Even if you are graduating with a degree in accounting or finance in a market where employers are battling for your talent or are in the early stages of your career being tempted with the next big move, that doesn’t mean you can slack off on continuing to build and strengthen your network.
During last week’s Power Skills live discussion with Point Road Group’s Alyssa Gelbard, FEI Engage subscribers received a detailed playbook for anyone looking to make sure their career skills remain fine tuned.
Below are some key takeaways from the live presentation.
You Have a Personal Brand
A lot of times people think of a brand as like a tagline, or it's one way that I have to show up online, but it's everything. It's who you are in-person, who you are online and it's being consistent.
So if I meet you virtually, or meet you in person or I see your LinkedIn profile, or see something that you post, or read an email, anything, there should be a consistency in who you are.
Power Skills Preview: The Friends and Family Network
Avoid the “Biggest” LinkedIn Mistake
Think about your profile. The top part of the real estate, your headshot and headline. That's the initial impression that you're making on somebody. You want to think of your profile in a couple ways. What's the impression that someone will have when they land on your profile, but what about even the step before?
You want to come up in search results. Make sure that you're filling out key sections in a way that's really informative. The biggest mistake across the board that people make, whether it's someone who's a student or a CFO or anything in between, is just [including a] title. This is your opportunity to say more about you. What you're interested in. For those of you who are just starting your career, maybe you've developed some early expertise or interests. You can add that there. Or maybe there's an industry focus that you have. So that's an opportunity to say something else.
Make Networking Work for You In a Post COVID World
How networking has changed since the pandemic is something that we talk about all the time with clients. For people who had some anxiety around networking before, COVID made it worse. Because we weren't around people and now everybody's more remote. We can't help it. Now how do you deal with it?
I think that the one of the positives of virtual is it helps with anxiety because you're less self-conscious. You're not seeing all of me. We just have a small view of somebody. I think if you know that you tend to get anxious, then at least do virtual conversations. So I think if you are an introvert, virtual can be really helpful, but don't rely on it a hundred percent.
Knowing if we're anxious and that sometimes it might come out in other ways, just being cognizant of it is half the battle. Because then we know, okay, I shouldn't do that.
It's not a nervous habit for me, but I talk with my hands a lot. But I know that on screen that can be really distracting. So I make sure to keep my hands lower. Sometimes I might even sit on one of them because I don't want to overdo it. So while that's not a sign of anxiety, but it's still something that I'm cognizant about on screen.
To access the full interview and sign up for future discussions, subscribe to FEI Engage today.