Competition forces us to separate ourselves from others. This starts early in life in school, where we compete for the best grades, to be the teachers pet, to graduate with honors and then get the best job possible. Competition is fierce, as there are others who are wanting the same things that we want.
The key becomes to stand out ahead of the crowd above everyone else, this so you’ll be noticed. To be the one that’s selected becomes the objective. What it comes down to is promoting yourself. This marketing of oneself involves a clinical process of self promotion, this where you become the product.
What marketing in this context refers to is effectively communicating to the selection committee or potential employer, reasons why they should select you over others.
Most will say that they’re not comfortable in self-promoting themselves like a product, but if this approach isn’t taken, it becomes difficult to stand out from the crowd.
To Market Yourself
So what needs to be understood is how to market yourself properly. To begin, what you need is to just think of your best qualities. This is easy for the narcissistic, but for the majority a difficult thing to do.
What most has are imperfections which they dwell on first. What you don’t want is to highlight all of the deficits that you currently lack, or that you’re not able to do certain things. Instead, you need to start thinking of all the positive attributes that you have to offer.
What you need is to select things about yourself that makes you stand out. What highlighting all your positives, requires is you knowing what your strong points are to begin with.
To Show Your Positives
What you need is to have a track record that will make you and your resume stand out, and you need to be honest about it. This includes things such as your GPA in school, awards and diplomas you’ve received, while accurately listing your work experience that’s relevant.
Since it’s difficult to assemble the right attributes that are needed, building a strong record is what’s required to promote yourself, which requires personal assessment on your behalf prior to sending out an application.
Keep in mind that you want someone who’s reading your application to say, “This person is interesting” and won’t throw it in the reject file.
To Promote Yourself
What some don’t have however is a stellar past, or enough work experience. So what becomes vital is coming up with ways to market yourself, your potential.
The idea is to stand out above others. As you present yourself when writing your cover letter and your resume, attempt to find ways to make yourself notable to others.
This isn’t about using a different font or colored paper, but highlighting certain aspects of your record which may be unique, and that just a few others have achieved the same things as you.
This could be maintaining a 3.9 GPA, volunteering at the local homeless shelter, completing a Honors thesis, presenting a paper at a conference, self teaching yourself HTML, volunteering to teach at a preschool, anything that makes you stand out.
There are a variety of things that you can highlight, which shows that you’re motivated, caring, and hard working, which raises you above the rest of the applicants. Just make sure that you’re completely honest with what you present, and that it’s verifiable.
What employers and selection committees don’t generally want to hear, is that you were too busy to get involved with extracurricular activities, such as volunteering.
If you’re a student for instance, and if you don’t have high grades to show, while not bothering to share what your interests are, which displays your personality and aptitude, will lead the selection committee to move on to someone else, this because they feel something is missing.
Do Your Research
It becomes important to not just rely on your record or past experience. There are additional things that you can do, which marches you ahead of the competition.
What you also need is to show you’re interested, such as doing research on the company that you’re applying for. So do diligent research on the Internet on them, which shows your motivation.
What doing so does is makes the interviewer aware of how engaged and responsive you are to work for the company. During the interview process, just don’t list what you’ve done, but also ask relevant questions, which displays how keen you are.
This can include questions such as the future products the company intends to market, their strategy, if they have any future expansion plans.
Also make sure that you read all the news worthy items that’s published about the company, while understanding their “mission statement” presented on their website.
The key is letting them know that you’ve done your homework, which shows your readiness and how interested you are in the position. That you were willing to take the time to gather information about the company and the position you’re applying for.
To Market Yourself
What you need to keep in mind is that you’re objective is to make yourself stand above others, this by marketing yourself accordingly. In all of your materials and your communication with them, make sure that you stress the “value” of your intent.
This value should be presented in how it allows you to move forward will what your career goals are, and how it can be aligned with theirs.
Make sure that you’re completely genuine, this by being honest and believable in how you present yourself. Once you falsify anything, it’ll find a way to catch up to you in the long run, which destroys your credibility.