I wish there were just one "personal marketing tool" for job seekers that did it all. There's too many of them online these days. Each of them have a few decent features but most seem to be just lacking all around usefulness.
Take iAdverto.com for example. Their co-founder just emailed me about their 'self-marketing' website.
"iAdverto.com empowers job seekers, students and other professionals with the necessary tools to showcase their talents in a multimedia environment. The company is revolutionizing the way people market their skills, talents and qualifications. We provide candidates with a FREE interactive personal web page which displays their resume, professional photo, video profile, audio profile, and/or samples of their work."
The first thing that strikes me about this site is the URL they give to the job seeker to market themselves. Their sample site for Michelle Turner has the following address:
http://www.iadverto.com/users/Michele_Turner190.aspx
You can't tell me this long URL is good for self-marketing. How is a job seeker supposed to remember it? Let alone recite it to a potential employer. iAdverto might take clue from blogs and give the user a subdomain instead. iadverto.micheleturner.com would be much better.
The site also features areas for your resume, a summary, video, audio (which by the way crashed in Internet Explorer when I clicked it) and a calendar. The calendar page is especially puzzling. I don't see a need for it.
I have yet to see a job seeker marketing site I like. For my money, a personal blog is still the way to go when it comes to marketing yourself.
You'll find risk management jobs on GlobalRiskJobs.com.
4 comments:
I aggree...the blog is still the best way to market oneself. Especially if you want to "show" or "establish" your expertise. I would also compliment that with a strong/updated LinkedIn.com profile.
Something a person also needs...the LACK OF FEAR of what your current employer might think of you if they know you are establishing yourself in the industry "outside" of their name and control.
Good blog. :)
I really understand the need for self marketing. I have my own site - www.technicaldisaster.com that usually gets me a few calls a month for employers or companies looking for a consultant.
Over the years of networking, I eventually started up www.namereality.com to market domain services and personal e-mail accounts to people who utilize blogging platforms that give lengthy address names. There isn't any reason someone can't have www.a- personal-name.com going to a Ziggs, Linked-In, Jobster, or blog profile.
Nothing quite like really showing your employer that you are looking for a new job :)
Video in the job interview/job search is the wave of the future. Bugs are getting worked out and business models built but give it a while and you won't be able to remember what life was like in the old days of searching for candidates, evaluating/interviewing candidates, trolling databases and the like.
Mark Newman
HireVue
I'd agree that the personal blog is generally the way to go for personal marketing. However, when the personal marketing sites begin to really take off, they'll still be another useful tool to use in conjunction with one's personal blog.
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