certified career management coach, personal brand strategist and Senior Assistant Dean at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. In the ready-set-go MBA job market, high achievers from all over the world who competed for admission to the program are setting up at the starting blocks for the next round of competition.

I am commonly asked in my one-on-one career coaching sessions questions regarding how to engage with Executive Recruiters and what the protocol is around loyalty, payment, and what it means if a conversation takes place.

In this second video of the series on goals, we tackle the difficult task of identifying a specific set of career coordinates to establish your direction that will allow you to dial in on your most promising MBA career.

Welcome to the third video in our 4 part series about using goals to make the most of your MBA. Today, we're going to take it to a more granular level.

I'll show you ways on how you can really showcase this MBA and have it to work to your advantage.

  1. Add it to your Headline - Maximize the 120 characters that go right underneath your name. First and most critical way to highlight your MBA is in the headline. If in case you can't claim the MBA or you're in the middle of completing the MBA, you can still add it to the headline by adding the word "Candidate" afterwards.

Hello everyone! I'm so glad you've joined me for the final video in our 4 part series about using goals to make the most out of your MBA. By now, we've taken a good bit out of the goal's apple. We've opened and we've come to explore the bodacious and audacious "What do you want to be when you grow up?" question.

In this video, Ross Macpherson focuses on the topic of cover letters and answers the questions and comments of “Do I even need them?”, “I never read them so why should I bother?” and “What are these emails I keep hearing about?” which clarifies the power of using cover letters in job applications.

During a job search, you usually ask your recipient to take some sort of action. With so many messages and so little time, you want to craft an email that makes the recipient want to open the message.

In today’s job market, a good resume simply isn’t good enough… it has to be great. A truly effective resume is more than just a pretty or well-constructed document… it’s a powerful marketing tool that allows you to stand out among your toughest competition, showcases your value to an employer in the most compelling way possible, and most importantly…makes your phone ring off the hook!

Your presence on LinkedIn is one of your most powerful career assets—a central component to your branding as you prepare yourself to land your ideal position.

What You Will Learn

Practical tips to overcome the 10 most common obstacles to implementing a career change, from an executive and MBA career coach. Challenges include:

  • How can the skills that I gained from an MBA enhance my candidacy in this career change?
  • How do I overcome the concern that I'll be "throwing away" years of my life by taking a step backwards?

Multimedia
The use of Multimedia in your LinkedIn profile is the best way to differentiate your profile. It helps integrate images, videos, slides, covers of documents in Summary and Experience sections of your profile. It's a great because it provides proof of performance and helps your brand come to life in LinkedIn. You can put your client presentations, different course activities, images of you presenting, working in a team or things you want to be reinforced, etc.
LinkedIn Recommendations - Why You Need Them

In this video, William Arruda tackles a common LinkedIn question he often gets asked: “What Do I Do about Recommendations?”

This video focuses on three things:
  1. What you need to do to get recommendations.
  2. Who should you get recommendations from.
  3. How to maximize the recommendations you get to build your brand and connect with others.
Wendy Enelow & Louise Kursmark, the authors of Modernize Your Resume - Get Noticed... Get Hired share their favorite techniques in bringing resumes up to speed for today's competitive job search market.

One reason that resumes have changed over the past several years is because there's a fundamental shift in the way people read. Thanks to the Internet, people are now power browsing.
Format is the structure and layout of your resume. It is how you organize and present the information so that employers can easily understand who you are, what you do, where you''ve done it and most important consideration of all, how you can help them.

Why is design so important? The physical appearance of your resume dramatically effects how your readers perceive you. First impressions are powerful and studies have shown, they are indelible.

In this video, LinkedIn expert, Viveka von Rosen, describes the ways of using LinkedIn Search to effectively find the right people, jobs and companies.

LinkedIn Groups has changed a lot in the past year. In this video, you will take a quick look at these changes with Viveka Von Rosen.

One of the best things that you can do when you're looking for a job is to connect with alumni on LinkedIn. This presentation covers the 5 simple steps to find, connect and engage with the right people through LinkedIn's alumni search.

In this video, Viveka Von Rosen describes some of the best practices for connecting to new prospects or leads on LinkedIn. Viveka also suggests different invitation scripts that you can use when reaching out to these individuals.

This video covers the ways of engaging with your connections on LinkedIn through commenting, sharing and liking updates of their activities, their articles and their posts or by sending them private messages.

This video covers the ways of engaging with your connections on LinkedIn through commenting, sharing and liking updates of their activities, their articles and their posts or by sending them private messages.

You want to make your resume a marketing asset that makes your case for a new direction.

The strict requirements of a one-page on-campus resume template has limitations.

Networking isn't as tough as you think. In this video, Executive Career Job Search Coach and the author of 20 Minute Networking Meeting, Nathan Perez, summarizes the basics of the “Networking” meeting covering:

In this video Nathan Perez walks you through the five simple steps that make up proper job search networking meeting. Nathan Perez also demonstrates the 20 minute networking meeting process with examples.

In the two previous videos in the series, Nathan Perez talked about:
  1. The importance of networking
  2. The steps of a successful networking meeting.

In this video Kate Paine describes the top 11 tips to differentiate your profile so that you can stand out amongst your peers on LinkedIn. “If you want to stand out with the crowd, give people a reason not to forget you.” This quote from Richard Branson talks about telling your story and thinking about your target audience so that you are really giving them what they are looking for. Here is the list of top 11 tips to make major improvements to your LinkedIn profile:

This next section is going to focus on Tips number 6 through 10 about specific sections of the 'Work Experience' and also a bonus tip number #11 on how to actually make your background image on LinkedIn profile.

In this video, Ross Macpherson shows how your resume and LinkedIn profile should be aligned: where they can be similar and where they should be different; what to do and what not to do.   

In this video, Ross Macpherson shows how your resume and LinkedIn profile should be aligned: where they can be similar and where they should be different; what to do and what not to do.   

In this video, Kate Paine, journalist and public relations executive, talks about the ultimate way for you to stand out by using a personal story in your LinkedIn About (formerly Summary) section of your Profile.

Why Your Personal Story is Important?

To land your dream job in the tech industry fast, here are the job-search mistakes commonly made and ways to correct them:
To land your dream job in the tech industry fast, here are the job-search mistakes commonly made and ways to correct them:
To land your dream job in the tech industry fast, here are the job-search mistakes commonly made and ways to correct them:
One of the biggest challenges of the job search is not knowing where to start.
Most job seekers know that an internal referral is a necessary prerequisite to getting an interview (and avoiding the online job posting “black hole”), but few job seekers know the right person to contact to get that referral nor how to get in touch with him or her.
One of the most common job search questions is "What should I write?" in an email to a potential employer. Learn exactly what to say in this webinar to maximize your “return on effort.”
We primarily know about and use Facebook to connect socially. But social media guru and author of Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies Joshua Waldman
We primarily know about and use Facebook to connect socially. But social media guru and author of Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies Joshua Waldman
Helping people pivot their careers from one to the next career change is what the author is most passionate about and what will be discussed in detail in the succeeding parts of this video. As Jenny says, "change is the only constant, so let's get good at it."
Making a career shift is one of the toughest/tricky moves to make. Ross Macpherson, shares the different strategies in this video on how to be successful in your career change by building a strong resume.
Ross Macpherson states that the strategies used in creating your resume applies to your Linkedin but done differently. The following are the Do’s in creating your linked in profile:

Jennifer Vancil talks about using the Clifton strengths assessment as a basis for personal branding and how to use it.

Video  

Speed up your job search with plug-and-play AI prompts. Tap into unique resources and opportunities with “next-level” search techniques.