Congratulations! You’ve made it through the interview process coming out on top. The company has asked you to come in one more time to make you an offer. You go in, shake your future employer’s hand firmly, and make small talk which bridges the conversation over to compensation.

If you have been working for 5 years, you should know by now how much you are worth. To those who are just starting their careers, you may be inclined to take any offer on the table which may not always be the best idea. Research should be done before getting an offer. This will give you a range to play with, more importantly, you know your worth.

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There seems to be an everlasting debate about leadership and whether it can be taught or if it’s some inherent trait you’re born with – think how often you’ve heard someone say “they’re a born leader”.

It’s also become big business. Business schools have made leadership a huge focus of their curriculum and market themselves as builders of the next generation of leaders.

Yet, when you strip away all the terminology as well as the psychological definitions and descriptions of a leader you’re left with a very simple concept: leaders have followers.

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Whether you like it or not, people are talking about you. You don’t need to be a celebrity like Ashton Kutcher, politician like Barack Obama, or entrepreneur like Gary Vaynerchuk to start building your personal brand. What you do need is an identity rooted in your passions and a desire to be great. It doesn’t need to be earth-shatteringly nouveau; it simply has to tell the story of who you are and who you want to become.

Investing effort in building, honing, and sharing your personal brand will pay off in dividends. You’ll become more self aware, you’ll meet new people, and you’ll be exposed to opportunities that otherwise wouldn’t have existed. 

Shortcut#1
KNOW YOUR STORY
Saving your life story for your memoirs? Well, think again. The core of your personal brand is built on the things you are passionate about. Take time to make three lists: 1) List your biggest successes
to date; 2) List your biggest failures to date; and 3) list the things you are most passionate about. Take time to reflect on the peaks and valleys of your life. Don’t try to invent your past, but rather invent
your future: A future full of the things you are passionate about. Your brand is not descriptive; it’s a prescriptive story of what you stand for.

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Week In Review:

Toronto - Associate Director, Research & Intelligence (Marketing & Advertising) Details / Apply
Toronto - Intermediate CRM Business Analyst (Information Technology & Services) Details / Apply
Toronto - Account Coordinator (Marketing and Advertising) Details / Apply
Toronto - Support Rockstar (Marketing & Advertising) Details / Apply
Toronto - Application Deployment Specialist (Computer Software) Details / Apply
Montreal - Data Scientist (Internet) Details / Apply
Montreal - Manager-Customer Engagement (Computer Software) Details / Apply
Vancouver - Customer Advocate (Internet) Details / Apply
Vancouver - Business Analysts (Computer Software) Details / Apply
Ottawa - Help Desk Agent (Computer Software) Details / Apply

For the full rundown, log-in to Vestiigo.com

Some weekend reading
Career Savvy:Why Social Networks Won’t Get You Hired
Career Savvy:How students can kick-start their brilliant future
TED Talk: Margaret Heffernan: Dare to disagree

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It’s no secret that good networking is a crucial part of landing all sorts of dream jobs.  What many don’t realize is that the relationships you build at work can be just as crucial as those you build at conferences, meet-ups or parties.  After all, if nobody at a potential employer knows you, then they need to talk to someone who does, and it’s in your best interests that the talk goes well. 

There’s the usual advice about letting your reference know ahead of time and all that jazz, but there are a few very critical mistakes that are less talked about, and WSJ’s, Ruth Mantell, has done the work of outlining them for us.

1) Sticking purely to the positive – Obviously, you want to avoid references that will reflect negatively on you, but only listing people who want to sing your praises can be damaging in a different way.  A good reference will not only espouse your strengths to a potential employer but also outline areas for growth, so that your employer knows where you need guidance and improvement.

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If you have checked your Vestiigo dashboard recently you may have noticed a new Plus+ tab. This summer the Vestiigo team wants to help you improve your chances of landing that dream job you have been eyeing.  It’s the resource you need for the upcoming hiring season to give you that edge and more!

Did you know?
Nine out of ten hiring experts believe “Dear Sir/Madam” on your cover letter will ensure your resume gets sent to the bottom – Don’t let the time you’ve taken to perfect that cover letter go to waste. With Vestiigo Plus+ you will know who you are writing to and give you that edge. Write with confidence, write with conviction.

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We’ve been asked a lot recently about the role social media plays in helping candidates get hired and whether you can still land your dream job without a significant online presence. This debate has certainly been stirred up further by an article in MSNBC suggesting that, in fact, social networking plays a very small role.

For us, this debate asks the wrong question. It’s not a matter of whether or not social media helps you in your career search; it’s how it fits in to your overall search strategy. In reality, social media is not a new phenomenon. The rise in popularity of social networking sites have simply afforded us new ways to publish the same information – having a Twitter account doesn’t mean you’re a better writer then you were before, just as having a LinkedIn account doesn’t mean you’re all of a sudden professionally connected to 500+ people you didn’t know a month ago. The ability to publish information doesn’t distinguish you from other candidates – you need a coherent approach.

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This is a guest post by Jasmine Konsorada, CA, manager, audit and assurance group, at PwC.

What employees are looking for in a company and the expectations of candidates from companies have changed in the last few years. Students looking to secure their first position must adapt and learn to stand out from a sea of graduates looking to land their first gig. This can be an intimidating task, but with the help of networking events, professional programs, recruiters, and practice, the process can be easily accomplished.

Lucky for me, I had the opportunity, through my university program at the time, to participate in a co-op placement with PwC. This didn’t mean the application process was a ‘walk in the park’. I still needed to demonstrate why I would be a fit with the firm.

Making a memorable impression
In my application, I tried to show who I am through my achievements and experiences.  Your cover letter is the first documents a potential employer sees, so you must make sure it’s unforgettable and of course error free.

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Week In Review:

Toronto - Ad Operations Coordinator, Digital (Broadcast Media) Details / Apply
Toronto - Marketing Manager (Internet) Details / Apply
Toronto - Talent Acquisition Specialist (Internet) Details / Apply
Toronto - Business Manager (Marketing & Advertising) Details / Apply
Toronto - Product Manager (Internet) Details / Apply
Montreal - Inside Sales Account Manager (Computer Software) Details / Apply
Montreal - Account Manager (Internet) Details / Apply
Vancouver - Creative Lead & Senior Web Designer (Market Research) Details / Apply
Vancouver - Conversion Optimization Manager (Computer Software) Details / Apply
Ottawa - Accounting Assistant & Accounts Payable (Computer Software) Details / Apply

For the full rundown, log-in to Vestiigo.com

Some weekend reading
Career Savvy: 4 Ways To Rapidly Improve Your Negotiation Skills
Career Savvy: 5 Killer LinkedIn Profiles
TED Talk: Kirby Ferguson: Embrace the remix

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There are few skills that can rival negotiation in terms of relevance, longevity, and number of applications. While we’re enamored with all the new jobs and skills our burgeoning economy has produced in the last 10 years, from App Developers to Social Media Managers, negotiation could easily top the list of the most important skills from the past several millennia.

Surprisingly, it’s not a topic that’s frequently discussed or taught (except perhaps in more specialized settings). Yet, great negotiations skills could be put to good use on an almost daily basis - think salary raises, promotions, buying a new property/car, discussing a contract, signing new business, or even picking something up in a local market.

Preparation
Easily the biggest step you can make to improve your negotiation skills is to be well-prepared. Most will go in having done some research or background reading on the topic, but few will focus on being better prepared than the other party.

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“Everybody’s good at something”, or at least that’s we’ve always been told.  We may all have particular talents, but most of us also have something we’re equally terrible at.  Most of us figure that we’re just born gifted in some areas and lacking in others, but modern research suggests that it actually has a lot more to do with what we “do” rather than who we are. 

1) Set specific goals – Don’t tell yourself you’re going to “run more”; say you’ll run 30 minutes a day.  This lets you think more clearly about what you need to do specifically to achieve that goal, and it also makes it easier to monitor whether you’ve actually reached your target. 

2) Seize the time that you have – We’ve all used the “no time” excuse before, but really, unless you’re working in sweatshop-level conditions, there’s always some time available during the week.  Grab hold of whatever free minutes or hours that you can and set up a schedule for yourself to work toward your goals.

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Week In Review:

Toronto - Business Development Manager, Partner Program (Market Research) Details / Apply
Toronto - Software Developers (Computer Software) Details / Apply
Toronto - Business Intelligence Developer (Internet) Details / Apply
Toronto - Field Marketing Manager (Marketing & Advertising) Details / Apply
Toronto - Accounts Receivable Coordinator (Marketing & Advertising) Details / Apply
Montreal - Marketing Manager (Telecommunications) Details / Apply
Montreal - Strategic Account Manager (Computer Software) Details / Apply
Vancouver - Software Engineer (Market Research) Details / Apply
Vancouver - Ecommerce Product Marketing Manager (Computer Software) Details / Apply
Ottawa - Guru (Internet) Details / Apply

For the full rundown, log-in to Vestiigo.com

Some weekend reading
Career Savvy: Why Success is a Catalyst for Failure
Career Savvy: Your Guide to a Great LinkedIn Profile
TED Talk: Ken Robinson: Changing education paradigms

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So you’re advertising a great position in a city where you know there’s a healthy pool of talented candidates, but nobody seems to be biting for whatever reason.  Well, according to Recruiter’s Maren Hogan,  it might just be because your job posting stinks.  But don’t fret, there is a cure for mediocre job postings, and the medicine starts with these three tips!

Don’t just summarize the job, advertise it!
A good job description shouldn’t just drone on about a whole bunch of job functions, it should engage the person reading it by describing a typical day on the job or what makes working for your company different from the rest.  If you absolutely have to do it in a really dry fashion, at the very least, draw out a list instead of jamming it all into a single paragraph.

Don’t leave the “essential” out of the “essential responsibilities” section
Who does the position report to?  What’s the hierarchy, and who are your support staff?  These are all things that people generally like to know before they jump headfirst into applying, and all too often, this info is left out of even the most exhaustive lists. 

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Lately we have been getting questions regarding LinkedIn. More specifically, what makes a great LinkedIn Profile? For those who aren’t familiar with LinkedIn, all I can say is get it! It is a social media medium where young and old professionals keep in contact, find new opportunities, or even create some!

Let’s say you’ve signed up, there is a progress bar which indicates profile completeness reads 0%. Where do you start? First thing you should do is to upload your resume which should fill in the important information such as education and experiences.

Once the information is accurate and verified, what differs between a good and great profile? It is all in the details.

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Whether you’re the big cheese or just another seed on the cubicle farm, Tony Schwartz of the HBR Blog has a couple of disturbingly prolific work myths that you can stand to toss out the window.

Myth #1: Multitasking is critical in a world of infinite demand.

To be short, multi-tasking doesn’t work the way we think it does. As a species, we’re not particularly good at doing more than one thing at the same time. What we are good at is rapidly switching between tasks. Cognitively, when
we’re concentrating on one thing, we’re barely registering the other, and studies show that the more we activities we try to juggle, the longer it takes us to accomplish each task (up to 25% in fact). If we want to get things done faster, it’s actually better to focus on each individual task for as long as possible. If you’re the boss around the office, you can help by not asking your employees to check their email every 15 minutes.

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