Marketing Career Zone

Personal branding, along with networking, is of course one of the latest ‘buzz phrases’ in the world of job hunting.  For those of us in marketing jobs, the concept of branding should of course be a familiar one, but do we really know how to apply the concept to ourselves?

Actually, personal branding has much in common with branding in terms of products, services or companies and we can start by looking at the 4 Ps – product, place, price and promotion to see how these relate.

Product

Whilst in the more conventional sense, products are of course the ‘things’ or the services that we are trying to market, in terms of personal branding the product is you.  It might be tempting to think of yourself rather as the services that you have to offer, but this would not, in fact, take into account everything that you comprise.

You, the product, are made up of many things, including all of the following:

•    Your background
•    Your education and qualifications
•    Your experience
•    Your skills and knowledge
•    Your personal qualities
•    Your personal values

This isn’t the end of it, however, because like a conventional product you also have your own packaging and your own accessories.  Your packaging is mainly in the form of your personal appearance, how you dress and your personal grooming.  Your accessories, meanwhile, can be considered to be your portfolio, including your CV, your cover letters, your work samples, testimonials and references.

Of course, another important aspect of a product when it comes to marketing is its warranty and, in terms of your personal brand, this is equally vital.  What do we mean by your warranty?  Your reputation.  Your reputation is what acts as your guarantee to a current or prospective employer that they can have faith in you and what you have to offer.

Price

Price is quite self-explanatory in that it, of course, relates to the value that you or an employer places on your education, skills, experience and so on.  It is not solely limited to salary, however, but to any additional forms of remuneration such as pension schemes, numbers of days paid annual leave and sick leave, private health insurance, free club memberships, subsidised education schemes or anything else which might form part of your benefits package.

Place

Place, in relation to personal branding refers both to the geographical location where you wish to work and to the specific companies that you wish to target.

Promotion

Your promotion tactics are what answer the question as to how you are going to let prospective employers know that you are out there in order to get the position that you desire.  What are you going to put into, or leave out of your CVs and cover letters to ensure that you get that all-important interview?  What job hunting techniques are you going to use?  Are you going to focus on responding to job advertisements and signing up with online job boards (NOT a good idea!) or concentrate on building your networks?  Are you going to create your own personal blog or website and set yourself up as an expert in your field?  Are you going to do your networking face-to-face, online or both?  What are you going to tell prospective employers about yourself?  How are you going to conduct yourself in job interviews?

Just as when the 4 Ps are applied to marketing products and services, working on them in terms of creating our personal brands is not a two minute job and consideration needs to go into each individual aspect.  In future articles, we will therefore explore a wide range of job hunting issues, including everything from career planning to interview tips and questions, and from how to put together a CV which will make you look like the perfect match for your desired marketing job to how to make networking work for you.