Today I welcome to the show Kylie Chown from Kylie Chown Consulting.
With more than 10 years of consulting experience, Kylie is a Certified Master Resume Writer (CMRW), LinkedIn profile writer and a Reach Certified Social Branding Analyst.
She works with executive job seekers, businesses, solopreneurs, professionals and thought leaders to ignite their career and elevate their online and offline presence.
Soon she will be a Co-Author of the book Connect – How to leverage your LinkedIn profile for networking, business growth, and lead generation.
Kylie, Welcome to the brand new you show.
WE LIVE IN A DIGITAL FIRST WORLD
Kylie believes, “People will see your digital footprint or imprint first” and thus has adopted a digital first mindset. Think about this for a minute. If you were looking for information on someone where would you turn? Where would look?
We all know you would turn to Google. This is why I started my series on becoming the Google of your niche.
Even when helping a client write their resume, Kylie takes a digital first approach. She does this by aligning the resume for keywords her clients want to be found for in the future.
Of course in this digital first world resumes will not be the first document people read to learn more about you. This is where LinkedIn come into play.
LinkedIn will in many cases be the first impression you make on someone. For this reason it’s critical your resume and LinkedIn profile are in alignment.
If given a choice of one vs. the other, Kylie recommends updating LinkedIn first, however, this could change based on he client’s goals. Goals notwithstanding, Kylie would prioritize LinkedIn profile development over the resume.
One way to help make your resume and LinkedIn profile complimentary is by defining your target, your goal and/or your ideal outcome.
Having the same goal or desired outcome will make it easier to align both documents as well as help keep the message consistent between the two.
IS YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE MAKING A DIFFERENCE?
Kylie suggests the following measures for those seeking to understand the impact of their LinkedIn profile. Measure the search results for their keywords. Look for increased engagement by recruiters and increased profiles views.
If you have written a compelling profile incorporating both your values and your personal brand using the metrics above you will start to see opportunities come to you.
As you become the Google of your niche, you start to attracting opportunities and jobs to you as opposed to seeking them out.
FOCUS AREAS FOR YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE
When updating your LinkedIn profile Kylie focuses on the following 5 key areas.
1 – Headline (Keywords are important for click through)
2 – Summary
3 – Skills and Experiences
4 – Recommendations
5 – Endorsements
Depending on the role or experience of her clients she may also utilize the projects section. Here she would highlight any projects worked on as well as any certifications her client may have.
Kylie does recommend including media into your profile where appropriate. She does caution you to make sure you do not add any company confidential information into your profile.
A simple way to add media to your profile is by creating a few Powerpoint slides on your area of expertise and adding audio to it. This will not help viewers get a feel for your expertise but it will also make you profile more interactive which encourages viewers to stay and linger longer.
Another tip she provides is adding recommendations directly into the experiences section. With the text included in this section you are likely to get the benefit of the added keywords in the form of search engine optimization (SEO).
ADVICE FOR THOSE WANTING TO BECOME FREELANCERS OR SOLOPRENEURS
Kylie and I spent some time discussing how to use the LinkedIn platform to position yourself as a or to become a freelancers / solopreneur. LinkedIn is a great platform to help establish and position yourself as an authority in, your niche.
If your freelance or solopreneur work is in your industry, Kylie recommends reviewing your past work history to help establish your credibility in your new endeavor.
Review the brands you’ve worked with in the past and any recommendations or testimonials you may be able to obtain from them. You can leverage these as evidence of your side hustle, freelance work.
Add your side gig as a second job and treat it as if you were doing full-time. Remember to include a call to action to help attract new clients.
If you are looking to move to a completely different industry, Kylie recommends a similar approach however, you may need to wait on adding this to your profile until you have evidence of authority in the space.
As you gain the necessary evidence start looking for those transferable and relatable skills and keywords which apply in the new industry.
Kylie emphasizes transparency especially with your current employer in these cases. She even suggests talking to your current employer so they understand your objectives and they are no misunderstood.
REACH CERTIFIED PERSONAL BRANDING ANALYST
We discuss how to incorporate a personal brand into your resume or linked profile. For Kylie, it all comes down to one word, authenticity. You need to capture the real you in your profile. This is critical in the digital first economy.
You need to make sure what people find about you online aligns with what they will experience when they meet you face-to-face.
Some of clients get concerned about being authentic online, fearing it will cost them opportunities. Kylie understand this point of view and know that being authentic will either attract or repel people and this is ok.
In fact, this is something you should embrace. We all spend too much of our time trying to be what others want us to be. We try to appeal to a broad audience instead of a specific or narrow audience.
We do this because we want to appeal to as many people as possible but what actually happens is the opposite.
Because we try to appeal to everyone we end up appealing to virtually no one.
If potential employers are turned off by who you are, the real authentic you, then maybe that’s not a company you want to work for. Think about this.
THE BOOK – CONNECT HOW TO LEVERAGE YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE FOR NETWORKING, BUSINESS GROWTH AND LEAD GENERATION
Kylie has co-written a book about how to leverage LinkedIn with Jane Anderson, a personal branding strategist in Australia. The book, called Connect offers a holistic approach to how to use LinkedIn for networking, lead generation and business growth.
In the book Kylie and Jane walks you through a “Push/Pull” strategy for connecting with people. The pull part is focused on turning you into a LinkedIn magnet by pulling people to your profile utilizing SEO tactics, your content and calls to action.
For the push half of the strategy you’ll need to get the book.
WRAP
You can get in touch with Kylie and learn more about her business and upcoming book at these links.
Web: kyliechown.com.au
LinkedIn: Kylie Chown
Twitter: @KylieEChown
Kylie leaves us with these final thoughts and advice for this digital first world.
“Have a clear target and goal in mind. Align all of your documents to be consistent especially your resume, your LinkedIn profile and your online presence.”
