When I think about my own career, I think that the reason I got to where I am now is from my network. Sometimes the network came at odd times (my boss who needed a volleyball partner). And sometimes it came from my strategic maneuverings (the boyfriend who I forced to hire me and then write a recommendation about how I was his best employee.) But at every point in my career, my network carried me to my next spot as much as I carried myself.

There is a lot that goes into networking. When I first realized how important it is to network it was when I was trying to get a freelance business off the ground, and I needed to drum up clients. I forced myself to spend two hours a day networking, even though I had no idea what I’d do during that time.

It turned out that the time was best spent when I was just talking to people. Seeing what they need help with. What they were doing that I could learn from. What they would be interested in about me. The process of learning how to connect with people about professional interests was transforming to me.

Social media put that process on steroids. Social media is about conversation and about giving and this is really what networking is about: Paying attention to people enough to figure out who they are and how you can help them.

The Brazen Careerist community is the culmination of what I’ve learned about being part of a community. The giving part. My vision was that we would all help each other to learn more about our selves and get more of what we want from our careers.

What I didn’t realize was that the site has to grow much bigger, from a blog network to a social network, in order to really help people. We can help a wide range of people achieve a wide range of goals when we open the community to conversations.

I’m excited to announce the launch of the new, Brazen Careerist. It’s a big day for us, and a turning point for the community.

You’ll still have your information on the site, and your friends will still be there, but what we do on the site will change. It will be bigger and better.

Let me first say that I never planned to have a huge community. I planned to start a small company with Ryan Healy and Ryan Paugh because community has repeatedly been the way that I get myself through tough spots in my life, and I wanted to help other people learn how to use community as a tool to keep themselves headed in the direction they want.
I didn’t realize that once we launched the community, the community would sort of take charge. Over the past year, members have asked for more and more features, until finally, we realized, we had no choice but to turn Brazen Careerist into a social network.

So now we’re launching something big. Because this is what will best help everyone. The social network we are launching is a way for everyone to manage their careers this way. And I wish I could tell you that I had the initial vision to make Brazen Careerist this big. But I didn’t. So I’m thanking you, the community, for helping me realize that there’s huge potential in the power of peers helping peers. And we are doing that.

If you haven’t checked out the site already, here are some things that have changed:

Starting today, we are calling Brazen Careerist the career management tool for next-generation professionals. In the online career space where experienced professionals win, we’ve created a network that will help young professionals level the playing field. Instead of just a traditional résumé, at the core of the new Brazen Careerist profile is an idea-based feed that showcases your knowledge, opinions and thoughts. In other words: Your potential. We all know there are pools of new talent coming into the market, but no career site showcases the most critical thing that talent should be sharing: Ideas.

Although you will still be able to easily access your favorite posts from the bloggers on Brazen Careerist, the current blog-driven homepage is being retired. Our goal is to give you—the member—control over the content you see when you log on. So immediately after you log in, you will be directed to your personal Fan Feed where you can follow real-time updates of the ideas your favorite members are sharing.

In addition to the Fan Feed update, your user profile is going to be more idea-centric than it ever was before. A quick visit to your profile will reveal that the main focus is the important things you have to say.

Accompanying your personal Ideas Feed is a new resume section that tells other members where you’ve been. The rest of the Brazen Careerist you’ve come to know and love is pretty similar. We just gave it a facelift!

Ryan Paugh—our Community Manager—and I always talk about how lucky we are to have a community that helps us so willingly and today we definitely need your help.

There’s something undeniable about the voices within our community. We have been waiting for a long time to ask you guys to use those voices in support of the Community and today we’re graciously asking you to put those voices to work.

Today, we’re asking you to share how you really feel about Brazen Careerist. If you have a blog, please consider writing about us. If you don’t blog, consider talking to your peers about us on Twitter, Facebook and whatever other communities that you are a part of. Thank you so much for your support of everything we have ever done on Brazen Careerist!

And please! Send us your feedback in the comments section, or through our Community Feedback group.