Smartlife

You shouldn’t outsource your social networking, says Penelope Trunk, even partially. She should know: not only have her columns and blog become popular sources of career advice, but she’s written a book, launched a startup, and built a personal network that has helped her succeed.

Social Networking is a Must

“Saying that networking is time-consuming is totally ridiculous — you never hear someone say that I don’t have time to manage my money.” Without a network, Trunk says that you’re unemployable. That said, she does offer a recommendation…

Unlike everything else made of paper, business cards still make sense for the modern worker. Technology might be killing the newspaper, murdering the magazine, and forcing the evolution of pretty much every media into faster forms, but until we start implanting it into our heads, we’ll still need to tell people how to find us later. Even the flashiest web developer might meet the meat version of potential clients, and a business card speaks volumes of professionalism — while scrabbling for pens and paper in pocket lint shouts “amateur” in every language.…

Several months ago, Smartlife published a series of posts on personal branding. During that time, I was approached by a local professional who expressed interest in acquiring the services of a personal branding consultant, but needed some help in articulating what he needed. So I volunteered to produce a Statement of Work for him. Here’s how I did it:

1. I had him fill out the Career Vault. (I can’t believe no one’s offered me a billion to turn that into an app yet.)

Dan Schawbel is the expert on personal branding — not only is his new book out this month, but he’s also responsible for Personal Branding Magazine and Personal Branding TV. If you have questions about personal branding, Dan is the one you want to answer them.

Why do you need a personal brand?

On the surface, it can be hard to decide why you need to build a personal brand. We asked Dan why the average person needs to brand himself or herself, and…

It’s not hard to find a resume writer to work with — but if you’re interested in working with a writer who doesn’t work with a big resume service that requires a certain sameness in every resume they turn out, your search can be much longer. The resume writers below offer high-quality work and will devote the time necessary to make your resume stand out.

Decades ago, people didn’t talk about personal branding. If you wanted to think about how you could advance in your career back then, you focused on the benefits that you could provide to your company. These days, though, focusing on what you can do for the company won’t get you ahead. Instead, you need to build a personal brand. You need to package yourself so that you can take advantage of each and every opportunity that comes your way.