Marketing Your Skills

Knowing all that you have to offer is important. You may not being finding the work you want because you are not marketing yourself. This may be because you don’t realize all you have to offer. You may have skills that would crossover into other industries that you have not considered.

You’ll need to do more than just present your background. Don’t trap yourself by thinking, “This is simply who I am, where I’ve been and what I’ve done.” People fail because they never surface and communicate all that is marketable about themselves… and they never build their appeal beyond factual credentials.

Using our career history and marketability profile, our starting point will be to organize your lifetime of experiences and achievements. Whether you are a young attorney or a company president, there is probably much more to your story than meets the eye. We’ve learned that people need to identify 10 to 12 skills that can make a major difference in their career opportunities.

About 20% of the clients who come to us have settled for less, simply because they are not able to communicate their real skills. One client was earning a $65,000 base after almost 20 years. Three years later, she is earning $180,000. Another executive came to us at $125,000. Three years later, he is a CEO at many times that amount.

The key in both situations was to market their true assets. Psychologists, spiritual leaders and coaches have often said that the most restrictive limits you face are those you put on yourself. So, don’t put any limits on your thinking, and look at some factors that you may have overlooked… which will expand your marketability.

Identifying transferable skills is critical (e.g., organizing, group presentation skills, problem solving and so on).

Employers place a premium on men and women who can move from challenge to challenge, handling assignments that draw upon skills. Your experience can also be reviewed according to various “functions” that apply to most businesses, such as sales, production, accounting and human resources.

All areas in which you have knowledge should be identified. At the same time, you need to think of your experience in terms of “action words” that describe what you did, and then translate those activities into achievements, e.g., controlled, wrote, reshaped, etc.

Do you have knowledge of a job, a product, a process or a market… from work, hobbies, alumni relationships, research or suppliers? If so, it may be marketable. Personality, of course, is just a word for that combination of traits that either attracts us to someone or leaves us unimpressed. More employment decisions are based on personality and chemistry than any other factor.

For example: “He’s certainly professional and quick-thinking. I like him, and better yet, I trust him. He’ll fit in with our team. I need to get him into the firm.” The perception of your personality has to do with your interest and enthusiasm. How many people get hired because they showed real interest? A lot.

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Consider Your Options

Knowing what you have to look for, and what you should be looking for, is not always clear to people as they search for work. With the economy slowly recovering, it is important to have a keen eye when it comes to looking at the working world so you can identify the options which are best suited to you finding success, the quickest.

The first way to do this is to increase your awareness of the fastest growing industries and companies. These firms have to go outside their industry to find the best talent and skills.

The second way is to list characteristics of your industries and find similar industries. We use software to compare your industry’s characteristics with 2,500 others, e.g., 35 industries may be an 85% match.

Keep in mind that projecting some form of an “industry hook” is the next best thing to having industry experience. Group your possibilities three ways:

(1) close industry hooks, easy possibilities

(2) medium industry hooks, next best

(3) far reach or stretch industry hooks

When changing industries, you also don’t want to overlook your leverage power, the added benefits you may bring by virtue of your contacts or knowledge. You may be able to bring a team with you that helped in similar situations.

Despite our recent economic slowdown, new companies have sprung up throughout America. Established organizations are reexamining the way they do business. Medium-sized companies are expanding. New industries exist that are employing tens of thousands.

The more you appear to know about an industry, the easier it is to generate interviews. Virtually all employers look for “common ground” when hiring a new person. For example, do you have experience in or knowledge of similar product lines, distribution channels, manufacturing methods or problems in their industry? There can be other similarities. Consider the scope of operations, the role of advertising and promotion, the importance of the sales organization, the influence of labor, and other items.

Naturally, the harder it is to demonstrate knowledge of an industry, the less likely an executive is to make a move into it. That rule applies to all major disciplines: sales, marketing, finance, manufacturing and operations. It is less important in staff disciplines.

Gathering as much information as you can while you search will help to give you guidance. Most people are throwing anything and everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. This won’t work as well as having goals in mind as you are hunting for your job as you may not be as focused, which means you could be missing opportunities.

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Discover More

People in healthcare and energy might not be interested in considering other industries, since so many good jobs are being created there. But are they missing something? If you think your industry is in job or you can tell there the jobs are few and far between, you need to discover more.

With so many industries in trouble or not hiring, many people need to find a job in a new industry. But even for those who don’t, why not uncover all the opportunities out there for you.

For people in administration, HR, accounting, finance and legal functions, switching industries is often not a problem. But others face a challenge because they usually have no experience and little knowledge about other industries. Still, he maintains, they can improve their chances dramatically by doing three things.

1. Identify industries similar to yours

You’ll need to put some time in on search engines, but this is important and worth the effort. Search for names of industry trade magazines that interest you. Scan the headlines of articles for key information, he advises, then read the two or three lead articles. It’s surprising how informed you can become in just a week or two.

You increase your chances tenfold if you can identify characteristics of a target industry that are similar to yours — product lines, distribution channels, the markets they sell to, similar manufacturing processes, types of selling approaches, etc. The more of these you can point to, the stronger your case.”

2. Know and sell your transferable skills

Know all that you have to offer and what you can do that will crossover into another industry. You might be surprised that you are a hot commodity with another profession you never gave much though to joining.

Once you’ve identified these, it will help your case even more if you cite examples of how you used them to the benefit of past employers. Naturally, if target employers are facing similar challenges, they start to realize you are a good match.

3. Develop your selling proposition

This is a brief statement of the major benefits you bring to an employer. The more specific the better. Can you help them open new markets, develop new products, increase sales, cut costs in some area, or develop important new IT capabilities?

Make sure this is evident at the beginning of any letter or resume, and like anything else, you’ll make a more powerful impact if you give examples of how you’ve done things in the past that the employer needs done today.

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