There are lots of ways to use the Internet as part of a job search. But as much of a leg up it can give you, there is a flip side to the Internet that also affects your job search – social networking sites. While most professionals regard LinkedIn as part of their professional life, many of them assume that things they have entered on other such websites are part of their personal life. Not so! Employers are as likely to look at your Facebook postings as they are to look at your resume. Once something is posted on the Internet it is public information available to anyone who is online and interested.

Probably the most valuable site for professionals, LinkedIn, can also be misused. Make sure your postings there have correct grammar and spelling and that your thoughts and responses are coherent. Prospective employers may see your profile as a sample of your writing. Don’t forget to proofread! Be sure to get several referrals on your LinkedIn Profile. These will be read and definitely make a difference.

Twitter is one of the most easily misused of these sites. With only 140 characters available for each message (known as tweets) many people are using it as a place to vent anger, joy, and random thoughts — frequently not completely thought of from a professional viewpoint. Would you want to have a potential employer read a tweet that you sent saying telling everyone that you can’t stand your boss or that you’re goofing off at work? Probably not a good idea.

Other social networking sites include MySpace, Plaxo, Squidoo, Ning, Eons and Meetup. There are a total of 153 social networking sites, according to Wikipedia, ranging from those of general interest to Geni.com (families, geneaology), researchGate (for scientific researchers), and Vampirefreaks (gothic and industrial subculture).

Follow me on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Your biography, resume, and LinkedIn profile provide the content that your family members will use to write your obituary.

What will yours say? Will it be the short one that says your name, where you grew up, the name of your high school, and the names of the family members who preceded you in heaven and who you left behind?

BIO, Resumes, LinkedIn Profile and Obituaries – Mirror What You Have Done with Your Life

In the United States and around the globe people are living longer and working longer. The Huffington Post reported results from a survey showing that 22% of Americans would rather die than retire without enough money. The Veterans Administration 2015 Economic Opportunity Report states that 1 out 2 or 53% separating Post-9/11 Veterans will face a period of unemployment upon transition. One study done by a prominent over 50 group reports that people ages 45-79 who experienced unemployment during the past five years are not currently working. People are living longer. My grandma passed away last year at the age of 101. If I live as long as she did I have another 50 years of living to enjoy. I want the next 50 years to fun and fruitful.

How many more years will you be working? Do you have enough money saved? Are your skills current and able to compete with people graduating college? As a coach one of the first assignments I give my clients is to work on their life mission statement. One of the questions on this assignment asks the person to write their obituary. The intent of the assignment is to get the person thinking about what they have accomplished and what untapped dreams they have left unfulfilled. It helps the person self reflect and see they still have time to turn their dreams into reality.

When I am writing a biography, resume, or LinkedIn profile for a client I gather the facts and it often takes several sessions to get the person to provide me the WOW of what they have done. Sometimes sadly there is no WOW. The person has done nothing out of the ordinary. They eat, breathe, and go to work to perform a task. This is the client that typically becomes rude, demeaning, and overly demanding after receiving a draft document. I have learned to understand that when a client becomes abusive they are operating from a place of fear and embarrassment. The client is embarrassed because the document or resume is a reflection of who/where they are now. It is an eye opener for the person and he or she doesn’t like what he or she is seeing. The client is operating from a place of fear because he is afraid he will not fulfill his dreams. He won’t get that dream job, officer program, or whatever it is that I am writing a resume or document.

Updating your bio, resume, and LinkedIn profile provides you the opportunity to see where you are on completing your goals. These documents also provide you the opportunity to see what you are doing that is above and beyond the ordinary. You will see the value you are providing your employer or clients. Your peers and future employer will see the value you provide.

Honestly assessing yourself and your accomplishments or lack of accomplishments is a step toward self actualization. It is the first step toward self improvement. We should never stop striving to improve the value we provide others. This may be through volunteer work in the community, improving systems and processes in the workplace or paying to attend career enhancing classes.

In the Marine Corps we used a term “ROAD” when talking about someone who did nothing but drink coffee, breathe and chew the fat all day. “ROAD” means retired on active duty. Don’t be a “ROAD” in your workplace and life. Take the steps necessary to LIVE! If you are a “ROAD” don’t be mad when you transition from the military and can’t get a job or jumpstart a new career. If you are a civilian don’t be mad when you are the first person let go during lean times.

If you had to write your obituary right now what would it say? Would you be left staring at a blank sheet of paper? Don’t leave your family members the difficult task of writing your obituary. Make the task easy by doing something with your life. Take control of your life. If you don’t know how to stand out from the pack and shine then seek out a coach. A coach will help you design a strategy and also recognize that you probably have done something WOW you just are dismissing it as nothing. As a coach I am often called upon to help a client design a career track within his current company. The first step is preparing the resume so when it is time for the conversation with the boss or owner of the company he can show what he has accomplished and how it has benefited the company. We then outline what he would like to do for the company and a timeline for completing the transition for starting a new department or division within the company that he will lead. Depending upon how the conversation goes my client knows whether he will stay with the company or seek employment elsewhere.

Your LinkedIn profile should also be selling you and not read as an obituary. When you have a great LinkedIn profile you will be contacted routinely by hiring managers and asked if you would like to leave your current position. If you are not getting these phone calls or emails you need or want to take time to self reflect on your key accomplishments and rewrite your profile or contact me.

Your biography, resume, and LinkedIn profile should sell you. They sell the value you provide to the employer or your customers and clients. If you don’t like what you are reading get mad and take action to change things. Your obituary does not have to boring and bland. Get out and enjoy life while providing value to your employer, customers, clients, and community so you have a bio, resume, LinkedIn profile and obituary that will make others say “WOW”.

Choose to be somebody! Choose to live! Choose to provide value to others.

There are numerous small businesses, organizations and groups attempting to cultivate an online audience. Many of these business owners are using social networking sites, such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, to develop an online following.

For now, setting up pages and business accounts on these sites is free and it’s relatively easy. If membership and visibility on social networking sites is a priority – friends and contacts are also important success.

Like any social activity, participation in the conversation is critical to winning friends and becoming popular. So, the more relevant “chatter” posted on social networking accounts, the more interest in your company, organization or group. Posting on regular basis is important to nourishing the contacts you already have.

It is possible to expand friend popularity on social networking sites through some proven methods, too. These days there is a lot of cross-pollination between email contact lists and social networking sites.

Q. What is Friend Seeding?

A. It’s geek speak for increasing the number of friends and associates on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Q. What is the most effective way to do friend seeding on Facebook?

A. The primary way to obtain more friends is to allow Facebook to view all email accounts and contacts associated with that account. If you have several email accounts and one is reserved for business correspondence, use the business email. For business pages, generate friends from other employees’ email addresses. Facebook will automatically generate friend requests from you through the email contact lists. Presently Facebook is set up to work with Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, Comcast, SBCGlobal.net, Verizon.net and even Skype. It will also work with some other email services.

In addition, Facebook encourages options, called ‘Other Tools.’ It will crawl resident email programs on the computer such as Eudora or Apple Mail. Facebook will also look for contacts already on Facebook, from past high schools, colleges and universities, and past and present employers. Facebook has stored this information in your individual or company profile, so it is simply matching you to others with parallel information listed. Typing an email address into Facebook’s search bar is one of the simplest ways to find someone.

Q. What is the most effective way to do friend seeding on Twitter?

A. Twitter has developed a different spin on friend seeding then Facebook. You can view suggestions from Twitter. In theses selections, Twitter attempts to link you to friends of people following you. On Twitter, you may also browse interests by large categories and get more specific with keyword searches. Find Friends will search email contacts and generate automatic messages to those contacts inviting them to follow you on Twitter. Find Friends will also search a LinkedIn account if it exists. Twitter, like Facebook allows you to expand followers by typing in their email address.

Q. What are some insights on expanding contacts on LinkedIn.com?

A. LinkedIn allows members to import contacts from the email account connected to the LinkedIn account. Business referrals are a common practice. LinkedIn encourages this sort of business networking and offers a forum for it online. LinkedIn allows the member to invite connections from his or her own network by contacting others through existing connections. LinkedIn Groups are also a great way to expand contact lists. Join LinkedIn Groups related to a profession or industry and start actively conversing and posting to groups instead of just ‘lurking.’ Often members of the group will become interested in what you’re saying and want to be connected to you.

Q. Are there other ways to find friends besides private email contact lists?

A. Yes. If you have a solid email list developed for your company, try uploading this list to Facebook or Twitter. Check individual sites for proper file formats. Using an effective email list of clients, business contacts, and prospects will be quite helpful in expanding business in the world of social media. These lists can be uploaded to sites and automatic friend or contact requests will be sent.

It’s pretty evident that there are plenty of ways to expand friend and contact lists on social networking websites. If friend seeding is done properly, a business or organization’s presence on these major social networking sites can be increased dramatically.

I attended a great Tech Breakfast Club event this morning near my home in Northern Virginia, in which three panelists from local B2B technology companies shared the ROI gained and lessons learned by using social media to engage prospects and customers online.

SafeNet (3rd largest provider of information security solutions in the world)

ROI: $1 million in revenue last year directly from LinkedIn Information Security Community, with 4 members of SafeNet marketing team, systems engineering, product management each spending just a few hours a week interacting with and managing the community.

Holger Schulze (@HolgerSchulze), Director of Product Marketing and Marketing Operations, and founder of the InfoSec Community on LinkedIn, shared how he started the LinkedIn group on his own as an experiment, only to see it grow to 50,000+ members in just over 2 years.

The company carefully measures ROI by tracking the original sources of leads and sales conversion via:

• Marketbright marketing automation software

• Systems engineers and product managers reporting on which members they directly connect with SafeNet sales for follow up (upon member request)

• Salesforce.com

An important note is that Holger also started a company LinkedIn group for SafeNet at the same time he started the InfoSec group, and the SafeNet group barely attracted any members so it was turned into an internal company group for employees. This is really valuable, as it confirms that people aren’t going to join a group to hear about your company, but will actively join groups that focus on specific topics that interest them.

Vocus (Public relations software provider)

ROI: $500K in revenue last year directly from social media

Frank Strong (@Frank_Strong, @Vocus), Director of Public Relations, shared how Vocus has shifted its focus and made its marketing and PR teams into a type of in-house publishing company in order to consistently produce content in a variety of formats that PR professionals find highly valuable and want more of.

Social media is used to support their strong content strategy by effectively distributing it to interested followers who then share it with others, but Vocus is very careful to share just as much content that wasn’t created by them as it does its own. They discovered through trial and error that focusing too much on their own content turned prospects and customers off and eventually found the right balance.

Vocus primarily uses Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn as those are the most popular social media venues used by their audiences. To measure ROI, the company uses its own products to track the original sources of leads, and Salesforce.com to track sales conversions.

CompTIA (Non-profit trade association advancing the global interests of information technology professionals and companies)

ROI: Significant increase in new memberships and renewals

Susan Cato (@susancato, @CompTIA), Senior Director of Marketing, Web and New Media, shared how over the past 2 years the organization has focused on a two-part social media strategy. First, like Vocus, the marketing team functions much like publishers, with an editorial calendar 6 month plan that provides the framework and details each team member needs to effectively and efficiently create content. This isn’t a rigid plan though, Susan noted that flexibility is key as you discover what types of content are successful (and not) and make appropriate changes. Also, inserting content on-the-fly to stay timely is important in order to stay on top of big industry news that impacts members.

The second part of the organization’s strategy has been to create and nurture several online communities, each with a very specific niche focus. Although it’s clear each community is a part of CompTIA, each is branded separately, has its own online presence, and is open to anyone, not just CompTIA members. For example, SoftwareCEO is one of their online communities specifically for software company entrepreneurs and executives. These communities have been very successful for attracting new members that they otherwise wouldn’t have, as well as retaining current members who have the opportunity to connect and interact with peers.

The organization created over 60 LinkedIn groups to support each of its online communities as well as for the organization itself. They also use Twitter and Facebook.

CompTIA uses website analytics software and marketing automation software to track the original sources of leads, and CRM software to track sales conversions.

Lessons Learned by 3 Panelists

1. Social media must be ingrained in a company’s culture, it’s not just a strategy

2. Social media won’t be effective without a very strong content strategy

3. Before venturing into social media:

a. Have a plan for how to deal with people making negative comments about you, company, or organization so everyone knows who will respond and what actions to take (and not take). Be ready, be quick to respond, and be genuine but recognize there will always be people that will never be happy no matter what you do. Deal with the “haters” respectfully but focus on those who are positive in order to establish and build a following.

b. Train employees taking part on behalf of company on how to use tools (Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, blogs, etc.) and guidelines for type of content to share and how to interact with prospects, customers, partners, and others

4. When providing content to several different communities, offer exclusive access to some content to one community for a limited time, and exclusive access to other content to another community for a limited time, in order to achieve higher perceived value and keep people engaged long-term

5. “Happy accidents” are common when experimenting with social media, don’t be afraid to try and test new ideas

The Tech Breakfast Club are regional quarterly meeting of B2B high-tech public relations and marketing executives hosted by tech PR firm TechImage.

Social media is the big buzz. We’ve been swept up in the currents of Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter. We can allow the currents to carry us to new connections, new business, and massive reach and visibility. Or we can get caught in the riptides that pull our reputation under.

The biggest mistake in social media is not realizing that social media is a presentation. That’s right.

Success in social media follows the rules of effective presentation skills.

Mistake one: No purpose or focus. What is your objective? Why are you using social media? What are you trying to accomplish? To make new contacts? To promote yourself or your business? To research? To reach new markets? To establish yourself as a thought leader? To find a job?

Mistake two: No strategy How will you use social media? How often? Which forms? Frequent communication is better than an occasional posting.

Mistake three: Speaking to the wrong audience Who is your audience? Are you simply collecting names or are you more targeted? LinkedIn is more business-like and professional. Facebook is more social and casual. For example, if you’re serious about job hunting you’ll want to use LinkedIn as well as Facebook.

Mistake four: Projecting the wrong image. I’ve read posts about working on a boring project for a client. Maybe you know your client isn’t one of your connections. But what about the people who referred you? What are you saying to them? People tend to let their guard down more easily on Facebook. It’s inappropriate to talk about a nasty divorce, problem kids, or drunken driving. This is not a private conversation. Worse yet, is to use another’s name in a survey. Ex. “Do you think Jane Doe is good looking?” People fail to realize that they are always on stage. Mistakes after a live presentation can be forgotten. In social media, your blunders live forever on the internet.

Mistake five: No real message. What do you plan to say? How will you say it? What is the style and tone of your communication? Nobody is really interested that you’re watching TV. This kind of banter is content free. Provide value and you’ll attract more followers. New blog entries, an interesting statistic, a link to an article or even a thought-provoking quote or book reference will make you more interesting.

Mistake six: Hard selling: Nobody likes a presenter who sells from the platform. It’s no different in social media. If every post is an ad for your products and services you’ll soon be disconnected. Let people know about your accomplishments but don’t tell them to buy.

Mistake seven: Not building relationships. Many people put up a profile and never visit the site. Maximize your presence by updating your profile to let people know what you’re doing. Ask questions. Answer questions to establish your expertise. Invite people to connect with you and then stay in touch. Be a resource. Connect others. A good presenter knows how to create a relationship with the audience.

Nothing will ever replace face-to-face communication. But meeting in person can be time consuming. Social media can be a phenomenal platform to build a reputation and to communicate with the world.

Just be sure you know how to present yourself, your message and your value.

When building a small business you want to keep your costs in check. Small businesses usually can’t afford large marketing budgets like the bigger brands have, so you need to get more creative to reflect a larger profit. Many entrepreneurs get eager to try everything, especially if well funded from the start. Here are 6 genius ideas for any small businesses owner or online marketer.

1.) Emailing your Business Contacts: OK at first glance this might seem obvious, however, many people have no idea about the tremendously powerful databases they currently have waiting for them. Excited yet??? You should be!! Did you know that you can save your contact databases from Google and LinkedIn, among others? Here is how you do it – First, log into your Gmail account, then click on the Gmail drop-down menu you will see to the left and access your contacts. First, click on your contact page, then export your data.

Now with a complete database of your contacts, you can easily upload the complete contact data, including email, into most any professional email marketing software sending platform to manage and send your emails to your lists. This is an absolutely fantastic way to gain an almost immediate response. For downloading a copy of your LinkedIn connections you can log into your LinkedIn account, then click on “my network” then “connections”, then click on the gear icon. From here, you can now download a full copy of all your contact, emails, and more. It is highly recommended you use a can-spam compliant email marketing software for sending. It will improve your campaign’s response, and it will in many cases more than pay for itself many times over. Many email marketing companies will not allow many complaints or removes so it is recommended using proper email marketing software that allows you to grow. Remember following up with past clients is one of the best ways to gain sales.

2.) LinkedIn Networking: It’s true, LinkedIn is great for generating new contacts. LinkedIn is the world’s largest business network and fastest growing. A recent statistic has shown 80% of LinkedIn members want to connect with companies because those connections provide them opportunities to enhance their professional decision-making.

3.) Publish Content: Yes, writing and publishing content is without a doubt one of the most important marketing strategies you can have. Do some research and start writing about your revolutionary ideas, products, and/or services with passion. If you write it yourself it’s also free! Remember to provide good content, and don’t just write a sales pitch! It’s important to provide great quality information that helps people and keeps them engaged in the content. Good article content gives back and your royalties are all the website traffic and sales you can receive as a result of your publication. Good places to submit your content are social media sites like LinkedIn and article sites like EzineArticles.com to mention a few. A quick Google search can open up more results tailored to your specific needs.

4.) Publish How-to Instructional Videos: Video Content and Instructional. How-to YouTube or similar educational videos on your products or services can work amazingly well. Remember you don’t need to be Steven Spielberg it doesn’t need to be a major production, just the raw information in a presenting way can work great. A quick Google search for free desktop, and/or webcam recording software can provide you a good headstart.

5.) Give Away Free Stuff: We all know the internet is great for free offers. Hands down one of the most powerful marketing techniques available for customer acquisition is giving away a free products or service, like software services, or free US data lists. When someone receives something for free they sometimes feel obligated to buy more and this is good for your business. With the continuing rise of social media, more companies are now concerned with “word of mouth” marketing and reputation management services are getting more and more attention. Getting your customers to say nice things about you is, according to some research more effective than traditional advertising and it’s almost always cheaper. A more modern solution for online reputation management is hiring a reputation management company that offers a guarantee to produce web content on all the positive aspects of your business, product, or service.

6.) Create Blog and Comment on blogs: When posting comments on blogs, make sure their meaningful comments, and not always just self-serving. Posting great comments can open up real discussions and meaningful communication on relevant topics pertaining to your business. Many marketing blogs encourage you to post your website links and comments. The most important factor is to be relevant and informative.

Alumni football games and the winter holidays are fast approaching and many people are traveling home to visit with classmates, family and friends in the next few months. If you are job hunting, these people are a source of referrals for job leads. You will want to have a contact card ready to share. This is not the time to write your information down on a scrap of paper and hope it is saved. A contact card is very similar to a business card. It shows you are a professional and are serious about promoting yourself. Listed below are the key elements you will want to be sure is on your card.

Key elements of your contact card:

Name – Use your full name or the name you use on LinkedIn. Hiring managers will search online for you by name. Ensure you are consistent with how you use your name online and keep it professional.

Degree(s) conferred – Right after your name list your degrees conferred, such as MD, JD, PhD, BS, AA etc.

LinkedIn URL – This will let people know they can find out more about you and your skills online. Place your LinkedIn URL on the line below your name. LinkedIn is a key tool for job hunting.

Phone Number – Do not use a work phone number. You want your card to be relevant after you leave the military or your present place of employment. I recommend you use your cell phone and not a home phone number. Your cell phone is always with you.

Physical Address: Placing your physical address is optional.

Email Address: You must have a professional email address. Do not use a work email or a school email. You want an address that you will have access to when you are no longer employed or attending college. Keep your email address sounding professional and don’t use addresses like “hotchickatyahoo.com” or “wildman226@gmail.com. Use a grown up email provider. Do not use Yahoo, Hotmail, or AOL. Upgrade your email to Gmail or use a personalized email that you can get when you purchase a domain name for a website or blog.

Leave the back of your contact card blank. Do not list your job title or your skills. You do not want to limit your marketability by having a limited list of skills or job titles. There is not room to list everything.

Military affiliation is an optional item. I recommend having one card that shows you are a Veteran and another that does not. If you are networking with military friendly companies then you would use the card that shows your military affiliation. Do not put your rank on your business card. This can cause someone to stereotype or discriminate against you based on rank and not look at your current education or skill sets.

Ensure your contact card is made out of a quality card stock. Do not attempt to print them off on your home computer. Use a font that is professional and large enough to be read. I do not recommend putting a picture on your card. Again, you do not want to be discriminated against because you are not the ideal weight, or have a hair color or a hair style that does not resonate with the hiring manager.

When you are attending alumni football homecomings, holiday parties and work functions don’t force your card upon anyone. If the person asks if you have a card, you will be ready. Also, when people ask what you are up to you can say you are job hunting and ask them to let anyone they know that may be hiring that you are looking. After you leave the event you can follow up with that person by sending a hand written note and include one or two contact cards.

The contact card is just one tool you should have in your job hunting toolbox. It only takes a person a few seconds to see you and your contact card and form an opinion. Ensure it represents you in a positive manner.

Losing a great employee is costly. Your company loses time, money, and the information stored in that person’s brain about how things work well and what to do next.

It’s clear that employee retention is a priority for you as a leader and for those working with people in your company, which is probably everyone within your company.

The time to start addressing retention of great employees is now. Here are 7 ways you can keep your best staff members and create a desirable place to work:

1. Start at onboarding. Help newly hired people know what is expected of them, including your standards of quality and customer service. Clarity of expectations makes it easier to succeed.

2. Keep your Impact Purpose visible. Talk about your Impact Purpose and keep talking about it at every meeting. People want to be part of something bigger than themselves.

3. Be willing to have your mind changed. It’s one thing to collect employee suggestions; it’s quite another to decide to act on them. When people feel heard and that they affecting things, they’ll be more fulfilled.

4. Be empathetic and make sure your managers understand the importance of that too. In a LinkedIn survey, 25% of employees left their company due to personal issues, like childcare or elderly parent care challenges or other family issues. By providing a willing ear, you may be able to find a solution while retaining your employee.

5. Be kind. Compassion goes a long way in the workplace. Treating people with respect is a hallmark of a great place to work. Being people-focused in this way will pay off for your company, and also contribute to you as a leader having a better experience at work and as a human being. Even Jeff Weiner, LinkedIn’s CEO, changed his hard-charging leadership to strongly focus on compassion. LinkedIn has grown to more than 250 million members and was acquired in 2016 for $26.2 billion.

6. Talk to people. One of the companies I know that has a significant impact even though they’re small is Askinosie Chocolate. Their CEO, Shawn Askinosie, does a regular gemba walk. Gemba is a Japanese word that means visiting the shop floor. He makes a point of talking with everyone. Your company may be too large to do that, but you can still talk to quite a few people, and make sure that your company’s management team do the same. This personal contact helps keep people engaged because they know you really care about them.

7. Share information. Open book management can be one method you can use to be transparent with employees. Some companies do regular weekly meetings to share financials, ongoing issues, and to discuss the future. Keeping people in the loop was #2 of the things employees indicated as most important to them. No one wants things done to them. They want to be part of it, to be informed.

Retaining good people requires less work than onboarding someone new. The Center for American Progress found that the average cost to replace an employee is 10-30% of their annual salary. Even if you’re feeling squeezed for time, making time for this will pay off.

People spend more than a third of their adult lives at work. They want that time to matter, to be fulfilling and satisfying. And more than ever, they are prepared to vote with their feet about where they choose to work.

Make employee relationships and retention one of your priorities as a leader. You won’t regret it.

As your small business grows and you to start to outsource parts of your operations, you may consider taking on a Virtual Assistant (VA) to assist with the ticking over of your social media activity. At such a time, rather than dish out your personal passwords willy-nilly, you can instead give and remove administrative access to your business accounts on Facebook and LinkedIn to your assistant at your pleasure.

While this is a very quick and easy process once you know how to do it, the links to do so are not always in the most logical places. This article will therefore help you add another administrator to your Facebook page; your Facebook group; your LinkedIn group; and your LinkedIn company profile.

Before we begin though, in order to be able to do any of these, you need to already be an administrator for the page or group in question. If you were the one to create the page or group, you will be an administrator by default; if you did not, you will need to added as an administrator to the page or group by someone who is.

I. Adding administrators to your Facebook page

1. Log in to Facebook and navigate to your business page.
2. In the top righthand corner, underneath the dark blue Facebook header ribbon, you will see a button that says “Edit page”. Underneath this, you will see a box headed “Admins” (this box is visible only to administrators, not to your fans. If you do not see this box, you are not an administrator and therefore will not be able to follow the remaining instructions.) Click “See all”, to the right of where it says “Admins”.
3. This will take you to a new page where you will see a list of current administrators for your Facebook page, with a blank space for you to add a new one. If you are Facebook friends with the administrator, you can simply type their name in the box. If you are not friends with them, you will need to enter the email address they used to create their Facebook account. People tend to have more than one email address now, so this is important to double-check with them!
4. Click “Save changes”. You will be prompted to enter your Facebook password.

II. Adding administrators to your Facebook group

1. Log in to Facebook and navigate to your group page.
2. In the top righthand corner underneath the dark blue Facebook header ribbon, you will see a button that says “Notifications” and a search box that says “Search group”. Underneath this, you will see a box headed “Members”. Click “See all”, to the right of where it says “Members”.

v

3. This will take you to a new page showing you a complete list of all the members of your Facebook group. To make anyone an administrator, all you have to do is click the “Make Admin” button to the right of the person’s name.
4. A pop-up window will appear, asking you to confirm that you want to make this person an admin.

III. Adding managers to your LinkedIn group

1. Navigate to your group in LinkedIn.
2. Immediately underneath your group name at the top of the page you will see the following tabs: Discussions, Members, Promotions, Jobs, Search, Manage, More. Click “Manage”.
3. On the left of the page you will see a long menu. Click “Participants”, almost halfway down.
4. Select the group member you’d like to make administrator and click “Change role”, then click “To Manager”.

IV. Adding administrators to your LinkedIn company profile

1. In order to add someone as an administrator, you must first be connected to them.
2. Navigate to your company page in LinkedIn
3. On the righthand side, above where you will see how many followers the company profile has, you will see a little blue button that says “Admin Tools”. Click it, then click “Edit”.
4. Ensure that “Company Page Admins” is set to “Designated Users Only”. If it’s not, set it.
5. Below that, you will see a section headed “Manage Admins”. In the text box just beneath that, start typing in the person’s name, and then select them from the names that appear.
6. Scroll back up to the top of the page and click “Publish”.

Easy peasy!

Think Outside the “Networking” Box

There are so many different ways to network today. Nowadays, you don’t have to post your executive resume bio online to get a job. The hidden job market is the best way to go about conducting a secret job search. By networking at professional events or through LinkedIn, you can find out about jobs you didn’t even know were available. Even volunteering or being involved in your community can lead to new opportunities, so being active can move your job search forward as well.

Be Careful When Using LinkedIn

You obviously want to use LinkedIn when searching for a new job. However, updating your setting first is crucial. If you don’t have your LinkedIn settings updated appropriately, your connections may be able to see every change you make. Chances are your co-workers, or even your bosses, may be included in your LinkedIn network. You definitely don’t want them to see your update, your resume, or profile to indicate you’re looking for a new job. When you’re working on your LinkedIn profile development, alter your settings to ensure the wrong people don’t see any changes you’ve made.

Strictly Confidential

It’s important that you keep things under wraps, so to speak, until you are ready to make the move. So you need to keep things confidential. As mentioned, the best executive resume writers know how to effectively make a resume confidential. By using the term “confidential applicant” instead of using your name, you’ll avoid showing up on your current employer’s search for a new candidate. Also, not using your company’s name anywhere on the resume is important. These are just a couple ways you can make your resume private, and a potential employer will understand why you’re doing it.

Don’t Use Company Time

This seems like a no-brainer but needs to be said. Job searches should not be done on company time. If your current boss finds out, there’s a chance you could be fired. And if your potential employer finds out you’re conducting your search on company time, they may think you’ll do the same to them and not offer you a job. Do yourself a favor and only send out your executive resume bio when you’re not on company time.

Professional Resume Services is here to help you conduct a confidential executive job search. We have the best executive resume writers to help you in this area, so you can feel confident sending in your resume to potential employers. Feel free to reach out to us at any time if you need other secrets to pulling off a confidential job search.