Over the past few weeks, a few friends and LinkedIn connections have reached out asking if it was really worth having a personal brand website and if it did help in the whole job search process?
The short answer : YES!
There are three good reasons why you need to start thinking of your own site:
You Stand Out
I built my website last year while I was still doing my MBA at Schulich School of Business. The importance of building a strong personal brand hit me like a truck in my Customer Experience Design class. It played out like this :
Professor: “How many of you have a resumé and a LinkedIn profile?”
Naturally us business students all raised our hands pretty smugly.
Professor : “How many of you have a website?”
Only one girl raised her hand.
“Who do you think am I likely to interview?”
That incident stayed etched in my mind and within the next couple of weeks www.shomikroy.co was live.
You are no doubt extremely skilled and talented, but something as simple as URL with your name could make the difference when picking between equally competent candidates. It showcases your ability to go the extra mile for both yourself and the organisations you partner with.
2. Enhance Your Digital Presence
Everything is on the internet today. EVERYTHING. If a recruiter (or any person you meet in a professional capacity) looks you up online (which they will), do you really want pictures of you getting drunk showing up on their feed? With a little bit of SEO you can make sure that whenever someone googles your name, your website shows up first. Here’s what you get if you google Shomik Roy :
Besides, few things are as cool as telling someone, “Google me” and have your website show up!
3. Great Ice Breaker
This is especially important for students reaching out for coffee chats. It’s a good way to get a conversation started with professionals you want to speak to on LinkedIn. In my experience, adding the website link in my invite note made a difference in the response rates. A rough calculation of my own search history showed a significant difference in the response rate.
Thanks to the website in my signature, I was able to meet with the global head of a major streaming service and during our chat he mentioned that the website was what got him interested enough to talk to me.
It’s pretty easy to get a website up and running. There are plenty of different portals that you can use to create yours! I used Squarespace and am very happy with it.
Feel free to browse through mine and take inspiration for yours!
Note: The website is an addition to your brand and job search arsenal. It is not a magical solution and building a website doesn’t mean you discard all the other efforts.
I would love to hear your thoughts in the comments!
Shomik Roy is a business strategist in the e-commerce industry. Shomik’s area of expertise lies in marketing strategy and scaling up sales.