Happy Mother’s Day and Coping with Coronavirus

Brand Career Management Newsletter – May 2020

Hello Everyone,

So much has happened since our last newsletter and we have all been affected by Coronavirus in some way. I hope that you are healthy and safe as you read this. We wish you and your families the best during these tough times. Just so you know, Brand Career Management is operating on a virtual-only basis, but we are still open and offering career assistance and webinars. Please let me know if you need any career services.

Thanks to everyone who participated in our event to celebrate International Women’s Day in early March. 7 Things to Bolster Your Career that You May Have Never Thought of, hosted a virtual panel of career experts offering unique tips for women by women (I will have a copy of the recording on my website soon). It was highly attended with amazing energy from the attendees and the panelists. In fact, it went so well, we plan to do something similar next March.

Usually, in May we run a topic that is focused on mothers and careers but in light of our current state of affairs, it seemed necessary to change that tradition. Instead, this issue is devoted to coping during Coronavirus. The articles are focused on handling job searches in this new normal and the LinkedIn Tip of the Month mentions three ways you can use the platform to identify contacts and expand your network.

Finally, we would like to wish everyone who feels like a mom a Happy Mother’s Day!

Stay safe and germ-free,

Paula

P.S. Please forward this to a friend, if you like what I have to share. Anyone can sign up for the Brand Career Management Newsletter by going to the bottom of the home page on BrandCareerManagement.com.

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LINKED IN – TIP OF THE MONTH

Maybe you have a little more time on your hands these days? Or maybe you’ve been deemed essential and are busier than ever seeking resources for your work? Maybe you are in job search mode? Regardless of your current situation, you may need to seek out certain people right now and it never hurts to grow your network. LinkedIn is a great way to accomplish these tasks and I’ll suggest three easy ways to get started.

1) Search Alumni Pages – These pages offer incredible data, but most people don’t know they exist. Take a moment to see for yourself. Access this feature by going to your school’s LinkedIn page (most schools have a page as do most large companies). You can search for it by name or just click on the school listing on your own profile (for this to work, your alma mater must be included in the education section of your profile).

When you land on the school page, on the left you will see some options. Click on the word Alumni and then you can search by keyword and filter by year of graduation. For example, I can see that there are 28,000+ alumni from the University of Baltimore on LinkedIn. When I search for the words “career counselor” and limit the years of graduation from 1996-2001, it narrows down to 4007 names. I can see where these people live by city, where they work by company name, their role, what they studied, what they are skilled at and how we are connected. Pretty powerful, right? Think of a way you could reach out to fellow alumnus to connect with someone in your industry or offer a resource.

2) Play with the Advanced Search Filters – Besides typing a name in the main search bar at the top left of each page, you can also run advanced searches using filters. To access filters, first run one search for a person, and then you can select the words All Filters to access the full selection. Within the People section, you can filter by many things. Some of these include degree of connection, location, current/past company, industry, first name, last name, title, and more. This can be useful if you are in job search or sales and want to track down a specific level of employee in a targeted industry. For example, you could search for all presidents and CEOs of healthcare companies located in California.

3) Review LinkedIn Suggestions – The third way to grow your network is the most passive but a good place to start if you are not sure where to begin. You can access the people LinkedIn suggests as possible connections for you. The system guesses based on the data in your profile and how you might be connected to others through common connections (people, employers, and schools). The more data you share in your profile, the more likely LinkedIn will make appropriate suggestions.

To find where this information rests, click on My Network on the main menu bar. Underneath the invitations waiting for you, LinkedIn will give suggestions of people you may know. If you see someone who you want to connect with, don’t click on the word Connect here (because a generic invitation will automatically be sent). Click on the person’s face or name to go to their actual profile. At that point, click on Connect and you will have an opportunity to customize the invitation (this is a best practice on LinkedIn). I wrote about how to customize your invitations last May so if you need more help with that, read here.

By the way, soon there will be a way to access all of the past BCM LinkedIn Tips of the Month on my website. Stay tuned (and thanks to Elisabeth Sanders-Park for the idea).

USEFUL ARTICLES WITH LINKS

The posts below will provide tips, advice, and resources on job search and industry research during Coronavirus.

As early as March, a few folks started writing about job search during COVID -19 and offered some very useful tips. My trusted colleague Virginia Franco shares tips as does Jessica Leigh Dow on ThriveGlobal.com

Dr. John Sullivan weighs in with ten ways that job search has changed forever. I appreciate his insightful tips for these times (# 1, 3, 4, 8, 9, and 10) but I think that some of his tips (2, 5, and 6) are true for standing out at any time.

The National Career Development Association has a good page of resources related to career development and job search under Coronavirus and another trusted career expert, Hannah Morgan, offers some innovative job search tactics and resources in her Summary Sunday.

For current labor market information, David Chouinard, Co-Founder of Candor has created an ongoing list of who’s hiring, laying off, or in a hiring freeze and this post from IBISWorld.com shows how this pandemic is affecting hiring trends by industry for companies in the US, UK, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and Germany.

For my part, I have been involved in sharing some advice on job search during COVID-19. In March, I was interviewed by Jim Peacock of Peak Careers with other colleagues for Career Advice in a Quarantine, and later on, I was a guest on Karen Chopra’s COVIDCareers series talking about using LinkedIn to identify new contacts, customize an invitation and search for job postings. In April, I wrote this post about job search in the time of Coronavirus.

EVENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

Weekly help during Coronavirus: My compassionate and well-qualified career colleague, Karen Chopra, is holding a support group for people during this time. COVIDCareers runs every Wednesday at 3:30 EST on Zoom for about 40 minutes. Each week, Karen starts with a brief stress relief activity, followed by a discussion of a career-related topic. No need to sign up just at the event start time.

Rescheduling/Postponements: As you can imagine, all in-person workshops for March were affected by the pandemic. Thankfully, I was able to present to St. Johns College and the University of Baltimore students and alumni on LinkedIn in April by webinar. The March 30th event on salary negotiation at the Broadneck Library Branch of the Anne Arundel County Public Library System will be rescheduled once the libraries open back up.

Happy Anniversary BCM! June will mark the 5th anniversary of Brand Career Management (BCM). I started BCM in 2011 but June 2015 was the beginning of BCM as a fulltime venture. To celebrate, BCM will hold a virtual event in June where I will interview a couple of colleagues who have also successfully ventured into self-employment to provide advice and inspiration to anyone thinking about starting their own business. More details to follow.

Paula Brand – Global Career Coach & Consultant | LinkedIn Expert | Speaker, Trainer, Facilitator |
Founder of Brand Career Management

 

Brand Career Management (BCM) helps professionals strategically manage their careers, apply effective job search techniques and leverage social media tools to secure their best career options with ease. We provide an array of career services designed to meet your current needs. Write to: paula@brandcareermanagement.com or call me at 443-254-8173.

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