One Picture is Worth… (see www.SueMentors.blogspot.com)

Do you have a photo posted in your online profiles and web spaces?

I have been surprised to notice in the past few months how many of my colleagues and friends do NOT have a photo posted. In many cases, they are new to the website (e.g., just joined LinkedIn). It has made me wonder why.

I remember the early days of life online. I didn’t post my photo for several years but I finally got over my nervousness in 1999. (Those were also the years where the most common place to post a photo was in online dating sites.)

Nowadays, there is much more openness and comfort with our lives being lived online as well as in person. Many of you readers are online in multiple spaces – both professionally and personally.

I recommend that you post a photo in your various web spaces – and also that you use the same photo in all your professional sites. (I just changed my photo and made sure that LinkedIn, my SueMentors blog, and my SueMentors twitter profile all use the same photo.) Why?

Think about the power of an image. If a potential employer searches to see what you have done online, the employer will now see an image associated with your name and skills. (Often, LinkedIn is the first – or among the first – in the search results.) And if the employer keeps searching for results about you, the same image is seen over and over. Now do you get the picture?

A final thought about your picture to be posted. Make sure it is good quality and focuses mostly on your face. It is amazing how many photos posted in online professional sites are blurry, taken at too long a range (e.g., showing someone standing), or include children or pets along with the person. If you can’t afford to pay a professional to take a quality headshot for you, ask a camera-savvy friend to help you with a photo shoot and then work together to choose the best image. And remember to crop, fix the redeye, and otherwise make it the best photo you can.

Posted via email from sue griffey's posterous

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Mentor: Linda Fogarty, Senior Director, Monitoring, Evaluation and Research, Jhpiego

Another feature of this blog is bringing you advice and perspectives from people who mentor, by answering 3 questions.
Here are Linda Fogarty’s responses.

What are mentees looking for?
They want someone to help them believe in themselves, clarify their strengths and passion and their own professional goals
Helping them understand what their best is and how they can be their best

What 1 piece of advice do you give every mentee you work with?
You need to fight for yourself. Understand your professional value and provide that to others.

Why are you interested in mentoring?
It’s very satisfying to see mentee growth and development and how they transform themselves.

Mentor: Barbara Rawlins, Monitoring and Evaluation Team Leader, Maternal and Child Survival Program

Another feature of this blog is bringing you advice and perspectives from people who mentor, by answering 3 questions.
Here are Barbara Rawlins’ responses:
What are mentees looking for? · Career guidance · Technical advice · Moral support · Advice on how to negotiate politically-sensitive or controversial situation
What 1 piece of advice do you give every mentee you work with? Figure out what they want to do (in the long term) and what steps they can take to get there
Why are you interested in mentoring? To support younger colleagues, especially women, to help attain their career goals

What Kind of Culture do YOU Want to Work in - And How Can You Decide If You Fit?

Most mentees I work with are pursuing a job – whether it’s getting a job or moving to a different job and/or company – and one area that mentees don’t routinely consider is that of a company’s culture. (See resources that describe “company culture” such as https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-company-culture-2062000.) Mentees focus on the job under recruitment and on the organization, but they don’t always take the time to understand the hiring organization’s culture – and the mentee’s fit in different company cultures.
There are many resources on categories of company cultures that provide job-seekers with ways to assess what categories they would best fit in. And these can be also used in an interview situation to determine culture. Organizational Culture Types https://www.ocai-online.com/about-the-Organizational-Culture-Assessment-Instrument-OCAI/Organizational-Culture-Types5 Types of Corporate Culture: Which One Is Your Company? https://blog.enplug.com/corporate-culture9 Types of Org…

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