Whether you work in finance, accounting, project management, design, admin, HR, or marketing – you are a marketer. Today, everyone is a marketer! Especially when you are job searching and marketing BRAND YOU to potential employers. 

Think about it. Marketers execute various initiatives to market a product or service to a targeted audience to ultimately increase sales. When job searching and applying you use various platforms such as LinkedIn, job boards, online marketplaces, your personal website, and more to market yourself to a targeted audience with the end goal of ultimately getting your dream job. Hence, WE ARE ALL MARKETERS!

How can you be a better marketer of BRAND YOU to land your dream job?

Here are 3 tips to do so:

1. Manage your brand image: This is nothing new, we all know that recruiters look at LinkedIn, Facebook, Google, etc. Make sure you clean this up so that it is polished yet still represents you. We’ve seen candidates kill it in the interview and not get the job because of egregious photos posted on Facebook, don’t let this happen to you! At the same time ensure you include a great photo of yourself on any online profiles, especially LinkedIn. And on LinkedIn, selfies are not welcomed (if this is you, remove it immediately)! Click here for 6 tools for monitoring your online reputation.
2. Be consistent across all touch points: In the marketing world there are ways to reach people through various channels: online, print, and in person. Same goes for you when you are job searching. You want to ensure that you remain consistent across all touchpoints. For example, your LinkedIn profile information about your work history should match the info on your resume. Recruiters will get suspicious when these two don’t match up. There is certainly room to tailor the way you represent yourself when marketing yourself to different companies and roles, but at the same time you should still be true to who you are as a person and there should be no confusion to the outside world as to who you are.
3. Surprise and delight: The surprise and delight tactic is one that may sound a bit cliche, yet still works in the marketing world and applies to the job search and application process. The concept is exactly what it sounds like, to surprise and delight – our digital world has made it tough to break through the clutter for brands and for you in your job search. Surprise and delight the hiring manager for the job you are interviewing for to be memorable and to give yourself that extra edge over the competition. Some ways to do so are by sending a handwritten thank you card to your interviewers. Every time I get a hand written thank you card it brings a smile to my face and I always remember that person because I didn’t expect it since it’s the norm to send an email thank you note. Another tactic is to digitally send a relevant article to the hiring manager in between interview rounds or after an interview to show you are truly interested and to also stay top of mind. If you do this, fully read the article and provide interesting insight versus just sending an article – anyone can do that!

Bottom line, in order to succeed in your job search and land your dream job, act like a marketer. Like any successful brand does to stay relevant and increase it’s value: manage your image, stay consistent yet genuine, and excite your audience to increase your chances of getting the job.
If you are job searching, the time is now to start crafting and managing your marketing strategy of BRAND YOU!