This post is part of the Professional Independence Project series.
While Jordan Belfort made the sentence "Sell me this pen" quite famous, for young professionals today the real question is "Sell me yourself." All those job interviews you had, all those cover letters you've written, the time you spent polishing your CV, and the number of networking events you attended have one single common aspect: They help you sell yourself better.
It's that simple, yet very powerful. Selling yourself is becoming the prime focus of young professional in an employment ecosystem that values not only applicant's credentials, but also social clout. The people you know, the posts you share, the videos you watch, and the pages you like are as defining as where you studied in terms of professional persona.
The issue is that social and professional life are separated by a tiny blurry line that is quickly dissipated thanks to the phenomenal penetration of social media and mobile connectivity. The very reason you're reading this article is because you realize how important your personal brand is, and how crucial it is in determining where you will intern, work, or who you will meet.
Now some people will see personal branding as a luxury, something you can only afford after making it to the prime league. The truth is, personal branding is what usually will make you or break you right after college, if not before. Trendy employers everyone wants to work for are making it clearer by the day that your personal brand is as important as your CV.
Look at Google, Twitter, Facebook, or Starbucks. They already publicly state that their considerations in various employment stages are not only affected by your credentials, but by your potential. Remember, credentials vs potential. This is a distinction you have to thoroughly understand. Your credentials, for a lack of better words, have an expiry date on them. Your skills and knowledge will be obsolete in few decades, or few years.
The world is changing, and while you might be great at managing a sales team from the 90s, today is a totally different world where your skills are nothing but outdated memories. Potential, on the other hand, is timeless. A visionary, someone with a sense of business, or someone with an affinity for problem solving will be on his A game whether it is working for a 1978 advertising company or for Apple.
Your personal brand comes into play here: how do you tell everyone, your employers included, that you have what it takes to excel and innovate in your job? How do you advertise the soft skills that cannot be expressed in a set of lines in CV hardcopy?
Easy, you talk the talk, and walk the walk. If you want to be seen as a promising prospect, you have to act like one. You have to breathe, smell, dream and live your brand. If you want to come across as an authority in your industry, as a business visionary, a genius artist or a powerful decision maker, you have to simulate those traits in your life no matter what. Start with fine tuning your social media presence. Share relevant posts, like pages that relate to your field of expertise, produce content, write blogs, design posters and art pieces. Your Facebook profile is much like your CV and your Linkedin page, don't be fooled into thinking that it is off-limit for people. Your personal life is your professional life, and vice versa.
The people you hang out with and the events you attend will be as valuable in building your personal brand. They say you are the average of the people you hang out with, and that's for a reason. If you're into consulting, connect with consultants or consultancy enthusiasts, go grab coffee or lunch with them, go to their seminars, start reading their books and magazines, and try yourself at writing about the topic. That way, you align yourself and your brand to be what you want it to be.
Famous, successful and wealthy people can afford to hire a PR team to manage their personal brand for them, to update their Facebook pages and answer their fans, but if you're a young professional, chances are you can't afford such a privilege yet. Be your own PR, know what is worth saying, doing and sharing, and what's not. First impressions last, and in the age of Internet, impressions last forever.
Don't waste your time trying to figure out how to become the next Bill Gates, try first to become the best you can, and that will ultimately lead to long term success. Personal branding allows you to be know for you who you can be, and that can be whoever you decide. You want to be seen as an industry expert, an academic, a business visionary, a stocks guru or the next steve jobs, then start acting like it.
The great thing about personal branding for young professionals is that, unlike other things in life, you get to decide to be whatever you like. You may be born a certain way, your family may have treated you in a certain manner and your environment might have been shaped in a specific frame, but YOU, yes YOU, you get to be the judge of your destiny and your image. The choice is yours.
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Is your job search turning into a grind with no end in sight? It may be time to take a step back and reevaluate your entire approach.
In cold weather climates, the beginning of spring is a time to clean the house and get organized—a practice known as spring cleaning. Through the years, spring cleaning has taken on a larger meaning with people using the time to organize and declutter things in their lives.
For professionals on the job hunt, a little spring cleaning (metaphorically speaking) could be a great way to reinvigorate your job search. Here are a few strategies your job search spring cleaning should include.
Reevaluate Your Job Search Approach
BigstockMake a list of the last handful of jobs you applied for and see if you can identify any positive or negative trends. Consider things like:
- How did I learn about this job?
- How did I apply for the job?
- Did I earn an interview?
- What was the ultimate result?
A lot can be learned about your job search approach just by answering these questions and identifying patterns. For example:
Negative Trends
You discovered five jobs through job boards, applied to all of them via the job boards, and never heard back from any of them.
The common pattern here is applying through job boards. This isn't to say that job boards don't serve a purpose in the job search process, but they have their limitations, and you can't run your job search entirely off of them. When you apply through a job board, there's a good chance that your materials will never get past the applicant tracking system (ATS) and never be seen by an actual person.
One simple fix is to research who the hiring manager or recruiter is that posted the position and email your materials to them directly.
The more efficient fix would be to take a proactive approach by putting together a bucket list of companies that you want to work for and start making connections on LinkedIn with people who work at those companies. You may already know some people who work there or have connections that can refer you to some individuals.
This is a great way to network your way onto a company's radar.
Positive Trends
You applied to three jobs via referral, were invited to two job interviews, and made it through multiple rounds of interviews for one of the jobs before being passed over for someone with a little more experience.
The pattern here is that getting referred to a job by a professional acquaintance is a great way to land a job interview. This indicates that you're leveraging your network well and you should continue to focus on your networking efforts.
The next step is to review the interview process and determine what went well and what needs to be improved. Sometimes the interviewer will provide feedback, and that feedback can be valuable. However, not everyone is comfortable with giving feedback.
Chances are you probably have a good idea about areas of improvement and the skills you need to gain. Put together a plan for addressing those shortfalls.
The good news in making it deep into any interview process is that it indicates that the company likes you as a potential employee (even if the timing just wasn't right) and the experience could be a roadmap to a job with that company at a later date, or another similar opportunity elsewhere.
Give Your Resume & Cover Letter Some Much-Needed Attention
BigstockAre you continuously sending similar resumes and cover letters to each job opening with only minor adjustments? If so, your strategy needs some serious spring cleaning.
Let's start with resumes!
Every resume should be tailored to the position in order for it to stand out to recruiters and hiring managers. It may seem like a lot of work, but it's actually less work than submitting the same resume over and over again and never hearing back.
The reason why it's so important to tailor your resume is that throughout your career, you acquire numerous skills, but the job you're applying for may only be focusing on 6-8 of those skills. In that case, those skills must rise to the top of the resume with quantifiable examples of how you successfully used those skills at previous jobs.
Remember, recruiters go through hundreds of resumes. They need to be able to tell from a quick glance whether or not you're a potential candidate for the position.
While updating your resume, you could also spruce up your LinkedIn profile by highlighting the skill sets that you want to be noticed for by recruiters.
As for writing a good cover letter, the key to success is writing a disruptive cover letter. When you write a disruptive cover letter, you're basically telling a story. The story should focus on how you connect with the particular company and job position. The story could also focus on your personal journey, and how you got to where you currently are in your career.
If your resumes and cover letters aren't unique, now is the time to clean things up and get on track.
Build Your Personal Brand
Just because you're looking for work doesn't mean that you don't have anything to offer. Use previous career experiences and passions to build your personal brand.
Ask yourself, "How do I want other professionals to view me?"
Pick an area of expertise and start sharing your knowledge and experience with your professional network by pushing out content on your LinkedIn and social media accounts. Good content can include blogs, social media posts, and videos.
By sharing content about your experiences and passions, you slowly build your personal brand, and others will start to notice. The content could lead to good discussions with others in your network. It could also lead to reconnecting with connections that you haven't spoken to in years, or making new connections.
You never know when one of these connections could turn into a job lead or referral. The trick is to get on people's radars. So, when you're cleaning up your job search, be sure to build a plan for personal branding.
Maintain Healthy Habits During Your Job Search
BigstockYour job search is important, but it's even more important to know when to pull back and focus on personal health and spending time with family and friends.
There are actually things that you can do for your own enjoyment that could help your job search in the long run, such as:
- Grab coffee with a friend - It's good to engage in light conversation with friends during challenging times. And if your job search does come up, remember that most people have been through it themselves and you never know when a friend may provide you with a good idea or lead on a job.
- Volunteer - Volunteering is a great way to get involved in the community and help others. In addition, if you develop a little bit of a career gap while looking for a job, you can always talk about how you filled that time volunteering, if you're asked about it during a job interview.
- Continue to focus on other passions - Are you a fitness nut? Blogger? Crafter? Continue to do the things that bring you happiness. And if you're in a position to profit from your passion through a freelance job or side hustle, even better!
Spring is the perfect time to clean up and improve your job search so you can land the job you want. If you're struggling to find a job, follow the tips above to reinvigorate your job search—and watch your career blossom!
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This article was originally published at an earlier date.
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