A Brand Called You: Developing and Presenting a Positive and Consistent Public Image for Your Professional Job Search - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

A Brand Called You:Developing and Presenting a Positive and Consistent Public Image for Your Professional Job Search

SI Career Services and Practical Engagement Program

• Identifying your positive skills, values, and attributes
• Creating a Brand Statement / Self-Marketing Plan
• How to use your Marketing Plan
• Social Networking and your public image
• Note: In order to best utilize this presentation, print out the handout and fill it out as your go along

• This tool will help you develop a direct strategy for a particular career or position
• It will help you identify personal skills and interests
• It will aid you in targeting organizations that meet your goals
• It will empower you to articulate what those skills are in networking opportunities and interviewing situations

To begin planning, it’s important to take a step back and look at the bigger picture of where you currently are in your career and where you want to go. Being clear about your brand, who you are, and what others see in you, and what you want to be known for in the future can help guide your planning and decision making.

• - Values
• - Talents & Interests
• - Known For

• - Possible Shifts
• - Future
• - Brand Statement

Share, Reflect, and Modify Your BRAND

Get into groups of two or three and share your answers

Take this time to listen to what others wrote and consider your own answers

Update your Brand with new ideas

• Values?
• Talents & Interests?
• Known For?
• Possible Shifts?
• Future?
• Brand Statement?

A Marketing Plan is designed to launch a product effectively. Here, the product is you and your career. This document will help you focus your strategy by articulating several key elements outlined below. Once these elements have been clarified, you can more effectively put your strategy into action.

Targeted Position:

• Associate Brand Manager

In my work, I value financial gain, prestige, variety and affiliation. I am at my best in a creative business environment where I am a key contributor to a product development team. I bring my talents of understanding customer needs, communicating those needs to others, and translating those needs into products. I am known for being customer focused and innovative. In my next role, I would like to be thought of as a savvy business person who understands the bottom line and generates results. Ten years from now, I would like to be a senior executive (possibly VP or Partner in a consulting firm) with brand strategy responsibility for international, fashion-oriented consumer products.

I have a consumer marketing background, primarily in the cosmetics industry where I have been involved in all stages of the product lifecycle – from market research and product development through to product launch. Most recently, I was part of a team that successfully launched a new skin care line for Clinique. I want to use this experience in a brand management role for a large apparel, luxury goods or cosmetics company like Banana Republic, LVMH, or Lancome.

• $50 – 75K per year
• Three weeks vacation
• Training budget of $2000
• Annual conference participation
• Retirement contribution

• Join Brand Marketing Association
• Call boss from Clinique and ask her for feedback on my resume and contacts
• Go to luxury trade goods show in NYC
• Call roommate’s brother who works for The GAP
• Have coffee with David from MAC Cosmetics
• Apply to campus postings with consumer goods companies
• Ask for referrals to and meet five new people this month

Share, Reflect, and Modify your MARKETING PLAN

Get into groups of two or three and share your answers

Take this time to listen to what others wrote and consider your own answers

Update your Marketing Plan with new ideas

Tailor your Marketing Plan to the organization that you are targeting

For example, in the Values’ section, you want your values to reflect that of your targeted employer

• Accenture’s Values:
• Stewardship
• Best people
• Client Value Creation
• One Global Network
• Respect for the Individual
• Integrity

• The University of Chicago Libraries’ Values:
• Knowledge
• Service
• Quality
• Integrity
• Respect
• Communication

Use the framework of this plan in all of your application materials:

• Online portfolio / ePortfolio
• Resume
• Cover Letter
• Interview
• Social Networking Tools

Tip: Don’t use the same marketing plan verbatim for each organization/position – tailor it!

All of the following can be used effectively to help you get a job.

Be warned – it can also work against you

• LinkedIn
• Doonstang
• MySpace
• Facebook
• XING
• Ryze
• Others?
• Have you Googled yourself lately?

eNetworking vs. Social Networking

• Social Networking is to get a date, expand your circle of friends, find people with similar hobbies
• eNetworking has a different purpose:
• To connect you with contacts who can help you land a new or better job
• These contacts include current and former colleagues, former bosses and coworkers, and even recruiters.
• The interaction has a social component, and you should treat these individuals with the same courtesy and respect you would like to receive -- but its goal is employment, pure and simple

E-networking requires active participation

The quality of your effort determines the return you get from your investment of time.

The key to success in employment networking (whether it's done online or off) is giving as good as you get

• You have to share your knowledge, information, and job contacts if you want others to share theirs.
• Sharing must be done regularly so that it builds familiarity and trust among those with whom you network
• Sharing friends on a social networking site isn't particularly risky; but putting someone in touch with a business contact is
• It can damage reputations or even jeopardize employment, especially if the person you refer turns out to be less than business-like.

Adapted from AT&T Hot Jobs “Will Social Networking Get You a Job?” by Peter D. Weddle

• You can use your Marketing Plan/Brand in all of your social networking
• Add a brief one line summary to your email signature
• Use it on your online profiles

“A recent study found that employment recruiters are … constantly searching social networks in an effort to expand their candidate profiles. According to the executive search firm ExecuNet, about four out of five recruiters regularly run web searches to screen job applicants. This means that many job candidates can expect their application to undergo an Internet screening. About one in three job seekers have been eliminated from consideration based on information the hiring company has discovered on social networking websites.

So if [sic] you think you are cool by posting your drinking exploits or sexual conquests, think again. A potential employer might be searching for that very information. It might make you popular with all your friends, but none of them will be corporate recruiters. This practice is fast becoming an additional tool used to make a choice between several prospective applicants. Once an employer finds your social network profile postings, the damage is done. Negative information is viewed with a cold shoulder no matter how well qualified you might be in other areas.”

From Associated Content “Social Networking Can Be Perilous to Your Employment”

Look beyond your own profile

• Look at your friend’s profiles
• Are they professional?
• Do they look like someone that an employee should be associated with?

What other factors could work against you in a social networking profile?

Questions? Thoughts?

Thank you!