Build Your Personal Brand: A brand is something that is truly memorable, unique, and invaluable. What is your personal BRAND? HINT – it’s not a job title or functional area you worked in for most of your career. When you are competing with thousands of other job seekers with similar backgrounds, you MUST be able to set yourself apart through your USP.
Find your DREAM JOB: Align your Passions and Strengths: the areas that overlap between what you are best at and what you are most passionate about constitute the fertile field of a potential DREAM JOB!
Learn to sell yourself in 3-5 seconds during networking events as a set of 3-4 key bullet points that highlight your USP – unique selling proposition.
Develop a strategic networking plan: Identify who the person is that you would report to in your dream job, find out where they congregate in-person and online, and get yourself “in-front” of them.
The Marketing 5Ps of YOU: sell yourself using the traditional marketer 5-P mix of product (your features & benefits), price (know your worth), place (getting yourself in front of the right people (develop a strategic networking plan), promotion (how to sell yourself as a BRAND using your USP and Marketing 5Ps), and your packaging (dress for success.)
Develop your personal marketing plan including your core competencies, 3-4 ideal industries, 6-8 target firms in each of those industries (18-32 organizations you should be proactively targeting at any ONE point in time), your ideal employer culture with attributes, your ideal work locations.
Identify your personal product: the product of YOU is the comprehensive set of features and benefits including: your collective past & present work and life experiences, exposure to different cultures, experiences travelling and/or living/studying abroad, your subject matter areas that you studied in High School and college/University, certifications, training, accreditations, professional affiliations, volunteer work…EVERYTHING that makes you the person you are.
Get more exposure for yourself online by blogging, posting comments in discussions your peers and potential bosses are contributing to, submit articles to all of the relevant publications being read by people in the industries you want to target and potential employers, start groups in Meet Up and LinkedIn comprised of professionals that share your career objectives and interests.
What do you think?