Why Executives Should Consider Trends When Planning A Job Search

The New Year has brought on many new trends in the job search world – and the same is true in the executive realm. Executives need to stay up to date, because otherwise they'll fall behind when searching for a job and might not consider some of the newer tactics that professionals use to find positions. Regardless of how long your executive job search has been, you can refine it and shorten it by quite a bit by looking into a few of the executive job search trends of 2010.

Get On Board with Newer Technology

By now, you’re probably well aware of the job search capabilities that Facebook and LinkedIn can offer you. New tools, however, can help executives build their professional brands, post resumes or CVs, and connect with potential employers.

One site that is gaining notoriety is VisualCV, a site that allows you to house your portfolio of your personal marketing documents in one location. The accounts on the site are free, and allow you to add samples of your work, charts, audio, video, and much more to a virtual portfolio. Also, you can share your VisualCV via email or through your social networking sites. It's a great, professional way to get your CV circulating among the people that need to see it.

Also, you may consider creating a Google Profile. Google Profiles allow you to control what a recruiter would see when searching for your name, which is certainly a valuable advantage when you consider how popular the search engine has become. Google Profiles often show up as the first results for name searches, and allow people to find key information about your professional life. This is definitely a must at the executive level.

Sign Up With Twitter for Pete’s Sake

If you have yet to sign up on Twitter, why not choose 2010 to do so? Many executives consider Twitter to be a narcissistic, juvenile site, but this couldn't be farther from the truth, as Twitter offers some great ways to engage with employers and successfully build your image.

Believe it or not, Twitter is a great place to be located by recruiters and key hiring decision makers on a daily basis. By setting up shop on this great social networking site, linking to LinkedIn as well as other blogs/resume locations and throwing out industry-friendly words of wisdom at least once a day, you’d be surprised just how many recruiters could find you.

Volunteer This Year

Taking time to give back to your community is not only a fulfilling experience, but is also a great way to beef up your job search. You can create more opportunities to add to your resume/CV and, even better, create great networking opportunities that would not have been available had you spend all of your job search time behind the computer.

Conducting an executive job search can be a tedious job, but it isn’t so bad if you go about it the right way. Hopefully, these new and recurring trends will keep your job search moving in the right direction so that this time next year you’ll be well settled into your next executive-level job.