What if you could always have a job and never ever ever ever have to worry about looking for a job again? What if jobs came knocking on your door? How to exploit Google to guarantee yourself a job?

Last time we talked about visibility and how visibility can insure that  jobs come looking for you.

A quick recap:

Visibility is being ‘findable’ and ‘plastered’ all over the place in your field. It is also about how you are automatically perceived favorably by others due to your name being associated with other notable people in your field.

Visibility: is who you know but more importantly it is who knows of you. This requires emphasis -it is not who knows you but who knows of you.

Who is your best  friend when it comes to being ‘visible’? Well you knew this right? Google! Your visibility is directly proportional to the square root of your years  of experience divided by your compensation. Hell no! It is simply your high Googlability. According to our friends at Wikitionary, Googlability is ‘The ease  with which something can be found  using the  Google search engine’.

Now of course we want that ‘something’ to really be something …to be you.

The goal is when anyone is searching for an employee or the media needs an expert, you pop up high in the  search rankings  …at the  minimum on the first page of the search results. That my friends will guarantee that you will always be in someone’s sights –you will be amazed by how many people from far flung places will be contacting you.

SEO- search engine optimization is a term used for describing the process by which one makes an internet item rank higher or be ‘most findable’ by a search engine-like Google or Bing. I do not use Bing – so ‘I have not Bing there done that one’ yet! But I know a thing or two about how to ‘get it up’ in Google.

The average person thinks they are doing great when it comes to Googlability because they say to me “When I enter my name  in Google I rank high.” I say who cares…who’s searching for your name? Who’s looking to ‘hire a name’ anyway?

The first thing to realize is that your name does not mean much when it comes to search engine search. Why? Because  Searchers, Human  Resources, Managers and Recruiters/Head-Hunters, who are seeking a target to recruit, do not search you by name but rather they search you by specialty, geographical region and frequently in combination with the first two, by company name. They usually don’t give a hoot what your name  is rather what your title/specialty is and where you are  located.

SEOing yourself is not difficult. Showing up high in the rankings through organic means takes some time that  is because of the way search engines work. So now is the  best time to start and to be smart and learn how to jump ahead of your competition quickly without waiting for organic SEO ranking. 

So what are some real valuable shortcuts to getting high ranking  quickly? Answer: joining or ‘posting on’ high Googleable ranking web sites, like LinkedIn, YouTube and believe it or not Kijiji (which can be used strategically and simply to bolster ranking  and visibility, more  about  this one later).

When it comes to professional career visibility nothing beats LinkedIn.

LinkedIn ranks  so high in Google, it is a wonder it does not need oxygen.

A well thought out profile and  title in LinkedIn with the right keywords is worth tons of easy attention. If you are  not on LinkedIn then when you are done reading this get on it ‘tout de suite.’ www.linkedin.com

Let me give you an example: if you enter these 3 words into Google: operator lcmsms Toronto (which means an operator of a mass  spectrometry instrument in Toronto) the third and the fourth  non-paid Google results are  Alpana Parikh – Canada  | LinkedIn. This is what I am talking about! This person is a category killer because whenever anyone is looking for an LC-MS/MS Operator in Toronto  …guess who they are going to find.

The key here is that the  key words in her profile show up more than once. LC-MS/MS shows  up 11 times and Operator shows up twice, and ‘LC-MS/MS Operator’ (the words in combination) shows up twice. For your information, Google makes no distinction between lcmsms, or lc-ms-ms or LC-MS/MS it is all the  same to Google; dashes hyphens etc… do not mean anything to Google –Google does not distinguish them. Lastly she also has joined a LinkedIn Group that has LCMS in its profile. She is doing everything right except  for one very important strategy she  is not using if she  wants to rank first.

If she wants  to rank first for that  search all she  has  to do is change her LinkedIn title from ‘Experienced Pharmaceutical Professional’ to ‘LC-MS/MS Operator’.  This a classic mistake most people make -they want to look like they have a broader appeal in fact that  works against them, because a searcher never looks for an ‘experienced pharmaceutical professional’ as a keyword search. It is just too general a search. I am not criticizing this person’s entry  rather she has an excellent profile from a keyword perspective- if she wants to improve it she  can change her title.

So now it is your turn to be a category killer. Think like a searcher. What would he/she be Googling when looking for someone with your expertise? Make sure you enter your keywords over and over again in your LinkedIn profile.

The idea is you want to dominate the  top 5 or 6 search results. You can do this by signing up to YouTube with an account title like ‘lcmsmsoperator’ and then posting a number of videos about yourself –i.e. for instance 2 or 3 minute videos about yourself and your experience. Of course make sure you edit them  so you look good and sound  good. Then put the right tags in your video description and tags  like “lcmsms operator Toronto, Toronto lcmsms operator, operator lcmsms Toronto etc…” and I guarantee, you will dominate those top spots in Google.YouTube and videos are loved by Google since Google owns YouTube.

Lastly if you post your resume on Kijiji you will also get  high ranking. I recommend you take your specific address off and just put your city, for instance in the  above  example – the  city would be Toronto, and also use a new web based email address for your resume on this posting because you will get  a lot of spam. There are pros and cons to posting your resume on the  Internet, if you do it right by guarding your privacy and do it strategically to get  ranking  it can really pay dividends for you.

You just got a new job. Great! You figure “Thank God my job search is over and all I have to do is get through the test… the 3 month work triathlon. Put out real hard for the next 3 months until I pass the probation period, then I can pull back a bit and get into cruise mode.”

In the back of your mind something is still nagging at you, “will I still be safe after three months?” Well my friend, I have news for you and it is not what you are thinking. You are thinking that I am going to say “You can’t cruise you have to keep putting out real hard so you don’t get laid-off or fired again.”

NO! Look there is only so much you can do –and you are not in control of your fate at work. At any time the company can be sold, your boss could change, a fire can ruin the building, your boss could decide to stop taking his/her Prozac and turn into a big big gigantic meanie…you just never know what lies hidden in the treacherous waters of employment.

In fact, cruising or finding your work balance is cool -as long as you don’t turn into a sleep walker… remember respect yourself. You have to be true to yourself, your body, your mind and your spirit… after all it is your life not your boss’. With the above in mind why not make it easy to always be employed.

What if you could always have a job and never ever ever ever have to worry about looking for a job again? What if jobs came knocking on your door? What can you control?

What you can control is your “visibility”, that my friend is your key to being employed. Some of the big thinkers call it branding and marketing yourself but I like to call it your visibility. What is visibility?

Visibility is about how visible you are to everyone in your field. Visibility is being “findable” and “plastered all over the place” in your field. It is also about how you are automatically perceived favorably by others due to your name being associated with other notable people in your field.

Visibility: is who you know but more importantly it is who knows of you. This requires emphasis -it is not who knows you but who knows of you. You need to be findable, and notable. Now I did not say you need to be great and the best in your field – I said simply notable.

Let me give you an example –McDonalds is one of the most notable and visible names in the restaurant business and one of the most successful. Do they make the best hamburgers in the world? Personally I feel far from it –I believe many hamburger restaurants make much better burgers. Why is McDonalds so successful? Visibility and association.

They are in front of their most important audience children-they target children not adults. They have cartoon characters as their front men (Ronald and his gang) and celebrities as well. They target their best audience -kids, and maybe even your kids. Boy does it work. A tantrum screaming kid who wants his/her happy meal or an excited kid wanting McDonalds as a reward is a powerful weapon against the better judgment of adults. Ronald wins to the tune of $22.74 B that’s right folks- 22 billion dollars a year.

What’s my point? You do not have to have the best product to make it big you just need the right visibility, the right marketing approach and you need to target your audience. When children think fast food they think McDonalds, when they think hamburger they think McDonalds, when they think happy restaurant they think McDonalds. It is excellent and a bonus if you are the best in your field but that alone will not make you visible. You still need more. Let’s assume you are good or even fair at your job. What can you do to become more visible and grab your audience?

First you need to identify who is your target audience? Your target audience is decision makers –ranging from front line Managers to CEOs, peers/colleagues, and human resource professionals in your field as well as head-hunters. And Secondly you need to be visible to your target audience.