A Step-By-Step Guide to Boosting Your Career With Tech
Technology is a two-way street in the professional world. It makes it easier than ever to build a network, connect with others, and showcase your experience to more employers and clients. The only challenge is that your competition has access to this same technology and they’re using it. Here is a guide to use tech to your advantage and move your career to the next level.
Create a Living Resume
A resume is now so much more than a sheet of paper. Prospective and current workers use portfolios, personal websites and other sorts of media to showcase skills and experience to new clients and employers. Social networks like LinkedIn are built around the concept of a living resume, but your own website can go well beyond this.
Companies like Squarespace make it easy to create your own website, assign a custom domain, pick a professional template and upload content you want to share with the world. This should still include your classic resume, but also include previous work, references, contact information and even a personal blog — so long as it relates to your career. Websites like these make you more attractive as a candidate.
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Become a Searchable Presence
Your website and living resume should have solid search engine optimization to make sure it ranks well for your name in Google, but you should also set up professional accounts on social networks and other career-driven websites to make sure they all rank on the front page under your name. Make sure what is professional is accessible and up top, and what is personal is kept private and down below. Even if your personal Facebook account contains nothing sensitive, you still don’t want it to be your potential employer’s first impression.
Network, Network, Network
Most people create a LinkedIn account and call it a day, but there are so many more opportunities out there to meet and connect with others in your field. It’s simply amazing how well the artificial intelligence of these platforms connects us to like-minded individuals. The emergence of AI in job-hunting is a game-changer, not just for the employee, but for the potential employer searching for new candidates. Devices powered by the Snapdragon mobile platform enable you to run AI on your mobile device without using the cloud so you can network or job hunt from anywhere; Snapdragon also allows for increased connectivity by supporting wireless technologies like Gigabit LTE and, soon enough, 5G. Here are a few other ways you can branch out using social networks:
· Start following your favorite companies on Twitter and engage with their posts.
· Services like Behance are great for sharing work with other creatives.
· Facebook Events and Groups often have more options than niche services like LinkedIn.
· Join a meetup group and attend an event (sometimes face-to-face beats technology).
Boost Skills With Free Resources
Even though college is more expensive than ever, you could argue that education is actually at its cheapest — often free, in fact. Want to learn how to use Adobe Photoshop or Premiere Pro? There are thousands of free tutorials on YouTube. Want to learn to code? Code Academy will teach any language for the price of zero. Free education on the web is fast, easy and — free.
Find a Mentor & Follow Them Religiously
Venture capitalists and entrepreneurs have a huge presence on social media and most of them love engaging with followers and sharing information that helped them with their own success. Personalities like Tim Ferriss post to social media dozens of times per day, post videos online, record podcasts — all just giving away priceless information you can use in your own career.
There is so much out there to help us with our careers, it’s easy to get overwhelmed in the process, but over time, you’re likely to find your niche. Some people are great at networking while others love to find new mentors. Whatever your style, make use of these resources to propel your career forward.
