Your personal domain name is a key to establishing and maintaining your personal brand online and plays a very important role if you happen to be conducting a job search.
Just as businesses around the world register domain names to help promote their products, services and establish their websites as a destination for their customers. individuals now must consider registering their own names to promote their area expertise and careers.
Reasons why a personal domain name is important to job seeker:
- It provides you the avenue to establish your personal brand.
- It is your "calling card", your address on the Internet. This is how people will find you online.
- If you don't register your name, someone else will and you may lose the opportunity to brand yourself successfully and stand out in the mind of the employers.
Items to consider when registering your name:
- You have to decide if you want to register your full name, or name using a keyword or phrase from the area of expertise or field in which you want to work. For example, bobsmith.com or databaseanalyst.com. The problem with the latter is that you may at some point in your career no longer be a database analyst so that form might not be appropriate. Your name is always a sure bet.
- If you have a really long first and last name, you may want to consider a shorter version or nickname.
- Don't be too concerned if you can't find your name as a .com, there are several domain designation now that are available. .net, .info, .me. you can use a hyphen in between your first and last name if it is not available as one word. Use a combination of both techniques to find the one that works best for you.
There are several domain name registrars that provide domain registrations at reasonable costs. You can purchase a domain name in the range of $4 to $20 year. Do your research to find the best deal.
Once you have purchased your domain name you can do several things with it to help you in your job search. You may want to start a blog and write about your area of expertise, create a personal home page to post your resume, attach your domain name to a profile on a service that allows you to use your own domain name rather than the one they provide. You may also do nothing, "park" your domain name and be comfortable in knowing that no one else can grab it.
Place your domain name on all your personal marketing material, business cards, email signatures, handouts and of course your resume if you have a home page, blog or website where you want employers to find out more about you.
Think of all the ways you see businesses marketing their domain names and apply the same techniques to your personal marketing efforts.
Here are are two examples of domains and personal brands I have found in my industry. Look for good examples in your industry.
Michael Marlett - http://www.cloudrecruiting.net - Recruiter/Mobile Recruiting Guru
Ryan Chartrand - http://www.ryanchartrand.com - Web Developer
If you have any questions about personal branding and personal domain names, contact me or leave a comment.
Comments
I agree 100% that is why I bought JRJackson.com - check me out online!
Don't forget the domain aftermarket where domain owners sell domains. 99.99% are NOT 'cybersquatters' and will give you good deals on names - check out Sedo.com, Afternic.com and Moniker.com. Millions of dollars of domains are sold every day. You also fail to mention the new .tel extension which was created *precisely* to act as a 'calling card' for companies and individuals.
Great post. I work for NameCheap, a domain registrar. A lot of people are intimidated by doing this sort of thing. Once you buy your domain, you just need to get the DNS settings for your web host (should be in your welcome email) and essentially link them to that domain.
Much luck to those on the job search. We wish you the best.
Thank you all for your comments. Good information in each of them.
John,
Spot on advice. I run a Job Search 2.0 Bootcamp where we use this as just one of many techniques to utilize social media to unlock the hidden job market.
Great information - keep up the good work!
Best,
Kevin Kermes
Build the Career You Deserve
www.kevinkermes.com
I created..ToemployErinRager.com to help give me an edge on Job Search...and now I created ToEmployYourName.com. I created matching background from a photo for laminated business cards with the domain name, my name, the jobs I do and my phone number. I hand out the business card. Actually I got more calls asking if I could make websites for other folks!!! So here I am, a novice for sure.
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