As the Director of Interactive at Capstrat in Raleigh I’m always on the lookout for talented developers, but right now I have an immediate need for an awesome front-end developer. My friend Les James runs a popular Meetup for front-end developers – so I thought I would look through his members for leads… makes sense right?
What I noticed is that people don’t really think about being found on Meetup.com. Meetup offers a lot of ways for you to promote yourself in your Meetup.com profile including linking out to your LinkedIn profile. Some people even go so far as to say that they are looking for a . job, but don’t make it easy to find out who they are!
I would like to submit exhibit #1. Leigh was a person I thought looked interesting and clicked through to her profile page. Once there I only saw a first name. No links out to their Twitter feed, Facebook or LinkedIn. No last name so I couldn’t search LinkedIn manually. I hit the back button and moved on to the next person. The catch to Leigh’s profile page is that it says, “…just relocated from nyc, need some help with job search…”.
This may sound like an social-SEO rant, or maybe even a personal branding rant but you need to think about the way you are presenting yourself online.
Meetup allows you to add a bio blurb about yourself, links back to your website with additional text to give it context, links out to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr and Tumblr.
If you take the time to sign up for something, you need to take the extra few minutes to fill out the profile section.
Go make yourself findable!
Great point you make. So many times I see people wanting to find an opportunity be it a job, project or connection but don’t make themselves identifiable! This goes back to thinking about user experience and looking at how you want to use a site as well as someone on the other side of the screen. If you are seeking other X type person then put yourself in X person’s shows and look at it from the other side and ask, “have I created an opportunity for them to respond to what I’m looking for?”
Exactly Brian. I think it may stem from people not being used to putting themselves out there as a brand to be consumed.
Nice post, valuable information