The following is an excerpt from BlueSteps' webinar Navigating the Executive Search Process. If you are a BlueSteps member, access your full recording here. If you are interested in becoming a BlueSteps to access our webinar archive, along with other career management solutions, learn more here.

Kathy Simmons, Director, BlueSteps Executive Career Services: I'm an executive. How should I be preparing for a job search or career transition in terms of documents, career goals, values, all of those things? Blair, what advice would you give?

Blaire Miller, Partner, The Hunter Group: Well, I go back to something told to me early in my career; three rules. First, try to keep your debt low to really keep your career options open, including entrepreneurial opportunities. Continue refreshing your skills, especially around technology as we just talked about, such as AI and keep your network strong through both digital sources like LinkedIn with your profile and your relevant postings, as well as association events and networking. It's a combination as you're going through your career, whether you're heads down and successful in your current role or you're looking for your next role. 

Kathy Simmons: Excellent. John, how about you? What would you add?

John Ryan, Vice President, TRANSEARCH: Well, I love what Blair just said so I'll just attack on one or two comments. I would just say that our clients, as well as us, will look at your online presence once we're in contact with you, so we'll do searches. We want to know what's out there, we want to see your bio, we want to see if you've spoken at events. Do you have any videos? Have you posted any articles? Also, we'll look at your LinkedIn and see if you have any recommendations? Have you built that out?

I find myself giving people suggestions on LinkedIn content. It's more of a, I think you should build this out. It's way too succinct. Then occasionally, I'll tell people, hey, it's too built out. Writing a book there, nobody's going to read that, and that kind of thing. I just tell people to proactively manage their social media presence and where they can also just maintain some continuity. I will tell you that, when I find that you as an individual, have some video content out there I love it because I know the client will see it. If you do a good job of presenting your speech or whatever, it's just a positive. I would tell those folks out there who have those opportunities to get interviewed. You should do it because people check it out, and it promotes you.