Kristen Jacoway

Are you struggling to figure out how to best leverage social media into your job search marketing plan? My upcoming book, "I'm Job Searching, Now What???" will delve into using social media as one of the multiple strategies in your job search. I wanted to touch on a couple of ways you might use social media in your job search with Twitter. photo credit: woodleywonderworks LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Jigsaw, etc. all provide a great research platform. I use LinkedIn many times when I'm researching a company because not only does it give me the company information, key statistics, news articles, etc., but it also provides me information about with whom I'm connected. I use this information to see if the company and my connections within the company are on Twitter. If they are, I will begin to follow them. Why? I may be able to get a sense of company culture, job postings that... (more)

How to Create an Inbound Link to Your Website for SEO

I have to admit--I'm hooked on Website Grader by HubSpot (www. websitegrader. com). The information I get on optimizing my website is pretty cool. I had never configured a 301 redirect (so if someone types careerdesigncoach.com instead of www.careerdesigncoach.com, they end up on my website and not get an error message) until I submitted my website for a grade. For a free website, the advice you receive on optimizing your website is pretty fantastic! One of the items they grade are your inbound links to your website. I learned the importance of this in my certification as an Onl... (more)

Trends in Green Job Market

The chart you see was published last week from Indeed.com and demonstrates the incredible surge of "green" or "sustainability" jobs. From 2005 - 2009, there has been a greater than 600% increase in these types of job. Interestingly, prior to July 2005, Indeed shows that these type of job postings were not available. Click to read my previous blog post on "A Future Trend in the Job Market" for resources and potential training initiatives for these types of positions. Click the "Sustainability Jobs" link below to view the current listings Indeed has posted for Green / Sustainabilit... (more)

Exude Your Brand

Today’s “Exude Your Brand” is going to focus on fine-tuning your elevator pitch (how you introduce yourself in networking – online and in person) in fewer than 15 seconds. Why 15 seconds? When you are networking, you want to focus on engaging with other people, finding out more about them, how you might be able to provide them with a resource for a particular challenge, etc. Networking is all about giving. Therefore, the traditional sixty second elevator pitch shifts more focus on you. One of my colleagues, Susan Chritton of Pathways, found a great resource to keep your elevator... (more)

Branding Your Email Signature

One of my colleagues, Maria Duron, posted information on Facebook about Wisestamp. You can go to http://www.wisestamp.com and download a free version for your Firefox browser. At this writing, it is not supported on all email platforms, but is supported on many of the major platforms (i.e. Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL, Hotmail, Google Apps., etc. ). You can include links to your social media platforms where you are active (they have 40+ social media platforms) and IM profiles. Also, you can enter your blog’s RSS feed. As you see below, my signature includes the four social media platf... (more)