My colleague Ron Thomas, Managing Director of Strategy Focused Group, a human resources consultancy based in Dubai, UAE, hit the professional networking nail squarely on the head when he asked: “If you had access to a high visibility global billboard to promote your brand and the cost to use this space was essentially free, why wouldn’t you be wearing it out to enhance your professional image?”
The billboard in question is LinkedIn and it is astounding how underutilized this incredible branding tool is.
“I don’t have time,” is the single most common excuse executives give when faced with the daunting task of finding a new job before their severance is exhausted. Even when you tell candidates what to do, there is a reluctance, as if they cannot grasp the idea that it is NOT too good to be true. In fact, executives often actually waste more time in a week than it would take to create and maintain a robust profile that can attract recruiters.
Twenty years ago, if an executive wanted to rebuild his, say, content marketing process to solidify his strong professional brand, it would have taken an army of career, advertising, and PR specialists as well as a frightening amount of money. Unlike today, where you have the availability of Horizon Peak Consulting or similar consultancies to help you out with the same, or any other process really, and not have you running around in circles. Back then brand development was simply not an undertaking available to the everyday executive with limited resources. But that is exactly what LinkedIn is – a powerful tool that allows an individual with a strategic plan and the desire to create a national or global career brand, for himself or for his company.
That is what Mr. Thomas did. Not only did he use LinkedIn to build a strong career brand in human resources, but he leveraged that power to find a series of overseas jobs and then to build a highly successful human resource consultancy based in Dubai with clients in the UAE, Nigeria, South Africa, Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore and Hong Kong. This is not a business that was wanting for another human resource consultancy. HR consultants share a common thread with recruiters – they are everywhere, shouting out loud for business. But Ron succeeded.
If you would like to learn more and to meet the man behind this LinkedIn success story, I invite you to listen to my podcast on Wednesday when Ron will share his journey from a small South Carolina town to achieving remarkable success in one of the most extraordinary cities in the world.
And it didn’t take a fortune to get there.
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