Finding a new job involves search and self-promotion. The search requires online and plain old sneaker networking. You need to get out there with your charm and the best LinkedIn profile and make connections. You have to get yourself out there, too, with personal branding. This article will give you several tips to strengthen the branding effort.
You have to identify yourself to the job managers and the human resource professionals and everyone else, to the best of your ability as the person they want and need. Here are some suggestions:
1. Resume tweaking. Pay attention to the job description. DO NOT TREAT EACH JOB AS IDENTICAL. Study the job description and make some adjustments to your resume to match the most important requirements listed in the listing. This will improve your chances of making it through the software filters (and the human ones, too). For years as head of Microsoft Bill Gates promoted his brand as a technology wizard. Now that he is mainly working to advance his Gates Foundation, his brand is more humanistic. He has changed it based on his need.2. Identify your unique personal selling point. What makes you different? What is distinctive about you on the job that will make a difference. This has to come across in your resume, as well as your cover letter and in every phone screen and in-person interview.
3. Listen carefully. Part of figuring out what to communicate is to understand well what makes them tick, or, what they are looking for.
4. Practice. Create your branding pitch. Write it down first and read it aloud. Read it over and over. Gradually you’ll learn it just as actors learn their lines. You’ll make a more compelling case for yourself.