How to Grow Professionally

Build Online Presence

In order to grow as a professional, you need to have an online presence. What exactly is an online presence? Online presence is your presence on the world wide web. It could be your social media profiles, your blogs, your websites, your profiles on job sites, freelancer sites, etc. In order to find out your online presence, just try googling yourself. When you google your name, what do you see on the top search list? Do you find yourself on the first page? If you don't see yourself on the first page, you need to consider improving your search engine ranking by building your online presence. In order to build your online presence, you need to upload your bio on job sites, and freelancer sites, and also build your personal blog or a personal website. You don't need a self-hosted website, even free hosted websites can help you build your online presence. If the search result shows your social profile in the top position, follow the link to see what your social pages tell about you. Do you see any controversial remarks, do you see any pictures that will damage your reputation? Have you ever made some hate speech? Remove all those content that can hamper your career.

Not just to develop your career, building a social presence helps even business owners, entrepreneurs, marketers, influencers, brand managers, etc. Small business owners need to build pages on various social sites to establish their online presence even if they are not selling. having social pages establish trust as well as builds a customer base. Building social pages is not enough, the business owners also need to be very active on their pages.

How to Build Your Online Presence

Social media platforms are the best place to build your online presence. However, for job seekers, not all social platforms can be considered good for building a social presence. For instance, if you are on TikTok uploading dancing and singing videos, how will it help you to build your online presence as a job seeker. Likewise, if you are a YouTuber publishing entertainment videos, how will it help you as a job seeker. Therefore, you need to choose a platform that is best for professionals. I recommend LinkedIn. It is a social platform for professionals where you can publish your resume, and search for jobs. These days a lot of people submit their LinkedIn profile as their resume when applying for jobs online. Twitter is also a good platform for professionals. However, you should avoid Tweeting on controversial topics if you want to impress your employers. Having a personal Facebook page where you have a proper bio and share content that builds your profile will also be very helpful. You will also have to build your personal website. If buying a domain and paying for hosting is beyond your budget, you can try a site called about.me where you can build one page personal website for free.

Develop Soft Skills

Soft skills are very important to grow professionally. Even when you are an expert on some specialized skills, you still need soft skills. Let's say you are a programmer, would you be able to get a job in programming if you do not have communicative skills. Would you be hired if you cannot confidently talk about what you do, where you have worked previously, etc? Let's say you are working as a programmer in a company. As a programmer, you will also have to pitch your idea to your clients. For example, a client wants software for a school. As a programmer, it is your duty to explain what kind of software you will be developing. If you are very bad at pitching your idea if you are very bad at presentation skills, would the client work with you? let's say you are a copywriter, however, writing is not all you need as a copywriter, you also need graphic design skills or at least sketching skills. if you cannot graphically show how the copy will actually appear, how can you impress your clients? In order to excel in your career, you need a lot of soft skills. Some of these skills can be as simple as being presentable and some as complicated as having additional skills.