Managing your online identity means understanding that your presence in the world is bigger than just your physical presence. Your digital presence is worldwide and it's accessible to everyone. Know what's out there, manage it, and get in front of things that are negative.

Trevor Calton speaks to university masters students about job hunting and networking. (Live)

You're Not Applying for a Job
hen you apply, you're actually applying for an interview, and then you interview for a job. 

This is an important distinction to make because we often think that the only way that we're going to get to the job is if we get to the interview through the application process. 

You don't necessarily have to go through the application process to get the interview. There are a lot of different ways to get an interview and through the traditional application process is just one of them.

So let's talk about how do we get more interviews and how do we do that without necessarily applying for them?

Any Interview Can Become a Job Interview

What is an interview anyway? Pretty much any interview can become a job interview. 

Anytime a job seeker is meeting with a hiring manager or someone in the network of the hiring manager, they can typically include the context of a job interview by just creating awareness that that job seeker is looking. 

The Power of the Informational Interview

An informational interview is different than a job interview. But what people don't realize is that almost any informational interview can very easily be turned into a job interview. Especially if the two parties identify an opportunity that or some sort of connection comes up during the informational interview process. 

Be Honest About Your Motivations

We talked about earlier about being authentic and being honest and being genuine. And it's important to know that when you're doing an informational interview, you always do it with integrity and never try and be deceptive or misleading about why you're there. 

An informational interview is probably the most powerful thing that you can do to build your network and to uncover opportunities in the job market.

If you do it right, there's absolutely no reason that you can't get five or more interviews per week. I think it's really common for people to underestimate how powerful an informational interview can be. 

Flip the Script

In the informational interview, you are flipping the script. 

In a traditional job search, people are trying to get others to interview them. But in informational interview, you flip the script and you are the interviewer, and they are the subject that you are interviewing. 

It allows the job seeker to gain information about an industry, a company, or a particular job. It allows the job seeker to expand their network. And potentially create rapport or even a relationship with somebody who is in a particular position that might know the hiring manager, or might be able to recommend them, or might steer somebody in a particular direction towards a company.

Ask Open-Ended Questions
" Who's growing?" 

"Who's hiring out there?" 

"Which companies are the best ones to work for?" 

"Who dominates the market?" 

"Who's the most successful?"

"What companies are hiring?" 

"Who's growing right now?" 

"Who out there do you think would be looking for somebody like me?" 

Informational Interviews Are Incredibly Valuable

henever possible, think about creative ways that you can skip directly to an interview and recognize that interviewing other people is just as valuable, if not more valuable than trying to get them to interview you.

Once you have done that, then we can talk about how to go about conducting those interviews in a way that's going to help you expand your network, present yourself as a more attractive candidate, and arm you with better information to make your job search more robust.

Showing your personality is incredibly important.

If you try and water down who you are, what you're going to do is you're gonna end up diluting or masking all of the things that people, especially an interviewer, are looking for as a way to connect with you, as a way to get to know who you are and what type of person are you.

Because one of the things that hiring managers are always trying to do is evaluate whether or not you're gonna be a good fit with the organization on a cultural level. You know, are you going to be able to work with the people that are there? Are you going to bring some complementary personality to the organization?

Are you gonna bring some diversity? Are you gonna be able to gel? You can be different, but you still need to be able to fit. And so interviewers are often looking for those Interpersonal characteristics. 

So it's really important that you be yourself, be relatable, and let your personality come out in an interview or in a meeting or wherever you are.

Don't try and water yourself down and make yourself so plain vanilla that you become uninteresting.

What's really important to understand is that people do business with people they like. Not always, but when people have a choice between two different candidates that are relatively similar, they're often gonna go with the one that they like better personally, or that they feel a little bit more of an attachment, people that they feel more resonance with.

So just remember, be yourself and let your personality shine. 

The first thing a hiring manager does when they want to fill a position is look within within the company. Where's the second place they look?

They look within their network. They're going to reach out to people they personally know professionally and personally and say, "Whom do you know that may be a good fit for this job?” 

And only after that does the hiring manager then typically go to the public, which means posting the job online or publicly advertising the job. Most hiring managers would strongly prefer that they are able to find somebody that can promote or transfer within the company, or somebody in their network, before going through the process of posting a job online or making it public. 

The more you build your personal and professional network, the more people that you know will also know hiring managers.

So if you’re creating awareness, the more people you have in your network, the more likely that you are going to have people that will vouch for you with that hiring manager and say, "Yes, this person I know, [you], they'd be great fit. You should interview them."

"It's not what you know, but who you know." Right?

That used to be true, but it's not true anymore.  It doesn't matter as much who you know, but what matters is who knows you. In other words, what is really important is that we create awareness.

If They Don't Know You, It Doesn't Count
If you think you have a connection with somebody just because you know them, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have a connection if they don't know who you are back.

Focus on the people that you know also knowing who you are and what you are up to. And that means you need to create awareness. 
Nowadays it's very easy to self promote, and it's something that you have to do. And in order to uncover job opportunities that the general public doesn't know about, people have to be aware of what you're up to and the fact that you are looking for opportunities.

Let People Know What You're Doing
"Hey, I am in the market I am available for a job." Let everybody know what you're up to and what you're looking for. Create awareness with them to let them know that you're looking for something. So that if they come across some opportunity, you're going to be top of mind. You're going to be the first person they think of.

Create awareness about you and your professional situation and your professional goals, so that other people will keep you top of mind.

Right after I finished college I was working a job in a restaurant. I was waiting tables and I was looking for that, my first professional job.

And one day I'm waiting tables at the restaurant and this gentleman strikes up a conversation with me and he is like, "Hey, you know, I really like your energy. I like your outgoing attitude. I think you might be a great fit for my company." 

And I said, "Well, what company is that?" 

And he said, "Oh, I'll tell you later."

And he wouldn't tell me, but he prodded me and continued to ask, you know, if I would meet with him.

And I said, "Okay, fine I'll meet with you because I am looking for a professional job. 

And we sat down and I was like, "Okay, tell me the name of your company." 

He's like, "Oh, you know, we'll get to that." 

And starts giving me this whole speech and this whole almost like a presentation or a sales pitch about this company, which he still refused to name. 

And then finally after sitting there for about an hour, and I was like, "You know what? Right now, I'm starting to not trust you. I'm becoming distracted by the fact that you are withholding something and it's making me feel disinterested."

And I said, If you don't tell me the name of your company right now, I'm gonna get up and leave. And sure enough, of course, because my instinct was right this guy was trying to get me to join a multi-level marketing scheme or direct marketing pyramid type of company and I knew it.

And of course, after that experience, because he wasn't being honest and he wasn't being forthright I never wanted to talk to that guy again. He continued to pursue me for several months. I just refused to take his call. 

A very similar thing happened to me with a personal friend of mine just a few years ago who called me and actually it started out as in the context of a personal call. Like, "Hey, let's go grab a drink together."

And then when we got there, it was like, "Oh, well, you know, my real reason for getting together with you is because I have this great opportunity for you that I think you want to get involved in."

And basically she was trying to sell me vitamin supplements and she's like, Oh, you know, this will cure this and that, and, all the stuff. And I was like, Well, I'm not experiencing any of those things. 

But what stuck with me in that experience was the lack of authenticity created a distrust with this person, and it created a disconnect. And who knows if you create a disconnect with somebody who knows if you're ever going to be able to regain trust from that person. 

It's so important to be authentic and to be both honest with yourself and others. 

You need to act with integrity because if you're not being honest with yourself about maybe your strengths and weaknesses or your likes and dislikes, then you're obviously gonna be charting a course into the wrong place, into a place that's not sustainable.

So be authentic. Be honest. Be very real about your strengths and weaknesses and and who you are. 

Honesty and authenticity is key.