When was the last time you tried to sell yourself?
The typical preparation would be to prepare your résumé, get your profile out in the social media channels, contact your current relationships for introductions and prepare to contact and interview with prospective employers.
You can only put so much information on a résumé, your education, work history, accomplishments, maybe some personal information. Then, if you’re fortunate enough to land a personal interview, you only have a short amount of time to impress the interviewer. But, most-likely, a prospective employer will only scan your résumé, and if nothing interesting catches their attention, you’re filed away with the myriad of other job seekers. You become just another piece of paper in a file…but you know you’re much more than that piece of paper. You know you have so much to offer and you could fit in well and make a difference. You can solve problems ~ you know you’d be an asset to the company. You just know it…but how do you convince that one person of that?
Being educated, accomplished, likeable or interesting isn’t always enough. You can have the skill set the job requires, but then, maybe you didn’t graduate from the right school, or you’re wearing an outfit that’s too conservative or perhaps too sophisticated. How would you know? You can research the company in earnest before your interview and think you know enough about the company, their culture and what they’re looking for, but your first challenge is to impress the interviewer.
Searching for a job is challenging, humbling and at times, scary. There is a fine line between selling yourself and bragging, and then you have the challenge of asking the right questions to provide the information the interviewer needs to make a scrutinized decision. But, when a job search stretches on, especially in down-turns in the economy and you become frustrated, you certainly can’t come across as pushy or desperate to a prospective employer.
Here’s where I’m going with this blog.
Professional sales people sell themselves everyday…that is their job. We manage current client expectations while at the same time searching for new opportunities to keep our manufacturing plants open, and not only ourselves employed, but our co-workers employed. Our résumé might be our equipment list…not a complete example of what we can do for a client, but a form of introduction non-the-less. We are active in the social media channels but those mediums work only if clients are searching for us. Nobody has unlimited time to wait to be discovered, not the person looking to be employed, or the salesperson looking for work. It’s good to have those channels covered, but the reality is sales people must be more pro-active.
So, if I’m (interesting/knowledgeable/funny/?) enough on the telephone or on paper without sounding like I’m selling or pushy or desperate, I might get an appointment. But, if I don’t nail the client’s need on the head, on what sometimes is my only opportunity, I must continue to find another person who will take the time to see me. If you’ve ever looked for a job, you know how difficult it is to get an interview AND land a job. There is not a rep here at Ussery Printing who I would classify as slick. As a group we are veterans of this industry but still bumble our words on occasion and sometimes don’t get our message across. We’re human, complicated and sometimes fragile….but we’re also resilient, positive and we know we can solve problems ~ we know we would be an asset to your company…we just know it.
