Digital Footprint:

What is a Digital Footprint? What is a Personal Brand?  

People are often confused about the difference between their digital footprint and personal brand. Most often, candidates believe they are the same thing. 

They are not. 

Both your digital footprint and established (or non-established) brand will impact your competitiveness as a candidate. It is also important to know that neither a digital footprint nor a personal brand happens overnight. Therefore, every professional should be familiar with these concepts. Additionally, if you are currently a job seeker or working to progress your career, it isn’t only important to understand the difference, but also important to know how to manage both. 

What is a digital footprint? 

Simply put, your digital footprint is an online ‘permanent record’. Some sources report that your digital footprint starts forming before birth, citing that 92% of toddlers already have a robust digital footprint. So unless you have purposely removed your online presence (which we don’t recommend you do), you will have a digital footprint. It can consist of your internet activities such as social media posts. But your digital footprint may also include birth, graduation, and employment records, current or previous address and contact information, citations or publications, blog posts, arrest records, and other personal information. 

But here is the question: what is a personal brand and how does it align with your digital footprint?

Or a better question – should it align with your digital footprint? 

How a personal brand is different than a digital footprint:

A personal brand is more intentional than a digital footprint in the context that it is how you choose to represent yourself. You can create it. 

You should create it. 

In a perfect world, your digital footprint will become a component of your brand. However, ensuring your digital footprint aligns with your brand can be tricky because it is dynamic. It is always changing based on your online behavior. And, this means you should learn how to assess your online reputation, correct it if needed, and manage it going forward so that it better aligns with or reflects the brand you want to represent. 

Importance of Establishing a Personal Brand Before the Job Search

How important is it to leverage your digital footprint to establish a personal Brand? We, as hiring managers, want to understand more than just your qualifications. Your online activity will show your personality, past experiences, and interests. This is important because we want to hear what is important to you, what work environments you excel in, and where your passions lie. All of these personal characteristics help to craft your story. And your story is directly related to the personal brand you want to represent. 

This begs the question – Can you get hired through your social media presence and activity? 

Yes. 

Especially on LinkedIn. 

LinkedIn’s mission is to “Connect the world’s professionals to make them more productive and successful”. And of course, this means that through LinkedIn, professionals can network, post content, and actively search for new opportunities. And important for you to know: that hiring managers often recruit for their business using the LinkedIn platform. 

If you still aren’t convinced of how important it is to have a strong LinkedIn profile, here are some statistics you may be interested in.

• There are over 1 Billion (+1,000,000,000) users on LinkedIn. 
• Each week, over 49 Million users look for Jobs on LinkedIn.
• Over 67 Million companies are active on LinkedIn. 
• 77 Job Seekers apply to an active LinkedIn post every second. 
• Every minute, 6 people are hired on LinkedIn.
• 75% of individuals who recently changed jobs used LinkedIn to find new job opportunities. 
• And, 67% of recruiters say that professionals hired through LinkedIn are of higher quality. 

What about other social media platforms? 

Now that we have established LinkedIn is extremely powerful when it comes to creating a robust digital footprint and personal brand, does that mean you should abandon all other social media platforms? 

It depends. 

The first step is to determine what social media platform is most used in your industry. For example, real estate and retail markets are more likely to focus their efforts on Pinterest. The beauty industry is more likely to leverage TikTok. Facebook has different followings, and LinkedIn yet others. 

Simply put, whether you solely focus your branding efforts on LinkedIn depends on your industry. What I can tell you is that Clinical Research has a huge presence on LinkedIn, so if you are a clinical research professional, it is a safe bet to grow your LinkedIn presence. 

Don’t undervalue your behavior on all social media platforms. 

But even though you may focus your branding activities on one social media platform, it can be a good thing to post about your interests and passions across multiple. Just make sure all of your postings align with the brand you want to represent (we talk about determining your brand next). 

For example, do you volunteer within the community? Are you actively engaged in specific research that is meaningful to you? Get personal…folks want to get to know you and what is important to you. 

But be careful. Once your posts are out there, they are hard to remove. I have seen candidates with YouTube videos of them doing drugs, blog posts about their witchcraft activities, and Facebook posts where they are openly slamming a colleague, ex-spouse, or ex-boss. We will discuss more about correcting your digital footprint later, but it is safe to say that it is easier to be proactive in your posts than reactive in cleaning up your online presence in the future.

How do you Determine Your Brand? 

When someone lands on your LinkedIn page (or whatever site you decide to use to exhibit your brand), you want them to immediately understand your “Why”, “What”, and “Who”. 

When deciding what you want your brand to say about you, the first step is to identify your “Why”. Why are you in this industry? You are working to obtain a certain role…why do you want that particular position? 

Asking yourself this question seems simple enough, but it is an important answer. Be honest with yourself. Not having a strong ‘why’ may mean that your focus is in the wrong place. This will bring us to your “What”. What causes you to get out of bed in the morning? Meaning, what are your passions? Do you have specific goals that you want to accomplish in your career? If so, what are they? 

Also, what are your strengths? This step is critical for anyone working to establish a brand. Take the time to analyze what your strengths are because this will help define two things: a) your position in the market and b) how you want your target audience to view you. 

This, of course, brings us to your “Who”. Who will benefit from your skills? Once you have identified your target audience, you can fine-tune what you believe their specific needs are. This information will help you create a relatable personality to attract your ideal customer. 

Outlining why you do what you do, what skills and qualities you bring to the table, and who will benefit most will help direct your next effort…which is to establish a digital footprint that aligns with your brand. Or correct your existing digital footprint so it doesn’t conflict with the brand you want to represent.  

Ways to Establish or Correct Your Digital Footprint

As we have already discussed, it is easier to be proactive when posting online. It can be difficult to remove past activity, so think before you post. Whether you agree with it or not, recruiters and hiring managers use social media sites to screen candidates. 

It is important to show your personality when you post. Have fun with what you share, just remember it becomes part of your ‘permanent record’. Therefore, when posting, liking, or sharing anything, consider your “Why”, “What”, and “Who” so it aligns with the brand you want to represent. 

How to assess your current online presence: 

It is worth a few minutes of your time to Google yourself. To be clear, you don’t want to Google just your name, but do some searches that include both your name and a previous company or a specific topic.  You will want to do a couple of things to streamline your results:

• Put your name in quotes so the returned information will be exactly what you searched for. 
• You will also use a boolean: AND will work best for these searches. 
• A previous company or topic will also be in quotes so the returned information is exactly related to your current or past experience.  

Some examples to confirm an aligning digital footprint:

As an exercise, search for my digital footprint in clinical research. To do that, put the following search string into a browser search bar: “Angela Roberts” AND “Clinical Research”.

• What does that yield? While every returning result won’t be perfectly related, you will see several that are. Based on these results you can see that I have worked in the clinical research field for years. 
• Now, swap my name for yours and repeat the search. If it doesn’t yield a lot of relevant information, you may have some work to do in order to establish a stronger aligning digital footprint. 

Next, to confirm my employment, search my digital footprint related to my current company. To do that, put the following search string into a browser search bar: “Angela Roberts” AND “craresources”. 

• What does that yield? You can then search my name and another employer, or another topic such as ‘recruiter’. You get the picture (I hope). 
• Now do a similar exercise with your name and past employment or other topics that may be related. And again, if the search results don’t yield what you had hoped, make notes of where you need to shore up your aligning digital footprint. 

Do you have skeletons in your closet? 

When analyzing your digital footprint, always search for information that can damage your brand. Start by using search strings that include your name and state, your name plus the word ‘arrest’ or ‘lawsuit, your phone number(s) in quotes, and your email address(es) in quotes. 

You are looking for information that may not show you in the best light. And what happens if you find some conflicting or negative information about yourself? 

Great question. 

It can be tough to do damage control. Sometimes you can have items removed, but often this is quite difficult. Your best bet is to simply add data that better aligns with the brand you want to represent. To add to your digital footprint, you can participate in related forums, write articles, respond to blog posts or articles written by other people, or start a blog yourself. 

Just make sure all content directly relates to the “Why”, “What” and “Who” of your brand. 

A Deep Dive into LinkedIn

As a job seeker, if all your focus is on your resume, you are making a huge mistake. A well-crafted brand goes well beyond your resume and will include a strong online presence. Since our industry lives on LinkedIn, I wanted to spend a few minutes providing some guidance on how to build an effective and robust LinkedIn profile that will impress hiring managers. 

Why? Because recruiters and hiring managers use LinkedIn to search for candidates. LinkedIn’s search capabilities are excellent, allowing hiring entities to search by location, education, keywords, and employment. 

Therefore, it is important that when a hiring manager or recruiter finds your LinkedIn profile, there is something worthwhile to see. 

Your LinkedIn doesn’t have to be a replica of your CV. 

Your LinkedIn profile can be less formal than your resume. It should enhance the details provided in your resume or CV but never conflict with it. 

Since you have previously identified your “Why”, “What” and “Who”, now is the time to craft your story. Articulate why you are in this industry or your current role. Did you move into clinical research because you wanted to help cure cancer? Perhaps you want to help identify a solution for HIV or Aids? Get personal and show your passion. 

Additionally, we want to know what problem you can solve. What are your experiences and qualifications? Do you have oncology and cardiovascular experience? Experience monitoring medical device as well as drug studies? Add rich content when describing your skills and qualities because search engines love LinkedIn. 

It is also important that we gain insight into your future goals so be clear regarding your ambition. And importantly, articulate who you support. As previously discussed, using your LinkedIn profile to describe your “Why”, “What” and “Who” will enable you to clearly articulate your brand to anyone who lands on your profile.

Always upload a profile picture. 

LinkedIn reports that members with a photo receive 21 times more profile views and 9 times more connection requests. Make sure the photo is a headshot of you…not you running a marathon, skiing, or working a booth at a charity event. And while I know you love your family, don’t add a picture of you and your kiddos at a holiday or family function. 

Note that while your picture should be professional, your headshot doesn’t have to be stiff. If it is your personality to wear a shirt and tie to work, select a picture of you in a business suit. But it is also okay to be more casual. The most important aspect of your picture is that it is a headshot and shows a pleasant facial expression. 

You want to look approachable…and genuine. 

Use your real name and location.

Always use your full name. If someone is reaching out to me on LinkedIn, I am assuming they want to build a relationship with me. Think of it this way, would you have requested to connect with me if you hadn’t seen my last name? 

• Would you go on a first date with someone when you don’t know their full name? 
• Let them babysit your kids?
• Take an Uber ride with a driver who hasn’t listed his full name on his profile? 

And if you had a different last name at some point, consider adding it to your LinkedIn profile. You can get lost when you change your name, so be cognizant of the impact a name change will have on your personal brand. 

Additionally, the location is important. All positions have some type of location or time zone requirements; which means recruiters and hiring managers search those specific locations when trying to find candidates. If you don’t have a specific location listed, you aren’t likely to be found. 

One thing to note, if you haven’t listed your location because you are flexible with your work schedule and therefore able to support multiple time zones, just state that in your profile. 

Be careful with nicknames. 

Last week I received an application where the candidate included her LinkedIn profile link on her resume. I appreciate it when candidates do that because it keeps me from having to search for it. 

However, the challenge was that the name she used on her resume didn’t map to the name she used on her LinkedIn. It wasn’t even close. Why would she do that? 

Use your real name on all platforms. If you go by a nickname, just add that in parentheses or quotes on both your resume and LinkedIn. Do not correspond with a recruiter or potential hiring manager using a nickname that you have not referenced across your entire brand. 

Get a banner. 

They are easy to source…and they can be free if you use Canva. One thing to note, many people add a favorite quote or their contact information on their banner. This is all fine, but if you do add text to your banner, make sure your profile picture doesn’t cover up part of the wording. 

When is it Time to Work on Your Resume and Cover Letter? 

Now that you have established a personal brand and crafted a robust LinkedIn profile, craft a resume. Remember to consider your “Why”, “What”, and “Who” when creating your resume and cover letter, and never conflict with information you have posted elsewhere. 

Ready to tell your story? Contact us, we would love to hear it.