Branding & Market Yourself:  Using Your Strengths to Find Work You Love

If you have followed the Career Fit Assessment & Job Search System the you have:

– come to understand your transferable skills results and your three letter code. 

– completed assessments for the other two skill areas – personal and content skills. 

– determined which jobs used your favorite skills and were of most interest to you. 

– decided which job option fit you best. 

– and set strategic goals and action plans for your future. 

Now, you will learn how to use your skills (strengths) to implement your decisions and find work that you love.

Depending on your career goal, there may be several steps needed to transition into the job or career you have chosen.  For example, you may need further education or training.  (Education can be through formal or informal avenues.  If you want to become a nurse, you will need formal education.  If, however, your goal is to open your business, then you may decide to prepare yourself through reading, attending workshops and talking to other small business owners.)

Ultimately, however, you will most likely need to market yourself to a prospective employer (or client/customer, if you plan to be self-employed).  The good news is that 80% of marketing yourself has already been completed by following the Career Fit Assessment System strategies.  These strategies have allowed you to define your best skills and to focus where you want to use your skills in work.  Thus by knowing this information your marketing/job search campaign will be focused instead of just being open to whatever job comes along. (Employers look for candidates who are targeted, motivated and know what kind of work they should be doing but instead often only find candidates who are qualified and will show up for a paycheck.)  Also, by having identified your top skills transferable, personal and content skills you will be able to better communicate that you can meet the employers needs and are the person to hire!

Ninety-five percent of job hunters make mistakes that delay their employment. The reason for this is that most of us have never been taught how to conduct a strategic job search/marketing   campaign.

This section will focus on how to market your skills/strengths in your job search/marketing campaign.  You will learn:

-How to find opportunities that fit your skills

-How to analyze advertised jobs to match your skills with their needs

-How to develop a targeted resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile and other marketing tools based on your top skills

-How to find jobs in the hidden job market where up to 85% of jobs are found

-How to prove your top skills in an interview

-And much more.

Dedicating yourself to follow the strategies will serve you during your lifetime to better market yourself and if you are doing job search work it can cut your job search time in half. 

Focus on one or two job targets.
 
Being focused in your job search will help you to write a better resume with the right keywords; search for jobs more effectively because you will only be looking for certain jobs; allow your personal contacts to help you find jobs; and help you interview more effectively because you know what type of work you should be doing. If you still need to do more work on this, go back to previous strategies beginning with Assessing Your Personal & Content Skills.