How big should my LinkedIn network be? How many Facebook friends do I need? How will I leverage all of this effort building my on-line presence into a new job opportunity or career when the time comes? We all know its possible, no one is “secure,” given the economy. The above are all reasonable questions, but all directionally wrong. As employers have come to grips with the next generations’ love affair with personal brand, employees, in particular executives, need to embrace the bullet-proof career plan. How good is your network? It’s only as good as the 2-3 key calls, emails or “Tweets” necessary to get you into the slipstream of great job opportunities.
How many of us have measured the value of our networks beyond their robustness? How many of us have sifted through the myriad of people we have accepted “net” links from and identified the critical few that can do something for us when the time comes?
(Enter the shameless plug: BusinessElite was designed not to create yet another electronic rolodex, but rather invite the very best professional manager talent into our community, and, with that leverage, attract the real corporate “talent brokers” who are looking for a more efficient and effective way of sourcing talent that matches their client’s job specification. We intend to provide our talent that very value by putting you in front of the best opportunities with the best recruiters creating a career network for talent that sustains and most importantly presents the opportunities relevant to your background and career trajectory. Exit shameless plug)
What else can you do to bullet-proof your career?
-Hire the best people you can for your team (yes, BusinessElite will work for you as a Talent and Hiring Manager-last shameless plug)–the best teams are the most lay-off resistant, no one cans the executive, even if the business is going away, who built a high-performance team. The company will make a role for you in the new world
-Never turn down a recruiter’s call or ping or (Contact email from BusinessElite–not a shameless plug, a fact)
-In the category of Duh! Keep your resume’ up to date and build it with metrics that demonstrates your executive competence–lose the fluff, focus on the metrics; if you don’t have any…start creating some, your peers are!
-Be a leader first, functional expert second–there is a dearth of real leadership talent in corporate America, people who can motivate and mobilize a team toward a coherent strategy are the exception, become on of these value creators and you will never want for growth opportunities–did I mention dearth?
-Tangential to above–if your company wants to invest time in your leadership capability, take full advantage, if you are too busy to take the time off work to develop competence, then you soon won’t be too busy!