March 26, 2010
In
Career Change, Tips
3 Ways to Excel at Marketing Yourself in Today’s Economy
The key to landing your dream job (or dream career change) is to put yourself in front of potential employers – they can’t hire you if they don’t know you are out there. Learning effective ways to market yourself can have a huge impact on the number of resume requests and interviews you get. How do you start marketing yourself in a way that will make the employers come to you? Here are three techniques:
- Identify what you’re good at and what you can offer an employer. Hiring managers aren’t just interested in filling open positions; they are interested in gaining assets for the company. How could you be an asset? What kind of information about you does an employer need to see to know that you will be a valuable addition to the team? You need to address your accomplishments in all of your marketing materials. You also need to make it very clear about how an employer can benefit through bringing you on board.
- Rework your resume and cover letter. Depending on the industry, sometimes it is better to stand out and be different. People looking to make a career change to a creative industry, like publishing or entertainment, could benefit from sending out distinctively formatted resumes and cover letters as representative of their creative talents. Often times, marketing yourself effectively means taking chances and standing out from the crowd.
- Utilize new technology. The job market is a crowded place right now, saturated with many highly qualified people. Some have recently been laid off from a corporation or law firm, others are recent law school grads and there are also those who are looking to make a career change. To make sure you see (and are considered for) every available job, spread yourself out over the Internet. Use LinkedIn, Facebook and Craigslist. Post your resume on every job board and social media site you can identify – you never know where your next opportunity will come from. The posting process will take many hours, but if you land a six figure job, it will have been time well spent. You should also eblast your resume to as many executive recruiters that you can find; remember, too, that recruiters typically work nationally, not locally. In addition, you should do cold mailings to companies of interest in your targeted location or industry — just because they are not advertising open positions doesn’t mean there aren’t openings. Keep in mind that research shows only about 7% of available jobs are advertised on the web. To find that 7%, you should set up a “job agent” to scan the Internet for appropriate opportunities. Career Strategies can perform many of these services for you through our Contacts and Connections program.