How To Sell Yourself

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Do you find that people who have the same amount or less experience than you are on faster career track? Are you relying on job advertisements instead of personal referrals to get job offers? Do people in your industry know your name? If there is nothing very special about your work, no matter how hard you apply yourself, you won’t get paid much, either.

Just like building a product or company, personal branding requires investment (maybe time, money or both) and a committed decision to take charge of your life. A passive approach to professional growth will leave you by the wayside. In the new frontier, the only way to protect yourself is to realize that you have to be the boss of your own show.

Know who you are

One main reason for little or unconvincing self-promotion is that you may not have gone through a conscious process of identifying your mission statement and who you really are, not what other people expect you to be. You need to know your purpose or have a general idea of your direction before you can decide on what value you can offer others.

Before going into things like networking, people must firstly do some personal visioning. They need to define their strengths, what are they are passionate about and what they want to be known as. You need to have an elevator speech or slogan that states your USO (unique selling propositions) and how you can help the other person.

When people know about themselves, they will become more successful in networking because they will sound more convincing. It could be the little zeal in your voice, the body language and the confidence, which will show. Not everyone can fake it till they make it.

You may need to ask people who can be honest with you about what they think of you. This takes a fair amount of courage but it is a worthwhile process. It may help you to discover something positive that you do not see about yourself, and it helps identify your blind spots, which you can improve on.

Be seen as a thought leader

With a track record to show, you then need to put yourself as a thought leader in people’s minds. This could be achieved by speaking at seminars and writing articles or books. It helps to be active in something that stands for what you believe in or are passionate about.

If you don’t have track record, it will work against you. This is where integrity comes in. You don’t want to be just all talk. So you have to balance this out while building your career.

Use good headhunters

Good headhunters are your ticket to greater opportunities. But an unethical headhunter will sell you without you knowing it. A rumour may go round that you want to leave and this can backfire. Good headhunters should also understand your career goals and be able to provide some career counselling. 

In the headhunting process, a headhunter will understand the client’s business and the leadership profile they need. Then the headhunter will look into his database and check with his sources who are themselves respected individuals in their industries.

Individuals can contact him or send in their CV [curriculum vitae], or be referred to him. His job as a headhunter is to uncover talent that the public at large may not have heard of.

Apart from having a good past performance, which is vitally important, a headhunter looks for a candidate who is a good people person. In this day and age, it about being a people leader: People want a leader who is empathetic, a good listener, and has the ability to engage people to get their buy-in. They must have good presentation skills too.

You must be a likeable person and can make people feel at ease with you. Or they must be enlightened by what you say. Humour helps too.

Art of networking

Although most people believe networking is important but fewer people have derived tangible benefits from it. To keep it simple, it helps to have a carpe diem (sieze the day) and abundance mindset when networking.

Networking is about integrity and adding value. You have to be honest in your dealing and you must have the ability to bring something to the table. It is important to be prepared with an objective in mind when uyou attend functions.

When Chong See Ming, [currently the communication  adviser for Hess Southeast Asia ] was with Jobstreet.com, many fresh graduates came up to her and introduced themselves, while others who were more prepared asked questions like how they could get an internship.

Reza Ghazali, country head and managing director of Korn/Ferry in Malaysia, which specializes in C-suite executive recruitment and leadership talent management consulting says, “In networking effectively, it is important to strike the right conversation. Having general knowledge in a wide range of topics or in your industry helps. In a function of 500 people, it would good to meet 10 good people, and get to know five of them well either on a professional or personal level.”

After meeting somebody, the follow-up is key. Daud Vicary Abdullah, chief operating officer of Asian Finance Bank says, “Immediate follow through and connecting on a personal level are important to get you remembered. My trick is after meeting the person, I will write on his business card where and when we met, and a little description [of him]. It might be something personal like his favourite football team. I will file the card according to date because I remember better that way. So, when I meet him again, I have something to say to connect with him.”

Bob Chua, entrepreneur and CEO of Pulse Group, an award-winning research process outsourcing company that serves the market research industry, says, “I usually follow up with an email or call. I may say something like ‘let’s meet again’ but I’m selective, or course, because my time is limited. Both parties should derive benefit. I would usually arrange to meet in a casual environment like over lunch.”

“In the follow-up email, I may add something so as to have a connection again. For instance, I may inform them of an association and ask them if they are attending,” says Reza. He also cautious to play it by ear and as a rule of thumb, not to get too personal quickly. Your good intentions may be misinterpreted, he says.

Networking is also about communicating with those who are close to you or who can be your champion. Says Chua, “ Apart from my staff and clients, I communicate regularly with my competition as there may be co-opetition [cooperative competition] opportunites. We also engage extensively with the media.”

Although you may not be the spokesperson for your employer, it is personally useful to know journalists and for them to know what you are good at. In his book The Brand You 50, management guru Tom Peters gave other examples of who, you should network with. For example, he suggests that you could write to the author of a book that you enjoyed.

Use online social networks

Among various online social networks, Linkedin is one easy and less intrusive platform for Daud and Chua to connect with like-minded people and, to source for candidates and clients.

Keep your profile on Linkedin updated, correct and precise and use keywords that people will do a search on. There is also a section in which you can write recommendations for your friends and vice versa. Third-party endorsements are obviously powerful. Anyway, recommendations are reciprocal.

Nevertheless, online networks do not replace offline personal interactions. Reza, for example has not used Linkedin to identify candidates for his clients but would search on the Internet to do reputation checks or get additional information abut someone. Daud also says that,” You would be in trouble if online network is the only thing you are relying on!”

(Source: Personal Money)