What we used to refer to as ‘job security’ can be tough to ensure in a time when every position seems temporary. LONG gone are the days when you worked for one employer your entire lifetime. Remember when…?

JOB SECURITY = Good Performance + Loyalty

We learned in basic math that when one side of the ‘=’ sign changes, the other side must change as well.  Today, every job is temporary and most new jobs are gotten via referral.  Our performance ethic and our ‘loyalty value’ are regularly and significantly challenged by times of change…those “challenging waters of career transition…”

• Recession… hard to predict but are as inevitable as high economic growth and low unemployment (sound familiar?)
• Corporate restructuring or down-sizing, or the related effects of…
• Merger and acquisition activity

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THIS Week’s Session, Thursday, July 18th… Developing In Sync Personal Marketing Collateral Materials:  An exploration in value of your communication strategy

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The best way to build a strong ‘safety net-work’ is to offer value now… and for the rest of your working lifetime.  Identify and develop a sense of branding in the marketplace… what IS your story… and can you stick to it?

Your work in Achieving CareerFIT led you to the determination of your career objective, exactly what is the best next step for you in your career transition?  It also suggested strongly that you set your straw-man offer criteria to guide you in moving forward…Knowing what your next right employment  is.

This will help focus your actual search. With clarity in your positioning and targeting goals, you can write a great resume to convey “your story.”

Your Personal Market Collateral

WRITTEN COLLATERAL… 

1. A GREAT Resume that positions you clearly as a terrific FIT with your career objectives… and in today’s technologies, a database-friendly, asci version;
2. A correspondence template package that consistently carries your communication strategy, your message… and in today’s technologies, a reformatted, text only version of your resume ready for email needs;
3. A high impact, personal biography and/or NETWORKING PROFILE that you can lead with in your referral based networking strategies.
4. A clear and complete LinkedIn Profile, one that is based on your communication strategy and in sync with your other written collaterals.

VERBAL COLLATERAL… 

1. A well rehearsed “two minute commercial,” your answer to the most asked question during career transition, “Tell me about yourself.”
2. Several, well though out, “elevator speeches,” examples that support your primary, positioning, key words. These are usually your representative accomplishments under the SUMMARY of your resume. (30 seconds to 1 minute)
3. A succinct “qualification statement” that you can use as an introduction at networking events. (usually 20 – 30 seconds)
4. An “exit statement” which explains your availability, to address the second most asked question during career transition.

Having your collaterals prepared and rehearsed prior to active personal marketing is central to your success and builds confidence.

Consistency in the delivery of your message is what creates memory… and frequency of your message helps you get there… strive for top-of-mind awareness where it relates to your candidacy.

Your personal marketing COMMUNICATION STRATEGY, your story, must be built around keywords and phrases that best describe your unique value proposition. These words come from your concerted self-assessment process. The challenge is matching the words that best describe your next right employment with the words that best describe a potential new employer’s needs.

A communication strategy that does not achieve that is doomed to otherwise controllable difficulties—and, worst…failure. So, understand that getting recruited involves two distinct elements…

• Being screened for meeting a JOB’s requirements… a subjective process created by the potential employers of the marketplace. They set the bar HIGH, defined by functional experience, skill set, and knowledge standards so they don’t have to interview every JOB applicant.
• Being selected by the hiring authority… another subjective process which now involves their assessment of a job-seeker’s FIT with their needs, including personality, work habits, and other ‘cultural’ standards. They cannot hire all qualified candidates. They must choose.

A job-seeker, then, can give themselves choices when they choose to embrace the OTHER Job Market. They improve their probability of success by nearly eliminating the pre-mature screening and rejection process.