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When you think about your next career move, how
would things be different for you if you were HUNTED
rather than being the HUNTER? Personal branding (the
process of clarifying and communicating what makes
you and your unique value proposition different and
special) allows you to make a name for yourself. It
differentiates you from your peers and helps to
position you as a leader in your field - as a
specialist and an authority who knows how to do a
job and fill a particular niche in the workplace
better than anyone else.
Rather than finding yourself constantly pursuing
jobs opportunities that never quite pan out, sitting
at home waiting for the phone to ring, and having
doors stay locked shut to you, imagine what a
positive and secure feeling it would be to have
employers and recruiters actually seek YOU out. With
some time and effort put into identifying and
communicating YOUR personal brand as it relates to
your career, this is one of the key benefits you
will enjoy.
If
you are a professional engaged in a serious job
search, it would be almost impossible to escape the
issue of personal branding. Everyone is talking
about it! And, for good reason. Personal branding
can make an incredible positive impact on not only
your current job search, but on the success and
progression of your entire career. But, just because
everyone is talking about it, doesn't mean that
everyone is making use of the knowledge. Through
personal branding, there is still an incredible
opportunity for the forward-thinking professional to
position themselves heads and shoulders above their
peers and competitors in the job market.
It
is difficult not to be convinced that personal
branding is not the wave of the future when it comes
to the professional job search. But once you are
convinced, and once you have put the effort into
clarifying YOUR personal brand, how do you make that
leap to incorporating that brand into your job
search? Is there such a thing as a brand-driven job
search? How exactly do you promote your personal
brand in the job market?
Here are 5 tips for incorporating your brand
throughout your resume, your cover letters, and your
entire career marketing portfolio.
Tip
#1 - Branding provides your resume and other career
marketing documents with instant, precision-like
focus that positions you as the ideal candidate for
the specific type of opportunity that interests you.
An unfocused resume is boring and ineffective. An
unfocused resume wastes your readers' time and will
land in the circular file. A properly branded resume
is, by definition, focused, and addresses not only
your unique value proposition, but it does so in a
way that addresses the concerns of your target
audience.
Tip
#2 - Use your personal brand profile and personal
brand statement to project a cohesive brand image
and value proposition across your resume, cover
letters, and all your documents. In my work, I have
the opportunity to review a lot of resumes, letters,
biographies and other documents that my clients and
prospective clients have tried to write for
themselves. This tip relates to one of the most
common mistakes that I see. Too many people try to
be too many things to too many people. Their career
marketing portfolios (resumes, cover letters,
biographies, etc.) are a hodge-podge of documents
written over a number of years and added onto
randomly whenever the need arises for an updated
resume. Certainly across the portfolio, and
sometimes even within the same document, I find
multiple design and content styles, as well as
disconnected and outdated messages. When you brand
your job search documents you immediately correct
this problem.
Tip
#3 - During the first review, resumes are scanned
for mere seconds in a process that is meant to do
nothing more than filter out unqualified candidates.
Clearly and succinctly incorporating your personal
brand statement into the profile or summary section
of your resume is a way to ensure that your resume
will stand out and get attention. One way to
accomplish this is with a headline statement
followed by a sub-headline that promotes your value
proposition. If you aren't familiar with this style,
take a look at the many sample resumes on the
Distinctive Documents website.
Tip
#4 - Personal branding gives you a way to truly let
your personality shine through and to establish an
emotional connection with your audience. It can be
tough to make this connection in your resume, but
your cover letters and your narrative biography are
great opportunities to promote soft skills and weave
in examples of key brand attributes. In a very real
sense, personal branding requires that you be
courageous about really "owning" yourself and
acknowledging yourself for the strengths and value
you bring to the table. Let your personality come
across in your letters and in your biography. Don't
be afraid to make a connection by accentuating your
strengths and value proposition as they relate to
your audience. This is a great way to establish
rapport and trust with your reader even before you
have the chance to speak by phone.
Tip
#5 - Keep in mind that one of your primary goals in
branding your job search documents is to paint a
compelling portrait of your unique value
proposition. To do this, you will need to structure
your resume so that it promotes your key skills,
qualifications, experiences, and achievements in a
way that is both convincing and compelling and
clearly illustrates to the reader that you can meet
their needs and help them to achieve their goals,
all the while adding value to their organization and
delivering a strong return on their investment in
hiring you. This is a lot to accomplish in a single
resume! One of the most effective ways to do this is
to focus the chronology of your work history on
achievements and results. Write your achievements so
that they tell a succinct story of the challenges
and problems you have faced, the actions you took to
meet those challenges, and then the results and
benefits of those actions - the actual return on
investment of your actions. Writing your
professional chronology in this way will engage the
reader, supporting your brand and helping them to
envision how you will add value in the future to
their organization.
Copyright 2007.
Nationally certified
resume writer, career marketing expert, and personal
branding strategist, Michelle Dumas is the founder
and executive director of Distinctive Career
Services LLC. Through Distinctive Documents
http://www.distinctiveweb.com and her
Executive VIP Services delivered through
http://www.100kcareermarketing.com.
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