It’s been a rough week in the employment world. I’m not going to bombard you with stats, chances are you have read them, put your head in your hands, and thought, “this is such a bad scene” (or something of that nature). After Monday’s layoffs one thing became crystal clear to all of us—the job market is now a crowd of eager, competitive, and (at times) desperate job seekers.

So what can you do? What can you do to separate yourself from the crowd and be noticed? Although it’s critical to be well versed in your particular discipline, that’s not really what I am referring to here. Instead I mean—how do you be the one in the neon shirt in a crowd of black and white? There are a number of simple things you can do to help people remember your name, your face, and hopefully—your application.

When seeking out a job online you need to establish a clear online entity. I go into detail about this here, but for our purposes now, I really mean—you need to make sure that your name brings to mind a few skills, specialties, etc. It’s kind of like building your very virtual introduction. This is “Enter Name Here” and he/she is known for “Enter Skills Here.” This can be difficult with the breadth of interests we all have, just be sure not to dilute your brand name by wearing too many hats. Choose the words that will land you the job you want, and start lacing them into your profiles, bios, and digital footprint.

Once you have the words picked out, start to peddle them. Find the blogs specializing in these words and subscribe. Become a part of the dialogs through blog comments, forum rooms, and group chats. Begin pushing your name with links back to your LinkedIn profile, enabling people to find out more about you professionally. When I say “peddle” your name, I mean just that—“to sell or offer, from place to place.” Don’t get sucked into one online community or network, bounce around and become a part of multiple conversations revolving around your industry. For some of you working in industries that have yet to embrace cyberspace, start something. Be the key voice for that industry, and find success is becoming an authority in your industry.

Now that you are dancing around, chatting a bit, writing here and there, establishing connections—its time for some damage control. Put your detective hat on, and find your own digital dirt. Take the steps necessary to make sure its buried nice and deep or at least countered with your own evangelizing. It’s important to stand out from the crowd, but you want to make sure it’s for positive reasons. Seriously, trust us, whatever is out there…future employers will find. In just one year, the number of recruiters using search engines to research recruits went from 11% to 23%.  Yeah, intense.

After clearing up the muck, make sure you put your best face forward, and by that I literally mean put your face forward. Make sure all your profiles have a clear, professional, and appropriate picture representing your best self. The skeptics are thinking, “I don’t want to be represented by a picture, they should want me for my qualifications.” Unfortunately everyone…it no longer works that way. The online world has opened recruiting up to visual associations. When you forego the picture on a profile, rather then making a statement about equalizing the playing field, you are actually coming across as someone who doesn’t have a complete profile, which suggests a casual attention to detail. All of that = no good. So find a good picture, which professionally represents you, and brand yourself visually as well as textually.

Okay you have the words working for you. You have pushed them into all corners of your industry. You swept the dirt under the rug, and now you have your smile all up in everyone’s face. What now? Go big. You are wearing the neon shirt, now get out there. Start applying, calling, emailing, and really make some noise. It’s kind of like having all of your virtual ducks in a row and now you need to show them off.