People are looking for skilled Training and Development professionals -- for us.  You need to make every effort to help them find you.

I speak of ASTD-OC's Find-A-Trainer feature, which has suffered quite a bit from our website transitions.  Not only has our functionality profile changed, your own profile content may have changed as well.

Here's how Find-A-Trainer can work today.    

• You can search by name.
  Let's say you want to contact me.  In the search field, type "Venderley," and my profile will appear. It's an active search, so my profile actually appears by the time you type "vend."
  
• You can search by Company.
  Let's say you want to reach out to any trainers at Corinthian Colleges. In the search field, type "Corinthian."  You'll find three people, one of whom I know has moved on to a different company. I'll make a mental note to urge everyone to update their profiles.
  
• You can search by skill.
  Let's say you want to find a designer who knows Captivate.  Type "Captivate" in the search field.  Anyone who has included that word in their profile, even in the sense of "I captivate learners with my winning facilitation skills." will appear in the search feature.

Once you find the member you're looking for, click on their photo. If there's no photo, click the View Details link.  The member's complete profile appears, along with a link to send a message to that member through our website.

This is a cool, fully functioning resource that will work for you if you work with it. My recommendations:

• Keep your profile updated.  The "Send Message" button will send a message to the email address on file.  If it's wrong, then whoever's trying to reach you, won't.
• Include your skillset in your profile.  Powerpoint guru? Type that in. Captivate? Camtasia? Flash? Make sure those words exist in your profile, even as keywords.  This is how people will find you.
• Include a photo with your profile.  The photos will catch the eyes of those wanting to find a trainer. The words "View Details," not so much.

To update your profile:

1. Log in to astdoc.org.
2. In the upper right hand corner of the screen, you'll see a link: View Profile.  Click that to see what's in your profile.
3. From there, you can click "Edit Profile" to make sure that you're visible in our community.