Searching for Work in Two Different Fields at One Time

It sounds simple. When jobs are scarce in one industry or job role, you start to look in others. Combining all these options into an online searchable persona can result in a mis-mash personal brand. How to create a searchable resume on the job boards and emphasize your different expertise actually has a simple answer.

When applying to a job directly, it is common and advisable for job seekers to customize their resume and cover letter to highlight the skills applicable to that opportunity. Revising your resume for every application can lead tomisspellings and other knock you out errors; but that's a topic for another day. For today, I will remind you to keep a record of what you send to a company; because they look oddly at a second resume about you that differs from the original. The lesson is keep good records of what you sent.

How you optimize your online persona for search engines is actually quite simple. Build a separate identity online for each of your personal brands. Keep your main LinkedIn account and tailor it to your main carrier skills and experiences. Then build an alias for the other jobs you are interested in. If your name is Rob Brown and everyone in your network and work history knows you as that, keep Rob for your main brand name. Build your first alias as Robert Brown. Get another email account for Robert. Keep the same phone number and address. Then build Robert a LinkedIn profile that zeros in on the keywords for your second job interests. Just leave out the stuff that isn't relevant to the second interest. You don't have to connect with anyone on LinkedIn. You just need to have a resume that will pop up in keyword searches.

Repeat this process on the other job boards such as CareerBuilder. You don't have to keep up the conversation and push these persona's. Just let them sit in the data bases and wait for the phone call. When the caller gets Rob instead of Robert, there isn't going to be much confusion and you are on your way.

Monitoring all these accounts can be made simple by forwarding the alias email to your main email account. If you don't know how to do this, feel free to contact me for instructions.