— the trademarked YOU™? And you may be saying, “But Brenda, I have no idea how to answer that question!” If this is the case, don’t worry. We are going to work with a specific formula that borrows from the six positioning elements used by marketing experts around the world. That formula will help you pinpoint the best possible job-seeker personal brand for you — a personal brand that will present your best talents, strengths, and attributes and that helps distinguish you from other people applying for the kind of jobs you want most.
The Power of a Framework
Let’s take a look at the six elements of this formula as they apply to the name brands we all love and use every day. Then, you will see how to apply those same elements to each one of us — as individuals — to define our unique personal brands.
Your Job-Seeker Personal Brand Positioning Statement
Hopefully, by now, you’ve asked yourself: “Who really is [insert your name here]™?” If you’re not sure how to answer that question yet, don’t worry. We’re going to walk through each of these elements together in detail in the chapters that follow.
As we work our way through Step 1 — the “Define it” step — you’ll be given the tools to complete a form called your “Job-Seeker Personal Brand Positioning Statement,” which is set up in a format using the six elements from Step 1 of our system. Your Job-Seeker Personal Brand Positioning Statement will show you exactly how to define who YOU™ really are — which will help you to get the absolute best job for you.
Bottom line: This is where “you” become “YOU™.”
As we work our way through each of the next six chapters, you’ll be able to complete one more portion of your Job-Seeker Positioning Statement, just like the one outlined here. The second half of the book will show you how to communicate your well-defined personal brand before, during, and after job interviews. Then, you’ll also learn how to avoid damaging the job-seeker personal brand you’ve worked hard to create.
By the time you have finished working with the six elements that define your personal brand and pulled together your Job-Seeker Personal Brand Positioning Statement, you’ll be ready to put YOU™ into action. Armed with that, you will be able to demonstrate to your ideal employers exactly what you can do. Roll up your sleeves! Your personal brand is waiting …
Chapter 3
Audience
Job-Seeker Personal Brand
Positioning Element #1
It’s up to the Audience. It always has been.
— Kate Smith, Singer
If you’re unemployed or in a job that you don’t like, let’s face it: It’s hard not to focus on yourself. All you want is to be gainfully employed with a steady paycheck and fulfilled by productive work.
But the surprising truth about using personal branding in your job search is this:
The best way to land the job you want the most is to focus on your Audience.
After all, potential employers (your Audience) are interested in what you can do for them. How are you going to make their jobs easier? What advantages are you going to bring to their company? Showing them what you can offer the company is how you get the job.
One of the most widespread myths about personal branding is that “personal branding is all about you.” But think about it: If your brand exists in the minds of your Audience, how can it be all about you? It can’t, and it isn’t. So, the more you learn about your Audience, the more connected you will feel to the interviewer, the more you’ll anticipate the needs of the company, and the faster you’ll get the great job you really want.
How do you do that? Well, the key is to get as much information about the company as possible. In fact, one of the recruiters I interviewed said: “You want to stick out in an interview? Be knowledgeable about the company. You wouldn’t believe how many people know virtually nothing about the company they’re interviewing with. It’s a big mistake.”
If you learn about your Audience, you will have a head start on the interview process because you will already know more about the company than the majority of interviewees. A top pet peeve of many an interviewer is the applicant who doesn’t do enough research prior to the interview. For example, one of the human resources pros I spoke with said: “It isn’t enough in an interview to simply say, ‘You have an opening in my field, and I know this is a good company.’ But you’d be surprised how many people do exactly that.” As you can imagine, that isn’t enough. You need to have a very specific reason for wanting a particular position at a particular company. And the only way you can determine if a company is right for you is to learn about that company. Then, you will be prepared to tell your interviewer that reason.
Your interviewers will remember you if you can give them a detailed reason why you want to work there, if you’ve taken the time to read about the company’s background, and if you’ve learned about the company’s recent dealings.
Who is Your Audience?
So, how do you go about getting that information in order to connect with your interviewer? Let’s assume you’re a top-notch marketer. You are the newly-promoted Brand Manager of YOU™. You’re in charge, and it’s your job to see that your brand reaches the top.
If YOU™ were a product, your Audience would be called the “Target Market,” and you would find out all you could about your target through surveys and questionnaires aimed at finding out who they really are. You would want to know provable facts about the people in your Target Market, like their age, sex, income, education, etc. How much do they earn? Do most of them live in the city or in the suburbs? In marketing, these provable facts are called “demographics.” That’s the kind of information you would start with.
An average marketer might stop there, but provable facts are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to learning about the Target Market. Think about it for a moment: If you really want to get to know someone, is it enough only to know his or her age, how much that person earns, or where he or she was born and lives? It wouldn’t really tell you much
about that person, would it? You would only have scratched the surface, and you would need to base all of your assumptions about that person on little more than what you could
