There are a few things that just go together. You know what I mean, right? Things like peanut butter & chocolate, sandy beaches & brightly-colored cocktails, Christmas & creepy men dressed as Santa in the mall. Anyway, you get where I am going with this. Some things just make sense together.

For the jobseeker, combining your personal branding efforts and your social media efforts is an extension of that principle. For most of you this means being active on a number of interactive platforms, but that’s not all you can do. When it comes to gaining an advantage over the competition you have to really commit to putting your best cyber-foot first, and enabling your efforts to reciprocate the labor invested. So what does that mean?

I came across a tweet today from a good friend, @jandrick, who was asking his followers to vote for an old colleague of his in an upcoming hiring challenge. @jasonyormark is hoping to snag the position of Community Manager at @vanns, a popular electronics outlet based in Montana. Normally I would vote and go on about my business, but the truth is I was really impressed with how Jason was going after his career goal. His efforts are clearly paying off with both a feature in a local paper, and flooded Twitter stream of support.

So how did he take his brand and socially market himself for success? Here are the three things I think Jason really did well:

First off…he committed to it. He made a hilarious video, he put it out there, and he used his already established connections to help push the link and message. In doing this, he is showing Vanns what level of commitment they can expect, and how strong his network is.

Secondly…he integrated his efforts into his own website. I get asked a lot if a personal website is needed to get a job these days. Is it needed? No. Is it a bonus, ABSOLUTELY. If you don’t have a domain to show off your skills then companies are left wandering multiple sites. Jason has a great personal site set up. See the picture below for a few things he is doing right.

a. It’s clear, branded, and concise.

b. It’s social. You can connect with him easily.

c. It’s quality, demonstrating his thoughts and participation in the community manager industry.

Lastly, he didn’t let his efforts become spammy. He actually responded to the support on Twitter, he kept his personal site in tact with the focus on his material not just the video for entry. Too often job candidates let their desire for an opportunity take over. The extreme pushiness of their message nullifies any of the benefit that can be gained. The key is to be visible but not spammy.

If you think about it the same principle for branding yourself derives from general marketing tactics. There is always a message to get out, and you are always hoping for an action, but if you push too hard you end up cannibalizing any of the time spent on getting the message out there.

I wanted to get up an example of a personal branding website that is doing it right, and show how that hard work can be used to gain the upper hand when applying for a competitive job such as the Community Manager position for Vanns.

I would like to also take a minute and give huge props to Vanns for taking their job search and making it social. Only a handful of companies are really tapping into the potential of new media to find qualified and passionate job candidates. I am sure whoever you hire, will be a great addition to your already committed team (within seconds of asking for a contact at Vanns, I was greeted by Matt Ranta, Marketing Manager at Vanns, and offered contact information...now thats how it should be done).

Best of luck to all the applicants, and a special shout-out to @jasonyormark. Great job! If you feel like voting for @jasonyormack, you can do so here