When Is Your Brand Not a Brand?
Posted: February 27, 2013 Filed under: Career Management (General), Job Search | Tags: brand descriptors, brand differentiation, competitive differentiation, job search tools, personal brand, potential employers, unique brand Leave a comment »If everything you publish about yourself as a professional–and that includes your resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile, and more–makes you sound pretty much like hundreds or thousands of other people…your brand is not a brand. It will not make you stand out to prospective employers as a promising candidate for the job you want. Without finding a clear way to distinguish yourself and convey your desirable value to those employers, you will blend in with your competition the way trees blend into a forest–at least, they do if they are basically all the same kind of tree.
Brand Differentiation, Not Cliches
In a recent article called “Passionate, Creative Thinker Seeks Job: How to Fix a Personal Brand That’s A Total Cliche,” author Nacie Carson points out just some of the terms people use to describe themselves that have become meaningless cliches. “Everyone is a passionate, hard worker and creative thinker.” Carson then offers a bad news-good news take on the problem. “It’s hard to truly establish competitive differentiation when you share the same brand descriptors as a thousand of your closest competitors. But there’s hope for your generic professional brand. Those very same overused terms can be as a starting point for developing a deeper, more accurate, and more memorable brand differentiation.”
Carson’s solution for cliched brand descriptors that make your brand a cliche is to use a “why chain.” The solution is to “start with a statement about yourself as a professional using one of your current descriptors, like ‘I am an excellent communicator,’ and then ask yourself ‘Why?’ Why are you an excellent communicator?” Whatever your answer to that is, you need to drill deeper and ask why and keep asking why until you reach the essence of your competitive differentiation. Of course, as Carson makes clear, just defining your descriptors more clearly is only part of the battle. You need to make sure your actions match the brand and communicate it compellingly.
What Your Resume & Other Job Search Tools Can & Can’t Do
If you have a strong, well-defined brand in your head, you want to make sure it’s reflected appropriately in your job search tools (aka career marketing documents and the like). You can’t fall back on the lazy man’s (or woman’s) answer, which is to load up your resume, cover letter or LinkedIn profile with phrases that don’t present your brand in a way that will catch the attention of employers. Even an otherwise good resume can’t overcome a poorly defined brand or one that’s not well communicated–in other words, if you’ve done great things for employers that could reinforce your unique brand, those contributions need to be presented clearly and consistently in line with your brand.
I “preach” this to clients all the time–or so it seems. I don’t want them to have me manufacture good points about them in their materials. I do want them to think hard about what it is that makes them special…and especially valuable to employers. I believe everyone has at least some of this. Sometimes they just have to dig a little deeper to find it and bring it out.
If you have been shying away from the whole concept of branding, now might be a good time to accept that if you don’t consciously brand yourself, you will do it unconsciously or–worse yet–let others do it for you. The result is not likely to be a happy one. Acknowledge that you are special in a way that can benefit potential employers, and then work to communicate that to them. There aren’t any shortcuts to success in this or in just about anything else that’s worth having and doing.
LinkedIn Doesn’t Mean You’re Job Searching
Posted: February 16, 2013 Filed under: Career Management (General), Job Search, LinkedIn | Tags: confidential job search, job search tool, job seeker, job-searching, LinkedIn, LinkedIn profile, outstanding accomplishment, personal brand, potential employers 2 Comments »Because I have frequently advocated using LinkedIn as part of your job search planning, you might be surprised at the heading of this post. After all, a robust online presence is essential to being found by potential employers, and LinkedIn is recognized as a key element of building and maintaining that robust presence. Right? Certainly, but that is not the whole story. LinkedIn does–or should–help you build and communicate your brand to employers; however, it also can–and often should–reflect the corporate brand of the companies you have worked for. So what possibilities does that open up?
Personal vs Corporate Brand on LinkedIn
One of my esteemed colleagues, Deb Dib, recently wrote an item in the Reach Branding newsletter (published by branding guru William Arruda) that brought out strongly what the relationship can be between your personal brand and your employer’s brand. In the short article, titled “Ditch. Dare. Do! for YOU,” she firmly maintains that “when you build your brand you are building your company. Your brand reinforces and enhances corporate brand attributes; it helps you make a mark on your organization, augment your company’s image and reputation, and increase your visibility and presence with all stakeholders (inside and outside the walls of your organization). In fact, if you’re not building your brand, you’re not doing your job!”
What does this mean to you and how you represent yourself on LinkedIn? If you’re conducting a highly confidential job search, you might focus on maintaining a more or less neutral tone in communicating your value to prospective employers, to avoid sending an overt message that says, “Hey, I’m job searching here, Mr. Current Employer.”
At the same time, you do want to get that message across somehow and don’t want to be so subtle about it that your target market doesn’t catch the message. One way to help do that is to match your personal value with what you have enabled your current employer to achieve through your contributions, in terms of presenting the company’s value and successes strongly to its target markets.
Here’s a quick example–something you might put under the brief introduction to your current position in the Experience section of your LinkedIn profile: “Planned and executed launch of new energy-saving product that enabled ABC Company to break into a competitive market and quickly increase its market share from 0% to 25%.”
You’ve given a nod to your company’s market success while also giving yourself credit for an outstanding accomplishment. Of course, you could do more than that. You could include some wording in the Summary section of your profile that references the company you currently work for and puts it in a nicely positive light. That might be of interest to people who are searching for companies that do what your employer does and does well.
The only important point to remember in that case is that you will need to change that section when you change employers, so it reflects your new employer and not the former one.
LinkedIn As an Ongoing Job Search Tool
Having said the above, I want to emphasize that LinkedIn’s value as an ongoing job search tool remains strong today, despite the many changes that have been initiated in recent months. It’s important that nearly every job seeker (active at the moment or not) makes sure he or she is well represented on LinkedIn. Your perceived value to employers must form a key element of that representation.
If you don’t already have a compelling, well-organized LinkedIn profile, you really should be giving serious attention to it. Whether you take care of it yourself, have a friend or colleague do it, or hire someone else to do it for you, you owe it to yourself to make it happen.
“Brag” About It–Employers Need to Know Your Accomplishments
Posted: December 21, 2012 Filed under: Career Management (General) | Tags: career success, potential employers, professional accomplishments Leave a comment »This is not my typical blog post, but I wanted to prompt you to think about letting the “world” (potential employers) know about your professional accomplishments and career success record, in an appropriate way.
My new “‘Brag’ About It” document:
“Our memories are short. Can you remember all the details of the project you worked on last week? How about last month? What about a year ago?
One of the best ways to prepare for a time when you will need to share your accomplishments is to collect details of your achievements as you go along — and there’s no better time than now to start! Accomplishments demonstrate your skills and experience. It’s one thing to claim you can do something — it’s another to prove you’ve done it.”
Important note: The full (13-page) accomplishment-gathering document–including numerous questions to ask yourself to get the information flowing–is available to you at no cost between now and January 2, 2013. Just send your request by email to success@ablueribbonresume.com. I will be happy to send you the document ASAP.
No blog posts between Dec. 24 and Jan. 2
Here’s wishing you happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, or whatever greeting is most appropriate to your personal situation! I am going to take a short “vacation” from blogging to enjoy the holidays, regroup and recharge, and get ready for a dynamite 2013. I hope you are able to do the same.
Are You an Eeyore Job Seeker?
Posted: January 13, 2012 Filed under: Interviewing, Job Search | Tags: interview preparation, job interview, job seeker, potential employers Leave a comment »If you’re at all like me, you probably enjoyed the “Winnie the Pooh” stories as a child (and maybe still have a soft spot for them as an adult). So I was immediately intrigued when I saw an article by Jeff Davis titled “The Eeyore Candidate.” However, the title was the only whimsical aspect of the article, which dealt with a BIG problem that job seekers can have–possibly without even being aware of it. What is that problem? For whatever reason, being lackadaisical or otherwise unenthusiastic prior to and during a job interview.
When a Poor Interview Follows a Great Resume
In the case mentioned in Davis’ article, the candidate looked wonderful on her resume, and he was basically expecting the interview to be a no-brainer that would quickly result in a perfect fit with his organization and its needs. Unfortunately, the job seeker blew the interview big time by seeming uninterested, unprepared, unable to demonstrate the value that her resume had promised. You name it, anything she could have done to torpedo her chances, she did it! Did she lie on her resume about what she had accomplished? Possibly but not necessarily. However, there was definitely a disconnect somehow between what the resume indicated and what she demonstrated in the interview that she could bring to the employer. Her behavior during the interview was the reason Davis described her as like “Eeyore, the depressed donkey” from “Winnie the Pooh.”
Don’t be an Eeyore!
There might be a number of reasons you would have a down day when you’re scheduled for an interview, but it’s important–maybe essential–that you work things out ahead of time, before you show up for the interview, so you can present yourself at your best. Otherwise, it’s likely to be a waste of everyone’s time. As Davis put it, “I understand that being unemployed and looking for work can turn even the best of us into an Eeyore, but keep in mind that Eeyores don’t get jobs.”
Obviously, there could be a number of reasons you show up at an interview as an Eeyore job seeker. For example: (1) You’re feeling down because you’ve been out of work for an extended period. (2) You’ve just lost a job you loved and aren’t looking forward to the challenge of finding a new one. (3) You’re still gainfully employed but concerned that your company/industry/etc. is struggling and your job might end up on the chopping-block. (4) You’ve had a family trauma recently and are struggling to maintain your emotional balance.
In some cases, if it’s at all possible, you should probably postpone your job search and interview scheduling in order to give yourself a breather and get your act together. That could help keep you from coming across as an Eeyore. However, if a significant pause isn’t practical for some reason, then your best course might be to get whatever help you need to improve your job search and interview preparation activity in the short term. By focusing your attention as strongly as possible on what you need and want to accomplish–not to mention what you have to offer potential employers that they would find valuable–you have a much better chance of communicating the enthusiasm and expertise that those employers will be looking for.
Research Target Companies on LinkedIn
Posted: November 18, 2011 Filed under: Career Management (General), High-Tech Tools, Job Search, LinkedIn | Tags: career management, follow company, job opportunities, job search, LinkedIn, potential employers Leave a comment »By now, I’m assuming you’re already a member of the LinkedIn community. This post is about a way to make that membership work even better for you when you conduct a job search or want to improve your career management techniques. I believe anything that could give you a head-start on the competition for desirable job opportunities is worth checking out.
When you identify companies you’d like to work for now or in the future, companies whose actions might at some point affect your employer and its operations, etc., wouldn’t it be great to be able to keep track of what was going on with those companies, easily? Trying to set up such a tracking system on your own would probably be a mammoth task. Luckily, there are tools to help you track potential employers and other companies of interest to your career, and LinkedIn has incorporated one of them in its features: Follow Company. You can get more details on how it works from an article called “LinkedIn Provides Insider Information,” by Wayne Breitbarth (November 1, 2011); but here’s a brief excerpt:
“It is part of the Company Page section of LinkedIn….You get to this file drawer on LinkedIn by clicking ‘Companies’ on the top toolbar….” Breitbarth lists two ways to follow a company: “1. Once you land on a company profile, just click ‘Follow Company,’ which is on the top right of the company profile page. 2. When you are on an individual’s profile, you can scroll over any of the companies listed in the Experience section. Then when the company detail box pops up, just click ‘Follow Company,’ which is in the lower left of that box.”
The possibilities for using this feature might not be limitless, but they’re extensive. You can track potential employers, your employer’s competitors, companies you might want to sell products or services to, vendors/suppliers your employer does business with, and more. For example, Cisco Systems has over 220,000 followers; I could become one of those. Of course, there’s another possibility as well: I have 580 Cisco connections–one first-level and 579 second-level. I could tap into those for information, too (but that’s a topic for a different post).
