From a personal interview to a business sales pitch, you will have to deal with one undeniable fact - YOU WILL BE GOOGLED, and your name or company should be ready for it. Today, a decent media portrait is a must-have otherwise it is going to be really hard to compete against shiny competitors. I talk not just about corporate B2B operations, but also about school interviews or career shifts...
We, at ExclusivePRs.com, have three categories:
The first category is called a Basic Media Portrait - almost every active person in the labor market has such a basic profile.
It usually includes LinkedIn, Facebook, and if a person has had an active school life, there could be some basic in-school publications with his or her name in it. In such a case, they will only have to rely on their amazing GPA of around 3.9-4.0 to be noticed by HR. But, chances of such a candidate are slim.
We call the second category, "Advanced Profile", because only a few students and after-school professionals can brag about such a reputation. These people spend a lot of time polishing their LinkedIn’s, actively pursuing different social and business clubs as well as conferences in their schools with only one goal - to get their name out, and to build a strong foundation for their future reputation. These people clearly understand the real value of personal branding and they invest time and money into it. Usually, Advanced Profiles will be stuffed with different start-up activities, internships, research publications, blogging, etc. If we add a 3.9-4.0 GPA to such a student, it will be almost impossible to compete against such a candidate.
Finally, the most powerful category in our list is called "Star Profile". Indeed, if you Google such a person, you will see tons of CNN interviews, Forbes publications, different activities, and everything that is included in the Basic and Advanced categories. From our personal experience, we discovered that Stars do not have the highest GPAs. But very often, they are cherished for outstanding and creative solutions, as well as great performances and amazingly innovative approaches.
One may think, "How can a Star Profile person possibly handle so many activities?" How can one person juggle being a full-time college student while creating patents, trademarks, startups and organizing a non-profit event, which intends to make the world a better place. How can they be literally everywhere while at the same time holding down a full-time job? How can all this happen in such a short period of time? The answer is very simple. A small group of people is helping from behind the scenes. We, at exclusivePRS.com call this "delegation of responsibilities" or Reputation Management. We are the people who take commands from our generals and we bring them to the next level with our marvelous execution capabilities.
In fact, we even joke among ourselves that "in less than six months, we can turn any person into a superstar." However, this is not too far from the truth...
Contributor @ ExclusivePRS.com