Two Common Branding Mistakes That Affect Your Job Search and How to Fix Them
Personal Branding has become a hot topic and it is truly the foundation of your job search and career management strategy. When this foundational building block is not right, none of the other strategies will work and this is the most common mistake I see, especially with job seekers.
Your branding is generally translated into a value proposition or the so-called elevator pitch. In a nutshell, it should state what you're about: i. What you do, and ii. What's special about how you do it.
Where this is critical is that a large part of your job searching efforts should focus on networking and making yourself visible to recruiters, head hunters and hiring managers. Overall, your networking and visibility strategy should aim to generate job leads and for people in your network to relay such leads to you and help connect you for interviews. As such, your "brand" is your instruction as to what is your area of expertise and the type of role you are looking for.
And it's critical to pin this down well in order to avoid two common issues encountered while networking in the context of job searching. So let's look at those two common mistakes...
#1 You're Not Clear About What You Do
Whether you are networking in the hope that people will connect you to (hidden) job opportunities or sending out spontaneous applications - the key to help people help you is to make it crystal clear what you are looking for and what type of role you need them to connect you with.
Take for example my services as a coach - would you be likely to connect or recommend me to someone if you were unclear about what exactly I can help the person with? Probably not.
In job searching, it just doesn't work to let people figure out what type of role would be a good fit for you based on your resume or just listing what you've done in your career and let them figure out where this can lead you. People, just won't take the time or may not have sufficient understanding of your field of expertise to know where to position you.
Plus, if you want to reach your career goals, you need to take the lead and clearly state what you are after! You should also refrain from listing a gazillion jobs you could do or would be interested in. First, it's more memorable if you focus on one specific type of job (though you can talk about variations of a given role or very similar roles). Secondly, you want to make sure you don't look like a jack-of-all-trades because that will not make you look special nor will it make you look like you bring certain expertise or experience.
It's important to keep in mind here that the job search market is very crowded and competitive. As such, there will many more candidates - many of whom will bring a linear profile and specific expertise in line with the role. When considering the other candidates, it's easy to understand that a broad and non-specific profile is unlikely to succeed when there many candidates who bring depth of expertise. I'm not saying here that your profile is not valuable if you have a diverse career path and experience - however you will need to package it differently to make it attractive and competitive.
#2 You're Not Convincing Them First
If you want someone in your network to support your job search, you need to give them reasons to do so. After all, if you are unable to catch someone's attention or to convince them about your value as a candidate - how can you expect they'll invest their time in you?
So when you approach people - whether it is through networking or when reaching out to recruiters - make sure you tell them what's special about you. It does not have to be a sales pitch - you do however need to be able to articulate what makes you unique as a candidate and why a company would want to hire you. If you can convince them about your value, then they will be inclined to introduce you or present your resume to their company. Even better, they will also be able to tell their connections or company why they should consider you!
Here it's important to be able to deliver this in a nutshell. Too many people rely on their resume for this yet do not realise that it's a lot of work to extract a clear positioning from most resumes. So my recommendation is the following: if you are unable to explain in a nutshell what makes you unique and why you would be a candidate of choice - assume that it will not be clear in your resume nor for your network and thus they are unlikely to be see how valuable a candidate you are and to support you.
Interested in More Personal Branding Strategies?
Stay tuned, next week I'll be sharing another key strategy in personal branding as I'll dive deeper into getting clear about what you do and how to present it for highest impact.
I'm also giving two live workshops in Zürich region that you are invited to join. Both workshops are opened to non-members of the hosting organisations and will be followed by a networking session.
::::: EVENT DETAILS :::::
Personal Branding: How Knowing Yourself Drives Better Results in Your Job Search & Career
Hosted by Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA Emea) Zug-Zurich Chapter
The event is open to both men and women from the healthcare industry including non-members.
📅 Date: 24 October 2024 @17.45
📍 Location: Bio-Technopark Schlieren , Wagistrasse 13, 2nd floor, Schlieren, 8952 Switzerland
🔗 Registration: https://my.hbanet.org/EVENTS-PROGRAMS/AddEdit/EventDetails/MeetingID/1040fe7a-c7d2-4007-ace8-879582093edc
Personal branding for Career Management: How to Stand Out for Your Next Role or Promotion
Hosted by the YEx Zurich the Young Executive Committee of the Italian Chamber of Commerce (Camera di Commercio Italiana per la Svizzera)
The event is open to all including non-members.
📅 Date: 29 October 2024 @18.30
📍Location: Italian Chamber of Commerce, Dolderstrasse 62, Zurich
🔗 Registration: https://yexswiss.ch/prodotto/personal/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Catherine Leduc is a certified NLP & RSCI coach, speaker, and author of multiple online courses on job searching and career management and brings 17+ years of experience in senior consulting roles in strategic planning & marketing in the pharmaceutical industry. She has been the go-to person for job searching and career advice in her expat circles for over a decade before deciding to launch as a Career Coach. Her approach is focused on a strong strategic marketing background, extensive experience building and managing multi-disciplinary & multi-cultural teams across the World, and special attention to addressing mindset issues that often stand in the way of reaching our goals.
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Job Search & Career Management Coaching | Land a job faster, propel your career, get paid your worth to do work you love | Personal Branding | LinkedIn Profile & Visibility Strategies | Resume Optimisation
2mo🟢 Personal Branding: How Knowing Yourself Drives Better Results in Your Job Search & Career Hosted by Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association (HBA Emea) Zug-Zurich Chapter 🟢 The event is open to both men and women from the healthcare industry including non-members. 📅 Date: 24 October 2024 @17.45 📍 Location: Bio-Technopark Schlieren , Wagistrasse 13, 2nd floor, Schlieren, 8952 Switzerland 🔗 Registration: https://my.hbanet.org/EVENTS-PROGRAMS/AddEdit/EventDetails/MeetingID/1040fe7a-c7d2-4007-ace8-879582093edc
Job Search & Career Management Coaching | Land a job faster, propel your career, get paid your worth to do work you love | Personal Branding | LinkedIn Profile & Visibility Strategies | Resume Optimisation
2mo🟢 Personal Branding for Career Management: How to Stand Out for Your Next Role or Promotion 🟢 Hosted by the YEx Zurich the Young Executive Committee of the Italian Chamber of Commerce (Camera di Commercio Italiana per la Svizzera) The event is open to all including non-members. 📅 Date: 29 October 2024 @18.30 📍Location: Italian Chamber of Commerce, Dolderstrasse 62, Zurich 🔗 Registration: https://yexswiss.ch/prodotto/personal/