My Daughter Just Graduated and Why I think She Needs a Powerful Personal Brand

I am proud to say that my youngest daughter is graduating from Pace University this week, summa cum laude (that’s a dad-brag with no apologies).

Let me enjoy the moment…

…ok, the moment’s up and my enjoyment time is over too.

Now it’s time for her to get a job and off the daddy-payroll – and in today’s world, neither of those tasks are easy to do. According to the Economic Policy Institute, for young college graduates, the unemployment rate is currently 5.6%, and the underemployment rate is 12.6% – wages are performing poorly and have experienced little to no growth since 2000. Statistics aside, we all know how hard it is for young people to be self-supporting today.

So what should she (we) do?

Job seeking has changed a lot over the past few years. Gone are the days of waiting for the Sunday newspaper to scour the job section for new opportunities. We have Monster, Ladders, Recruiter, ZipRecruiter, Linkedin, beBee and other dot coms which provide job listings and automatically deliver your resume electronically.

Let’s look at some more statistics, courtesy of the September 2015 study done by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM):

57% of companies hired from LinkedIn, 19% hired from Facebook and 65% of companies used some form of social media to hire. From the same study: Hiring managers thought it important for job seekers to have the following social media accounts: LinkedIn – 87%, Facebook 63%, Twitter 56%, and a Blog 55%. The statistics tell us that if you are not using social media to help you find a job you are putting yourself at a huge disadvantage.

(See my Entrepreneur article: “13 Social Media Power Tips for Getting the Job You Want”)

Hiring managers are doing that because they are trying to find out more about you than just what’s on your resume. They want to know you as a person and understand whether you are going to fit into their corporate culture. That’s why my company, beBee, is the social network which helps you with “Successful Personal Branding.”

It’s a logical approach for selecting the best candidates. Candidate A has an impressive resume. Candidate B has a similarly impressive resume, but their strong personal brand shows that they have a blog with articles on topics relevant to the company’s business. They tweet about news and ideas from the industry. They do yoga, run half-marathons, and they volunteer for charity. Who do you think is getting the first interview and the job?

(See my Entrepreneur article: “8 Reasons a Powerful Personal Brand Will Make You Successful”)

So, does your kid (or you) need to use social media to find a new job? Does having a powerful personal brand give them an edge in the job market?

Absolutely yes – and every day they wait to build that power personal brand, your kid is falling a day behind!

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PS: If your son or daughter is in high school they absolutely need a powerful personal brand too!

(See my Entrepreneur article: “10 Social Media Tips for Students to Improve Their College Admission Chances”)