How to Build a Professional Presence

Did you ever meet an executive or even a coworker who had an incredible quality that just commanded the room? You can't put your finger on it, but they just have... "it." Well, it's likely their presence.

While presence may come naturally to some people, others sometimes need to work on it. If you're one of those people, how do you build an authentic presence that represents you and your brand? Lorraine K. Lee, who was named one of 2020’s Top Virtual Keynote Speakers, teaches professionals from Fortune 100 companies on boosting their professional presence. She walks listeners through how it's done on the latest episode of Get Hired with Andrew Seaman.

You can find a transcript of the conversation below. Also, you can listen to the episode above or by clicking here.

BONUS: Lorraine will join #GetHired Live on Monday, April 17, to answer your questions about building a presence. You can RSVP for the show and submit your questions by clicking here.

TRANSCRIPT: How to Build a Professional Presence

Andrew Seaman: One of the best compliments I ever received was offered up to me during high school. I was getting ready to keep score for a girl's volleyball game when the referee told me, "you have a presence about you." I didn't fully understand what she meant, but I was flattered. And to this day, I try to be aware of the presence I have in whatever room I'm in, virtually or in person. Today on Get Hired, we're talking about your professional presence and how it can differ from who you are outside the office. From LinkedIn News, this is Get Hired, a podcast for the ups and downs and the ever-changing landscape of our professional lives. I'm Andrew Seaman, LinkedIn's managing editor for Jobs and Career Development, bringing you conversations with experts who, like me, want to see you succeed at work, at home, and everywhere in between. Our guest today has not only built a powerful presence, but also a successful career in public speaking.

Lorraine Lee, founder of RISE Learning Solutions, was named one of 2020's top virtual keynote speakers by ReadWrite and consults with Fortune 100 companies. Today she's joining us to share some of her knowledge about building presence. Before we get to the conversation though, I want to let you know that Lorraine will join us on Monday, April 17th at noon eastern time on Get Hired live to go deeper into this topic and answer your questions. You can find the RCP link to Get Hired live in the show notes. Now, back to today's conversation with Lorraine. To get to the meat of the conversation, when we talk about presence, I think some people, they sort of say, oh, that person has presence and they can't really define what it is. They just know that that person sticks out, maybe in a good way, maybe in a bad way. What is presence?

Lorraine Lee: Yeah, so I love the word presence because it has multiple meanings, and all these meanings are really important for any professional, no matter what point you are in your career. So my personal mission is to empower ambitious professionals to stand out to fast track their career visibility and flexibility. And they do that through their professional presence. So when I say presence, I mean it in both senses of the word. So the first is presence in terms of how you appear to others. So you see someone who looks really professional, really well-spoken, and then you might think, oh, she has a great presence. And then presence in the other sense of the word too, meaning where you are. I feel like when you hear presence, you think about this one a little bit less. So if you see my posts often on LinkedIn, for example, Andrew, you might say, wow, she has such a great presence on LinkedIn. I see her everywhere. And really both of these things, both how you come across to others and where others come across you, are just really so important in helping you get that career visibility and flexibility.

Andrew: It's really important to sort of curate that in some way because obviously there are people who just say, hey, I'm going to be authentic, which is great, but you also have to put some forethought into it. Where you are and how accessible you are, because there is value in not being necessarily everywhere, and it's different than a brand though, right?

Lorraine: I think when people think of personal brands, they think of what that person is known for, maybe your mission statement. But presence is really, it's about how you show up, I think, and also again, where you show up. So brand is one piece of it. It's kind of that messaging, but presence is kind of that wrapper that allows your brand to get out there and builds your reputation.

Andrew: For job seekers, what do you think their presence should really be in the sense of how they're showing up, but also where they're showing up?

Lorraine: Yeah, that's a great question. So I think for job seekers in particular, a really big part of this is going to be virtual presence. Includes both being on video and then also being on LinkedIn. With your video presence, you want to choose how you want to come across. You need to make sure that everything about you in this little small screen we have aligns to those adjectives that you want to describe your presence. So is your camera set up properly, what's your framing like, how are you using your hands, what's in your background? And then of course, you also have to think about your answers and what you say as well and make sure those align in terms of your presence. And then LinkedIn presence is also a big piece. So getting your profile filled in and optimized is the first thing you definitely should do. But you should also start thinking about what you might want to do beyond that. You are sharing insights and ideas, and you're commenting on other people's posts going above and beyond and building that LinkedIn presence.

Andrew: Yeah. How would you go about building that then?

Lorraine: I think it's a combination of learning and then putting it into practice. So whenever I talk about virtual presence, I always like to make it very practical, actionable, easy to follow. So learn, follow people who are interesting, who you would want to emulate, for example, people who you admire. And then finding those trusted people who you can turn to and then practice. And to not be too hard on yourself that you have to get it right right away because these things do take some time to build up and to get comfortable with.

Andrew: I assume part of that is also sort of building a community that will give you feedback on what you're doing too, right? Because sometimes people, their self-image or the way they view what they're doing is much different than what they're actually doing to other people.

Lorraine: Absolutely. So I'm the feedback queen. I'm always asking for it, often giving people feedback if they're open to it. And so finding those trusted mentors or colleagues or friends and then getting their opinion about what they're seeing about you, how you look, if your posts are resonating, that's such a wonderful way to just really get a feel for how people see you, because as you said, we're our own worst critics. So just having your feedback circle I think is really important.

Andrew: Yeah, we've talked about this on previous episodes of the podcast about knowing who those people are in your community because you always have your friends that are sort of your cheerleaders, they're in your corner no matter what. But then you also want people who will say, listen, I'm all for you, but I'm also going to tell you the truth. And those are the people where you want to go for the feedback and things like that. 

We'll be right back with Lorraine Lee, founder of RISE Learning Solutions. 

Andrew: And we're back, talking about building a professional presence with Lorraine Lee, founder of RISE Learning Solutions. 

How do you know you're on the right track with building your presence, but also where you are accessible online? How do you know you're moving in the right direction?

Lorraine: I definitely think feedback is one important piece of that. I would say another piece of that is just that you'll actually just feel it. I think you'll feel more confident because you'll either hear others mentioning something to you or you'll be able to visually see the differences. You are going to just naturally feel more confident and notice that you just look more professional, more put together, and that's going to be kind of your own internal feedback system.

Andrew: I typically know if I'm moving in the right direction with something career related or something personal if I realize that I'm sort of not paying attention to distractions that pop up. So that's also sort of sometimes how I test, not necessarily my presence all the time, but just are things moving in the right direction.

Lorraine: Yeah, that's a great one. You want to align everything you're doing to that goal and it helps keep you focused and like you said, moving in the right direction.

Andrew: So then what do you think are the pitfalls of developing a presence, because obviously people can go astray when they're doing it?

Lorraine: I would say one of the biggest pitfalls I see is people just sticking to the status quo because that's what they're comfortable doing. I mean, many people have fixed their virtual presence, which is great, but a lot of people still are doing things the exact same way they started doing them when the pandemic started. We have to do more and we have to stretch ourselves. So the same can be said with LinkedIn. The status quo might be thinking, oh, LinkedIn is just a job site, so I just need to use it as a resume. But it's so much more than that now. So we need to take the time to learn about how we can leverage these channels, these mediums, so that we can stand out and it just really just opens the door to a lot of opportunities and you standing out and just making such a difference in your confidence as well.

Andrew: Yeah. When you think of that sort of developing your presence beyond what people were just doing in the early days of the pandemic, what is that? What advice do you have for people to go beyond just joining a Zoom link or attending a networking session? Because I've been to those networking sessions and there are a lot of sort of digital wallflowers where they sign on, but they hang back, so it's just sort of like a face in a box.

Lorraine: We need to do more than just show up and have our face appear. There's so much technology out there now that allows you to get creative with video, both live and async. So just tapping into those and figuring out what kind of works best for your use case is going to help you there and then figure out, again, what's important to you, what's your goal? Take it a step at a time, build on that. It's definitely a shock to the system now all of us kind of getting out there again and meeting people. I know even I've been hearing extroverts, they show up to a networking event and they feel awkward. So if they feel awkward, can you imagine how the introverts feel? And I'm an introvert, so not putting that pressure on yourself and just taking it step by step and just being patient with yourself.

Andrew: And actually, I think that's a really good point is that things are sort of coming back into the real world a little bit more. So there are networking events, there are meetups now. How do you bring that presence that you've cultivated online that you've had in digital meetings, and how do you translate that into the real world, would you say?

Lorraine: Yeah, so there are definitely some things that will be a little bit different, of course, in person. I think what I would say is just to remember at the foundation of it all, think about those values that are important. So you want to connect with people, you want to make people feel heard, you want to listen to people. Just leaning into all those things that apply to both virtual and in person, then just remembering that there is that overlap. Teach them something, make them feel like they know you and that you're there to help them, and all these kinds of things are important to focus on.

Andrew: I think the more you put yourself out there, the more natural it'll become too, switching between the virtual side and the in-person side. And when it comes to actually interacting with people, presence can also sometimes turn people off if someone takes too aggressive of an approach or maybe they take too much of a leadership side of an approach when you're applying for work or something like that and that's not what they're looking for. How do you learn to maybe temper what your presence is so that way you do sort of set yourself up for success to get a job?

Lorraine: I would say that if that's your natural personality, I wouldn't want someone to temper it per se. Maybe that's just not quite the right job for them if they feel like they need to suppress kind of key parts of their personality. I think if you find yourself not getting jobs because of the way you come across and you start seeing it's a pattern, for example, I think one really important part of the job interviewing process is, again, asking for that feedback afterwards and finding out what you could have done differently. Maybe you could do better next time. And I think start taking that feedback to heart if you start seeing trends over many job interviews, then maybe yes, it is something that you are doing that you don't realize you're doing that is kind of turning people off or rubbing them the wrong way. So I think that follow up and that willingness to change and to learn is really important to address kind of potential red flags that might be stopping you from getting an opportunity.

Andrew: An example that I always use for something like that is I know that there are a lot of people who go into interviews and they think that old dating advice applies to the job search process where it's like, if I play hard to get, I'll get everything that I want. When in reality, most employers that I talk to, they don't want to hire someone who doesn't want to work for them.

Lorraine: It needs to be a two-way street.

Andrew: Yeah, so if you carry yourself as being too good for an employer or not actually wanting to work there, you kind of spoil your own chances. So that's an example of how your attitude, how your presence can really sort of spoil your opportunities. And I assume that the goal is to create a presence online and in-person that is so authentic that if you get a job, you don't really have to alter it that much, right?

Lorraine: Yeah, exactly. I think once you get the job, you have more spaces and more places where you can bring that presence, show your leadership and your presence in meetings, on Slack with your teams. So a lot of different channels and just more opportunity for you to really get out there and stand out and kind of show what you're about.

Andrew: And for people who say, okay, this is something that I need to work on that I've been going through the motions of a job search and I haven't been using my online presence to its full advantage. What would you say are your top tips for developing that presence online and then of yourself?

Lorraine: Yeah, that's a good question. I would say, first, to think about how you want to come across to others. So do you want to come across super personable and really jokey and casual because that's your personality? Depending on the industry, maybe you're in finance and so you need to be a little bit more serious and put together. And so figuring out exactly what you want to show to the world is going to be important. And then I would start thinking about how you might create content or interact with others in a way that aligns with that. And then I would say reaching out to other people, like-minded people or people in industries that you want to work for, and just chatting with them and finding out what got them in that role and what someone needs to be successful. I think these are all important things to kind of help you build your presence and help you understand how you might want to come across for specific roles or industries.

Andrew: I think those are really great tips. Thank you so much for joining us.

Lorraine: Thanks, Andrew.

Andrew: That was Lorraine Lee, founder of RISE Learning Solutions. Remember, it's up to you to put our advice into practice. Still, you always have a community backing you up and cheering you on. Connect with me and the Get Hired community on LinkedIn to continue the conversation. In fact, ask Lorraine your own questions on Monday, April 17th at noon Eastern time on Get Hired live. You can find the RCP link in today's show notes. Get Hired is a production of LinkedIn News. This episode was produced by Alexis Ramdoo, Lolia Briggs is our associate producer, Assaf Gidron engineered our show, Joe DiGeorgi mixed our show, Dave Pond is head of news production, Enrique Montalvo is our executive producer, Courtney Coupe is head of original programming for LinkedIn, Dan Roth is the editor in chief of LinkedIn, and I'm Andrew Seamen. Until next time, stay well and best of luck.