The Review

Saturday, February 20, 2021

Telling Your Story in LinkedIn for Job Interview ( T & P Series on Wednesday: 12)

(Photo credits: www.pexels.com)

Networking Importance

The job market is getting tougher with each passing day. Having a conventional approach to a job search may not yield great results. Changing time demands changes in tactics. Every job seeker needs to have a well-defined strategy right from the beginning of the college days. The right strategy should include three-pronged approaches such as establishing a network, developing soft skills & honing hard skills. As the old saying goes “the early bird takes the worm”, this is true in the sense that those who understand the necessity of a well-focused strategy get placed early. On the other hand, those who are late in embracing that face rejection and disappointment quite often.

Networking is very much essential in the job search. In simple words, networking means connecting relevant people from the field. People underestimate or overlook the power of networking. But, successful people often use networking effectively in every respect. The importance can be understood through a story that I heard somewhere but it sums up everything. There was a person named Mr. John. He was from an Electronics background and wanted a job in that field in a specific firm. That was his dream firm. He started following the top boss of the firm. He used to study company operations, dealings and expansions very carefully. Often, he would go to various seminars & workshops presided over by the top boss of the company. He tried to communicate to the boss by various means such as taking part in discussions during those conferences & workshops. In a way, he was trying to set up a network. After some time, he succeeded to strike a conversation with the boss who had almost become accustomed to him. Later on, he was able to get a reference from the top boss in a local branch. If we carefully analyze this story, we can see the effectiveness of networking. However, this is also the case of targeted networking which can be termed in a lament sense as ‘eye in the pie’ approach. But, it should be always kept in mind that only networking will not fetch anything unless and until you have a solid knowledge base to present yourself as an intelligent individual. For that, you have to invest some serious time in your studies. Otherwise, it looks manipulative and unauthentic.

Research scholars in prestigious institutes such as IITs understand the potential of networking. They frequently organize seminars, workshops, and conferences and lure the best minds to take part in those events. The goal is to network with like-minded people to share ideas. Of late, most of the scientific studies have gone multidisciplinary like mechanical engineers taking the help of electrical, electronics & computer people and computer engineers taking the help of social sciences & mathematics to gauge the challenges of the modern world. Networking helps forge relationships based on mutual interests. People collaborate through networking and reach the zenith. This is worth mentioning that the research scholars don’t think this in the terms of strategy, it is ingrained in them by the institutes as the muscle memory. Anyhow, it does the job. We can draw an important lesson from these examples that it is very useful.

In my case, I got many benefits by networking with like-minded people. As a teacher, we often need to participate in various events related to the research interests. I get updates continuously through my networks because people like to share these things whenever there is one. Similarly, I too contribute. The same is true in the case of job vacancies also.

Ways of Networking

Networking could be online and offline mode. Offline is a good old technique used by humans from time immemorial. On the other hand, online networking is relatively new compared to the former. Presently, people prefer the online method because it is convenient. Apart from that, one can connect and engage many people at a time which is not at all possible in the other method.

Back in old days, we used to meet people to build friendships. I maintained the network by calling people frequently. These were normal calls inquiring about their well being. It is worth mentioning that I landed the second job by the following networking religiously. In those days, I was working in an engineering college in Rhi Bhoi, Meghalaya. One day, one of my friends from M.Tech days called me and asked me that if I could come for an interview in his college at Guwahati, Assam. I went there and appeared the interview. During the interview, I could see that they were facing a shortage of faculty. They offered me the post. I assured them to join as early as possible because I had to wrap up things in Meghalaya. Had I not maintained the relationships with those guys, they would not have remembered me and let alone called me. The most important thing is the information regarding any such vacancy and a small reference to push your case. When you have a reference, the employers become relaxed because they know that the person will get along well with the flock without much of a fuss.

Though online networking by various social media platforms looks artificial & devoid of any emotions, it peculiarly does the job. It has become the new normal of modern time. That is why we see a lot of people going for personal branding these days in social media. For professionals, the best networking site is LinkedIn. This is where you will find the right professionals in your field. Even, hiring managers hang around and check profiles of job seekers before the interviews. Therefore, one should be very serious about his profile image online.

Telling Your Story on LinkedIn

Now, we come to the main point of the article. Since the dawn of civilization, humans have been using stories as a medium of communication. It helps to transfer the age-old knowledge from one generation to another in an easy way. The stories stay in the minds of the listeners for the whole lives. People draw important lessons from the stories in the time of need.

As the stories are so powerful, one can utilize the power of storytelling to set up a digital image through various social media platforms according to their needs. These stories will be easy to remember and many people may associate with you on emotional grounds also. For example, if you watch television ads, you can see that every ad tells a story. The ads try to stoke your emotions for better delivery of their contents.

For professional seeking jobs, one should consider LinkedIn profile seriously. These profiles are like personal marketing ads. In the case of LinkedIn, you have these various sections while setting up the profile such as intro, about, featured posts, background, work experience, education, license & certification, volunteer experience, skills, accomplishment, additional information, and supported language. If you observe, the sections look similar to that of a resume.

Introduction or intro

In this section, you get to fill up your name, a headline, or tagline about you, current position, location, and industry. Out of these, one should put tag line or headline carefully because it will be highlighted all the time in your profile. For example, you are a financial intern fresh out of Commerce College, and if someone searches in LinkedIn for financial interns, your tag line should be such that it should be discoverable. Therefore, before putting something in the tagline, you verify your tag line has certain keywords which are searchable by the LinkedIn algorithm. In the rest of the things, there is nothing much to do.

About

This section can be used for the personal branding in 2000 words which is more than enough. The section should answer these questions to set up the story.

(1) Who you are?

(2) What is your background?

(3) What do you enjoy?

(4) What does stimulate you?

If you are answering these questions, you have successfully set up a story about yourself. Other important things to be considered in the narrative are searchable keywords, less usage of filler words, and small paragraphs. This narrative should be sharp to the point and should be able to hook up the readers like you are talking to them.

Featured Posts

Here, you can show some profile posts that help to push your story. These posts should be well crafted with the questions (discussed in the previous section) with answers in the post. For example, you are an engineering graduate, you can show the world that how passionate you are about a particular engineering problem. You can have your video or image post while engaging with such a problem during your college days.

Background

Background includes sections like work experience, education, license & certification, and volunteer experience. For that matter, you have to keep updating throughout your educational career to fill up these sections because work experience, education, license & certification, and volunteer experience cannot be earned in a day. You have to devote time in this regard. The information should be authentic. Read More:

Skills

In the skills section, you are to include hard skills or transferable skills which are measurable. Many people write about soft skills like a team player, good communicator, motivator, etc. in the section which are not at all measurable. However, soft skills will be helpful while appearing in an interview. It can be a deciding factor in interviews with the same caliber of people having the same hard skill sets. Read More: Soft skills & hard skills.

Accomplishments

In this section, one can include his or her accomplishment which is relevant to the field.

Additional Information

Many people do not know that one can get recommendations via LinkedIn. This feature helps one to get a recommendation. Recommendation from relevant people does help to get noticed.

Supported Language

If you read and write multiple languages, this is a positive thing. I have seen some people got recruited only for knowing a language. Sometimes, companies have local area-wise expansion plans & targets.

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Sunday, February 7, 2021

Personal Branding for Job Interviews : Techniques ( T & P Series on Wednesdays: 11)

(Photo credits: pexels.com)

Personal branding is a process by which one can market himself. It is extremely important for the fresh graduates applying for various job interviews. You may think that how I can be a brand. I am just a person with a degree. This is not the case. You already have a brand of yourself. It only needs to be polished and managed.

Every day, we use different products. These products are from different brands. A brand offers a promise of a certain quality or standard at a certain price point. These brands could be either budget-friendly or luxury. You can have a nice budget-friendly Titan watch or you may like to wear a Rolex watch that stands out among most of the other brands. The same is with us also. We need to behave ourselves as a business of one which has a specific brand. It offers certain value-added services to the employers as the clients. This is called personal branding. Personal branding imparts value.

A fresh graduate wants to be recruited as early as possible right after college. On the opposite, the employers are like shoppers. They want to pick up the right talent who can solve their problems in the company. Besides, they want a return on the investment (ROI) as the salary & overhead. Therefore, one should look worthy of investment to get hired. In the job market, personal branding helps you to stand out. It systematically showcases your skills and worth. Besides, it helps to set up your narrative to the world. When you do not have a brand to lean on, you are just a commodity.

As per career experts, when you become a commodity in the job market, you lose your value. As a result, you get less pay because a hundred others like you can offer the same service at a lesser cost. On the other hand, when one gets some experience, he gets high pay. This means that the experience imparts value to his branding. This is nothing but value addition. Most of the time, we forget about value addition which needs to be done often. We stop learning and keep on repeating. As a result, the brand value gets stagnated and is replaced by the new blood in the job market. Back in the day, IBM used to maintain data on employees ' skills. The management noticed that in each department, there were people with the same skill sets. They came to a conclusion that these employees could be rerouted or transferred from low work department to the ones under a heavy burden. This infers that the employees with the same redundant skill sets are an easy victim.

A vast majority of college students in India are not aware of personal branding. After college, the graduates undergo struggles. Eventually, some of them learn these life lessons by the hit and trial method and the rest continue with the usual way. In the process, one loses his /her valuable time. The good news is that one can develop his/ her brand while undergoing education in college. It needs only some careful considerations on the part of the students.

Soft skills & hard skills

Soft skills and hard skills take time to develop. Rather, it is an ongoing process. One cannot develop these skills overnight. There should be a conscious approach right from the beginning of college life. Nonetheless, students show little interest in skill development even if the consequences are known to them. By the time, they reach the final year, it is almost late. One should remember the old saying “time and tide waits for none”.

Soft skills

Soft skills are those skills that cannot be quantified but proved. Some of the must-have soft skills in young graduates are communication skills, adaptability, teamwork, leadership, problem solving, critical thinking, etc. If you observe the skills, there is no way to measure them. But you can prove them during your interactions with the employers. You can read more about it here.

Communication

Communication is the most important and at the same time is the most overlooked among all the soft skills. One should take steps to improve communication skills most preferably in English. Companies or organizations looking for good communication skills in candidates. As a non-native speaker, we all face problem while communicating in English even though we are proficient in writing. We have accent and fluency issues. Whether we like it or not, we have to master the art of speaking in English for better job prospects. Some of the best ways could be talking with your peers, taking public speaking courses, and recording yourself while speaking on various topics. These activities help to overcome shyness. I use a special technique. This is called an audio diary. Every day, I make an audio recording of daily activities before going to sleep at night. Initially, I included my daily activities and later on, I started putting some of the important daily news. You can read more about it here.

Adaptability

Adaptability means flexibility in a candidate. Why is it so important? Well, the world is changing at an unprecedented speed. Technology in every sphere changes in a blink of an eye. So, the way of doing business also keeps changing in tandem with ever-changing technology. Somehow, the fresh graduates need to keep themselves trendy. For that matter, one can keep himself updated with the latest knowledge in the field. Suppose, you are a computer science student, you have to have a grip on the latest technologies such as AI, Machine learning, blockchain, etc. In simple words, if there is something new coming out, one should learn it by attending courses, workshops, and conferences. It shows your adaptability to the changing needs. Twenty years ago, civil engineers used to draft layouts by hand. Now a day, they do it with CAD-based drafting software. Now, if a fresh civil engineering graduate appears for a job interview without the slightest idea about CAD-based techniques, he would look like a caveman. Nobody likes to have a relic in office. It is bad for business. You can read more about it here.

Teamwork and leadership

Modern company culture is all about teamwork. One-man shows are nonexistent these days. In the current set up, a close-knit team is allotted with a project. The team may consist of strategist, technical experts, financial analysts, business analysts, marketing and salespeople as per job requirement. To lead this team, there will be a leader who will be a pretty experienced person in that business having a square idea in all directions. Therefore, the fresh graduates must understand the core idea of team play. A team player is a valuable team member who contributes constructive suggestions and carries out duties assigned to him diligently.

As a fresh graduate, one should show himself as a good team player. How can he do so? My advice is that one should engage in some kind of college activities such as training and placement cell, student activity cell, entrepreneurship cell, etc. These activities will give him the much-needed teamwork experience. Then, one can work up the ladder to be a good leader in the team. One should keep in mind that one should himself as a leader in a team. It is better to be elected by the team as the chosen one. You can read more about it here.

Problem-solving

Businesses run into problems in production, distribution, marketing, sales, and whatnot. They need people who can go to the bottom to find out the root cause and provide a unique solution. Problem-solving is a rare talent. Such people do not go out of work ever. How can one be a good problem solver? You have to be an expert. As a fresh graduate, you have to have a commanding knowledge of your subjects. Then, only you can see through which others have overlooked or skipped while finding a solution to a problem. You can read more about it here.

Critical thinking

Critical thinking is widely exercised in western education systems. It helps people to be creative. A person can have critical thinking about a topic when he knows about it very minutely. For example, you have two systems A and B and you are asked to find the best. Then, you have to study both the systems and observe minute intricacies before concluding. Once critical thinking develops in one’s mind, one can create something new. To develop creative thinking, one can take part in various competitions of their field such as Hackathon in the case of engineering students. You can read more about it here.

Hard skills

Hard skills are measurable such as project management, financial management, project planning, sales and marketing, business analysis, etc. It is earned through hands-on experience. For example, you work in a research institute and are handling a project on a particular topic for many years. In the process, you have become a highly skilled person in that topic. In this case, your research activities & project handling experience including planning & financial activities are hard skills. You can read more about it here.

Resume

A resume can be called the personal marketing brochure. It lists the candidate’s bio-data, skills, hobbies, interests and industrial experience, etc. The resume should be written carefully as per the job description on a single page. Many students submit a ‘copy-paste’ type resume by changing the name only. These resumes look redundant and don’t attract much attention. Generally, employers take 3 to 6 seconds to read a resume and form an opinion about the candidate. If you set the image right at the beginning, you have some advantages already over others which is a great thing. Therefore, it should be viewed as a tool that can effectively push one’s branding if crafted properly. You can read more about it here.

Networking

People underestimate the power of networking. Most of the time, industries have vacancies which they do not advertise and recruit on a referral basis. Getting the information about such vacancies and having the reference from your peers can be a big thing. This means that you already have goodwill before appearing for the job interview.

One can network with people meeting them personally or via online mode by various online platforms suppose Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In, etc. The easiest way to network is by being part of an alumni association to connect with the members. Generally, alumni keep a soft corner for their juniors. They seem to be eager to help out the juniors in their modest way. Now a day, networking through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In, etc. is on the rise. Job aspirants can maintain a healthy social media presence. The social media profiles should be professional. One can build a network by sharing, commenting, and healthily tagging the contents without any controversy for a few hours in a month. You can read more about it here.