As a specialist in HR and recruitment, I am always astounded by the lack of care people take about their public "brand". Half-completed LinkedIn profiles, dodgy pictures on Facebook and selfies and tweets that weren't thought through all spell future career disaster for the unwary.

LinkedIn is a massively important part of your brand, and it's imperative your "online brochure" sells and markets you professionally. If a picture paints a thousand words, then your photo is your personal "logo" to a large extent. A 2014 study tracking the eye movements of recruiters by career researchers TheLadders, said recruiters spend approximately 20 per cent of their time looking at LinkedIn photos during their screening process.

So it's vital that we ensure our own photo promotes us professionally to our prospective employers and business networks.

Common photo problems

There are a wide range of common issues I see trawling through candidates on LinkedIn. Some of the main ones are:

• Personal hobbies - unless fishing is a fundamental part of your industry, don't have a photo of you pulling in a large snapper. It just says "I would much rather be doing this, than working for you."

• Busy background - this can be distracting. You want the focus to be on you, not on the background.

• Sunglasses / hat / car / weird top - again these are distracting and take away the professionalism from your picture. A recent photo I saw had a guy wearing dark sunglasses that made him look like he was in the Mafia.

• Wedding shot - though it's great that you are married, this is not the forum to put a photo of you in a suit, cutting your wife out of the photo, but leaving her shoulder in. It also infers you don't have any other pictures of yourself looking professional.

• Blatant selfie - smiling with your arm extended in a selfie does not say "I am a professional - hire me".

• On an angle - in many forums (including LinkedIn), having an 'arty' picture can be cool and can set you apart. However a normal photo of you on a 30-degree angle is not one of these.

• Stretched photos - this happens when a person really loves a particular photo, however it does not fit the LinkedIn measurements so is stretched to fit - a very bad look.

• No photo - I am aware that some people don't want to be judged by their photo, so they choose not to upload one. However their profile then looks incomplete, which does little to gain the confidence of recruiters and potential employers.

• Spend time to make a good logo - These days, any smart phone can create a pleasant and professional photo that ensures you position yourself well alongside others on LinkedIn.
​
Time to get it out and get snapping!

Welcome to my regular series entitled "My Light Bulb Moment". This column highlights a "blinding flash of insight", business, cultural and sports leaders have experienced, and how this changed their lives forever.

Sir Richard Hadlee MBE.

Sir Richard is regarded as one of the greatest fast bowlers and all-rounders in cricketing history. By the time he retired from international cricket in 1990, he had become the first bowler to pass 400 wickets and had made 3124 test runs, including two centuries and 15 fifties.

Born in Christchurch, Sir Richard made his first class debut for Canterbury in 1971/72 and his test match debut in 1973. On both occasions he had an inauspicious start, with his first delivery on both occasions being dispatched to the boundary. Eighteen years later in his last test match against England, he took a wicket with the final ball of his test career.


Lightbulb moment - Assume nothing and work hard!

"While at school, sport always seemed to interfere with my studies and exams, but school did teach me a valuable lesson that I have never forgotten" Sir Richard remembers. "That lesson has helped me throughout both my life and cricket career.

"In 1967 I sat my School Certificate exams at Christchurch Boys' High School. My way of preparing was to write and rewrite my notes hoping to remember the key points. I sat five exam papers and felt confident that I had passed." The results arrived in the mail and his mother appeared with the envelope on a silver tray.

Sir Richard opened the letter, and to his immense disappointment found he had got close, but failed. "This was embarrassing, disappointing, degrading and frustrating, especially as I was the only boy in the family [four brothers] to have failed School Certificate."

Lesson learned

"Realising that I had automatically expected to pass, I now came to terms with the fact that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to work harder, prepare better and be smarter in the way I did things. The following year I sat six subjects and passed them all [easily]. Lesson learned."

Taking those lessons into his cricket career, Sir Richard's attention to detail in preparation and planning was essential. "I got into good habits, disciplines and routines, and the harder I worked the more successful I became on the sporting field. The rest is history. I guess I have done quite well for being an early failure!!"

If you have had a blinding moment of insight (a light bulb moment), please email me as I would love to hear about it.

• Tom O'Neil is an award winning business speaker and MD of both www.CV.co.nzand www.TomONeil.com . Sign up to Tom's newsletter on his website or contact him at tom@tomoneil.com


Reprinted from my NZ Herald Column at http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11449400 

The full cake

As any chef will tell you, ingredients alone do not make a cake. There is work in mixing, baking and icing, to deliver a treat that people will enjoy, rather than eating raw ingredients.

Recently I was reminded there are similarities in job hunting. In discussion with a job search client, they didn't see the need to tailor their application to the role they were applying for. They believed all the information was in their CV, if a recruiter was prepared to dig around.

Becoming the solution

I explained two key principles:

First, a job vacancy is a "cry for help" from an organisation. The employer is stating publicly that they soon will not have a General Manager, Operations Manager or CFO. This is a major "problem" to them and they need to find the right person soon, or major cracks will appear.

Second, a job description is like a cake. Different ingredients (desired skills, experience and qualifications) are mixed and baked together to create a position that is the perfect fit for the problem the employer has.

Therefore it's vital you assess the key parts of the job description (those desired skills, experience and qualifications) and "mirror" them in your CV, cover letter and interview, highlighting you as a "tailored solution" to their "problem".

Presenting only the ingredients

The problem is most people who apply do not deliver a cake, but just present their entire career (the raw ingredients) to the recruiter or HR team. Sadly this is where many top candidates drop out of the initial short list, as during the initial cursory scan of their CV by a recruiter, the candidate has not presented a "solution" that quickly makes sense.

Different types of applications

It's important to get the mix just right: Many people provide too many ingredients, showing themselves as overqualified and over-experienced, probably wanting more money than the role is paying.

Others provide too few ingredients, promoting themselves as totally unqualified and inexperienced.

Many present extra ingredients that are not wanted (potatoes and chicken), and confuse the recruiter.

Let them eat cake

Recruiters and HR professionals are not mind readers. If you don't present your background and experience in a way that is relevant to the appointment, they will assume you don't have the skills needed and your application will quickly move to the unwanted pile.

When you apply for your next role, think of presenting not just the ingredients, but delivering a delicious gateau on a platter, with cherries on top. Let recruiters and HR professionals "eat cake" next time you apply for your dream role.

• Tom O'Neil is an award-winning business speaker, international author of The 1% Principle, and MD of both CV.CO.NZ and AchievementExpert.com. You can contact tom at tom@cv.co.nz.

Sometimes the gravity of the world's problems can overwhelm us; many of us want to help but don't know how. It's easy to get caught up with the "I can't do anything to make a difference so I won't bother" mantra. But change happens in increments at the individual level, with each of us doing something small but vital that adds up. Look at the movement to women's right to vote in New Zealand, enough people took part -- women and men -- until our societal fabric shifted. We've never looked back.

Rachael Le Mesurier

Rachael Le Mesurier, executive director of Oxfam New Zealand, remembers a pivotal moment when everything changed. "In my early 20s, while at university in the UK, I got involved in a campaign to stop the deportation of a young woman named Afia Begum and her child.

Her husband had died in a fire and, despite him having residency, the Home Office had ruled that she had to be deported, away from her UK-based family, to Bangladesh.Walking along Brick Lane on the march, I remember a moment when I thought -- I could have been born into her world, into the powerlessness of her position, it could have been me. It was just luck that I ended up in a Pakeha middle-class family, with two passports. I realised how much injustice is underpinned by inequalities in income, wealth, gender, legal status, race, education, health, safety and access to legal protection -- wherever we are born."

This revelation led Rachael into an international career in social justice, working to improve people's lives all around the world.

Light Bulb Moment - You CAN make a difference

"We don't have to accept the injustices we see all around us," believes Rachael. "There are a wide range of ways we can make a better world for our children and grandchildren, whether they are born here in New Zealand or to the daughter of Afia Begum."

You can have a real positive impact on the world if you choose to. "Donations, volunteering, supporting a campaign, working for a justice-focused organisation or leaving a bequest -- are all helping build a better world."

Be the change

I speak and write a lot about how small regular and positive change can make a big difference over the long-term in your business and personal life. Over the next week, however, I would ask you to think about how you can support someone else in the world, helping them and their family have a better life.esurier

Rachael Le Mesurier, executive director of Oxfam New Zealand, remembers a pivotal moment when everything changed. "In my early 20s, while at university in the UK, I got involved in a campaign to stop the deportation of a young woman named Afia Begum and her child.