Buy Your Own Career Web Domain to Contol Your Future!

Give Your Career a Page of it's Own

The very best way to control your career and the career documents that tell your story to others is to buy your very own personal web domain name. With some free, easy web authoring software and an FTP file transfer package, which is inexpensive or free, you can become the webmaster of your own career site.

Leverage it

Choose a domain (your name or a derivative of it is best) that leads interested parties to a web page where you have control over the lay out and what information you share and how you share it. I really like Go Daddy http://www.godaddy.com/ for easy access to purchasing and control of my domain names. A personalized career page is a great marketing tool and sets you apart from others because your information is always available at a moment's notice.

It should always be there.

The first page of your site should state only your name and a brief overview of your career with a value statement and a few examples of the kinds of companies and situations where that value has been demonstrated. An availability statement is important so you can always keep your information on your page updated without your employer feeling uncomfortable that you really just want to fish for a new job. If you openly post your resume and information on the web and on job boards you are risking that your employer will get wind of your intentions to leave. If you simply keep your brief overview up to date on your own career page with a link that generates an e-mail back to you which allows those interested to request more information, you can keep a toe in the water, monitoring interest just in case something fantastic comes along. Any accusations that you are "looking" become invalid because it will clearly state on your over view page that you are not looking. If it's clear that you are happy and challenged in your current job your employer should not be concerned about your career site remaining active.

If you are not concerned about people connecting you to your company you should leverage that connection by including a link to your company's web site on your career page. This will bring additional attention to you and to your company which can only be good for everyone.

I will point you to some decent examples of personal career pages in the next installment.

Until then,

Live Long and Prosper!

Jeff C.