Personal Marketing Strategy

1. Personal Marketing Strategy In a Poor Economy A compilation of personal lessons learned Author: Rick A. Ross 214-471-3462 (C) http://www.linkedin.com/pub/10/427/b3a 28 Feb. & 2 Mar. 2009 St Jude Career Alliance Council

2. Seminar Purpose Losing a job can happen to anyone and can be a very emotional and confusing event in life. To provide job seekers with an effective method to quickly organize, strengthen personal self confidence and save time in preparing and initiating an effective job search

3. Summary of Discussion Topics • Effective Resume Development • Effective Cover Letter Structure • Networking • Search Engines & Search Agents • Weekly Personal Goal Setting • Interview Preparation Tips Note: Examples provided are intended to help people in the General Labor or Experienced Professional field

4. Effective Resume Development Step 1.) Compile Personal Success Stories (minimum of 10 success stories more is better) • The Situation you were in • The Action you took • The Result of your action Note: This up front brainstorming is time consuming but very necessary Example: Reference – Archived personal end of year priorities Situation: <A random business need or your role called for action to resolve: 1-2 sentences> Action: <Summarize the action you took to either partner with others or that you yourself stepped up to resolve the issue: 1-2 sentences> Result: <Based on the action you took, express the outcome or impact to the business: 1-2 sentences> Note:Your personal skills to first capture then condense these success stories on scratch paper may take little time to further develop. Taking even 1-2 full days to condense your message is normal so try not to get too frustrated on this step. Intended take away understanding: Personal Success Stories provide the foundation for effective personal marketing

5. Effective Resume Development Step 1.) (Continued from last slide) Compile Personal Success Stories (minimum of 10 success stories more is better) • General Examples Mgmt Example: (Note skill sets employed: Statistical Analysis, Performance Management) Situation: Customer satisfaction metrics indicated 39% of customers were dissatisfied with customer service response time average of 48 hours to resolve issues. Action: In examining the lead time average for the team and areas of opportunity to shorten the time to engagement, I compiled the Business Case for trouble ticket automation to replace manual methods. Result: Customer satisfaction metrics in regards to customer service response time improved to 78%. General Example: (Note skill sets employed: Self Starter, Coaching / Mentoring) Situation: A newly hired employee needed time to ramp up and become a productive employee Action: I approached management and volunteered to mentor the new employee Result: The new employee became a productive contributor to the business much sooner than expected. Intended take away understanding: Strive for a short and crisp message that is easy to recall and recite

6. Effective Resume Development Step 2.) Derive 30 second ‘Elevator Speech’ General boilerplate example: • ‘I hold’ (insert college degrees or certifications). ‘I offer’ (optional: insert years of relevant experience in a given industry or function). ‘I utilize’ (insert computer literacy tools, special or specialized computer applications, subject matter expertise that differentiates your personal offering). ‘I am skilled at’ (insert special skills or differentiators that provide insight into what you yourself bring to the table). ‘I ‘(optional: if it applies to you, consider adding a consolidated Action/Result here to emphasize an instance that further supports the background sentences above or hooks the reader/listener into quickly understanding the magnitude of your contribution to a business) Intended take away understanding: ‘Elevator speech’ will provide crisp summary of the value you offer in your resume, your personalized cover letters, and your introductory comments in actual interviews

7. Effective Resume Development Step 2.) Derive 30 second ‘Elevator Speech’ Mgmt Example: • I hold technical and business Bachelor and Master’s degrees. I utilize Lean Six Sigma data & fact based management techniques and PRINCE2 project management framework as a structured approach to deriving, managing and solving complex business problems. I am skilled at analyzing business unit performance metrics (Gross Margin, Operating Margin, and Revenue) to first begin to understand and target next step discussion opportunities for a business. I can isolate business unit critical path areas not performing best in class. I can conduct multi-function workshops to derive existing systems process and measure transaction variation to compile opportunities for simplification, areas of potential cost reduction and improved asset velocity. I can either propose or personally launch & program manage a matrixed approach to implementing the resulting business streamlining business plan. I have personally program managed 18 engineering functions simultaneously in a matrixed fashion per the offered description resulting in $22M year over year EBIT improvement. General Example: • I was an honor student in high school and am very active in community improvement projects and church ministries.Personal assessments of my character reflect that I am an excellent collaborator, motivator and enthusiastic and energetic team member. I use strong interpersonal skills to cultivate positive working relationships with peers and management teams. Intended take away understanding: ‘Elevator speech’ will provide crisp summary of the value you offer in your resume, your personalized cover letters, and your introductory comments in actual interviews

8. Effective Resume Development Step 3.) Derive Common Skills Terminology / Search Engine Hooks: Sound Bite Skill Set Bullets • Requirement: Referencing your personal Success Stories, compile a list of marketable skills that you utilized to enable yourself to be successful in each case. • Note: Industry common skill set bullets quickly summarize your skills in the first 10 seconds of viewing along with your elevator speech. Skill Set Bullets should provide the reader with a very quick summary of skills that you bring to the table for discussion in the upper 1/3 of your resume. • Additionally: • Skill Set bullets will serve to help employers and recruiters find you • Skill Set bullets also serve to help you to set up electronic search agents to help you find targeted opportunities on job boards and have them delivered to your inbox daily thus simplifying a job search campaign. =>Good Example: Industry common marketable skills •  Business Analytics  Operations Supervision  Program Management  Strategic Planning  Statistical Analysis  =>Bad Example: not so common yet valuable skills spelled out in acronyms •  1X-EVDO SME  ATT COL  BSE & EAE SME  LTE Prime  Vzn TSE  • Need more help defining personal skills bullets? • Suggested alternate source: • http://www.nmc.edu/careers/support/marketskills.pdf Intended take away understanding: The derivation of your Personal Success Stories, your Elevator Speech and your Skill Set Bullets are intended to create a necessary ‘Hook’ in the upper 1/3 of your Resume

9. Effective Resume Development • Professional Experience section: Lower 2/3’s of document. Quick summary of your past and key contribution impacts each tied to a Success Story • i.) Focus on most Senior or most current role which defines who you are today. • Note: For many of us that have experienced industry downturn, you may have had to go backward in your career to remain employed. Do not communicate that here. • ii.) Only elaborate on roles that you have supporting Success Stories and marketable skills bullets. • The goal is encourage an interviewer to ask you to ‘further explain about this skill set bullet or that success story comment’ in an interview. • iii.) Summarizing every role you have ever occupied in your total career can create negative perceptions. • Know that you can create negative perceptions of obsolete outdated skills and business maturity concerns. Focus on most current and most marketable skills only. • iv.) Be mindful of which dates you provide. • Does the work you’ve compiled show excessive job hopping? Stayed too long at one company? Only experienced at one company? • Does the dates you’ve provided for college degrees over emphasize your age? Common Initial Perceptions: ‘Employers may be interested in every single role I’ve ever had in terms of my personal diversity.’ In Reality: Employers in most cases don’t have to time to review a personal biography and asking them to do so can raise business maturity concerns. Craft your overall message to be what you bring to the table today to a targeted opportunity which include skills you learned ‘back in the day’. Avoid over communicating comments around roles you supported ‘many years ago’. Be truthful, yet word smith to your personal advantage. Intended take away understanding: Consider your message and resulting perceptions experienced by the hiring manager: Message must be crisp, experience must be solid, no negative perceptions allowed

10. Effective Resume Development • Education and Training section: List Degrees, Certification and year achieved. • i.) Elaborate on training for coursework that led to skills high in demand. =>GoodExample: Provides enough topical information to generate interest • Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Training: DMAIC, DMADV, PMCS, Lean DMAIC, Benchmarking =>Bad Example: Leaves the reader guessing • Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Training Note: Be careful in assuming that a hiring manager will know intuitively that you have been trained on a given skill requirement for a job listing based on a certification or degree • Community Involvement section (Optional): Can say something of your character, personality, willingness to help others, or simply that you are interested in giving back to the community. • Examples: • -Church Ministry Organizations (specify which one) • -Make a Wish foundation volunteer • -JDRF foundation volunteer • -Angel Food distribution volunteer Intended take away understanding: Consider listing the sub-topics that make up a college degree or certification

11. Pulling it all together Note that the hiring manager very likely wrote a given job description that you may be interested in or applying for. Your personal elevator speech and skill set bullets help the reader to quickly see the fit in under the statistical average of 10 seconds. Name Mailing Address Phone # / email ********************************************************************************* (Your Current or Industry Recognized title) Summary of Qualifications ********************************************************************************* Elevator Speech (~5-8 Sentences) Industry Common Skill Set Bullets ********************************************************************************* Professional Experience ******************************************************************************** Company 1.) Job Title or Industry Recognized Title -Success Story summary comment -Success Story summary comment … 2.) Job Title or Industry Recognized Title -Success Story summary comment -Success Story summary comment … Personal Accomplishments -Success Story summary comment -Success Story summary comment ... Education and Training Recommend maintaining a minimum of 2 Resumes in soft copy: Resume #1 = Draft #1 (1- 1 ½ pages long) Resume #2 = Draft #1 + the flexibility to substitute in ‘Success Story summary comment’s toemphasize a fit to an opportunity you are interested in. Intended take away understanding: Statistically speaking you have 10 seconds to ‘hook’ the intended reader. Who you are and what you offer is the critical message of the upper 1/3 of resume

12. Effective Cover Letter Structure Cover letters are key to demonstrating to a hiring manager that you actually read the posted job description while also providing the opportunity to point out how you directly meet or exceed posted job requirements. General structure recommendation: (A personal short, crisp message (don’t ramble) and stick to the point) ************************************************************************************************************************ Dear (Company Name) Human Resources Representative -(Optional: Brief Company research comment demonstrating your peripheral understanding of a company needs) -Introduce yourself, plug in elevator speech (tweak / adjust as needed for brevity). -Site specific posted opportunity requirements (1, 2, 3) from the hiring manager, spell out (1, 2, 3,) how you are a direct fit and meet or exceed posted requirements. <‘You need & I have’ is the key message here> (*Request and interview –or- state that you will call the receiver in 3 business days if you have a name.) Name Phone Number ************************************************************************************************************************ Common Initial Perceptions: ‘I need a job and don’t have time to provide a cover letter in each case. Won’t I be successful if my strategy is in the volume of resumes I send out?’ In Reality: No. Hiring managers are sensitive to candidates that blanket the landscape with their resume and it creates perceptions of personal desperation. Don’t ‘spray & pray’. That strategy will not work. Intended take away understanding: Cover Letters are a personal differentiator in that they provide the opportunity to spell out the job skills match that may not be obvious to a busy hiring manager

13. Networking Published job search statistics show that: • 15% of job seeker candidates are successful by directly applying over the internet. • 85% of job seekers are successful through utilizing creative networking means. Common Initial Perceptions: ‘I don’t know very many people and I feel funny about asking Networking type questions’ In Reality: Human nature is to try to go it alone and the published job market is flooded today with job seekers due to the state of the economy. Without significant personal focus and energy on Networking, the odds are against you statistically in landing a job anytime soon. Warm Contacts: -Family -Friends -Parishoners -Neighbors Business Contacts: -Co-Workers -Industry Organizations -Industry Affiliations -Former Clients -Customers -Vendors -Suppliers Internet Sources: -Linked In -careerconnection.org -St Jude Career Alliance Intended take away understanding: A Networking Strategy focus is key to shortening a successful job search campaign

14. Search Agents & Search Engines • Job Board Search Engines provide key insight into ‘who’s hiring’. Do not consider these to be your only or final source for applying. These are a point of reference for next steps – period. • Learn to recognize when a recruiting firm has posted a company’s opportunity vs. a posting directly from a company. • Apply through recruiting firm postings only if you feel confident that you are a very close or an exact fit for a posted opportunity • If you are close but not an ‘exact fit’, consider going directly to the company web site and applying directly for the posted opportunity • Job Board Search Agents are common. Learning to quickly add your skill set bullets to a search agent and setting up for daily electronic notification of new and existing opportunities will save you time. • Very Important: Consider electronic Search Agents to be an ongoing work in progress until you to fine tune the search agent skill bullet criteria wording to bring the right opportunities to you. (i.e. you have to experiment with terms that do bring opportunities that exactly match what you are looking for.) • Many companies provide job seekers the opportunity to set up a personal candidate profile and also company specific Job Search Agents. Note:Many company specific opportunities do not get posted on public Job Boards. Your personal strategy must include targeting industries / companies of interest to you. Common Initial Perceptions: ‘I’ve applied to countless opportunities on Career Builder and haven’t heard a thing’ In Reality: Ask yourself; Am I applying in a shotgun fashion (spray and pray)? Am I personalizing each submission with a cover letter that spells out the job requirements and the skills match to the intended receiver? Intended take away understanding: Use technology to simplify your daily job search by bringing targeted opportunities directly to your email inbox

15. Weekly Personal Goal Setting • Consider: Keeping a weekly log of opportunities you have applied to. • Company Name, Job Listing title, date of resume & cover letter submission, phone call follow up (optional). • Consider capturing jobs you have applied to (copy/paste) into a text editor such as MS Word and then labeling and archiving the electronic version for future reference if called to discuss. • Consider setting an aggressive minimum weekly target of opportunities you will apply for. • Consider allocating time each week to Networking strategies: St. Jude Brown Bag Networking Lunch – 1st & 3rd Thursday of the month starting in March, Linked In, careerconnections.org etc. • Consider visiting local city Chamber of Commerce offices for free announcements intended for people considering moving to that local city. • Chamber of Commerce brochures provide key insight into companies that may be moving into your area or are preparing to build in your area. Consider writing or calling Human Resources for that company, introducing yourself and of course request an interview. • Consider subscribing to on-line company profiling engines that help you understand which industries or companies have offices within driving distance of your home, annual report summaries, key decision makers and their contact information and that same companies top competitors. • Consider researching current on-line articles regarding a given company or industry to understand how you yourself can help. An introduction letter to the companies key decision maker to spell out ‘how you can help’, can be an effective approach. Common Initial Perceptions: ‘This speaker is asking for a lot of work on my part to obtain a new job’ In Reality: Yes. In a poor economy you need to understand the importance of differentiating yourself to shorten your time without a job, and protect your personal interests. Intended take away understanding: Job offers go to the most organized and prepared, not the most qualified on paper.

16. Interview Preparation Tips Consider: Your Primary Interview Objectives • Build Rapport: Initial greetings and small talk will help you and the Interviewer get started on the right cordial tone while also helping you to relax. • Active Listening: Ask the interviewer open ended questions and use soft techniques to gain insight into the employer’s needs. (Recall: the job description itself is also key in providing this insight) • Concerns & Liabilities: During the course of your discussion, use soft skills to move the conversation away from discussion pitfalls. (http://www.pacificnwtech.org/tomscorner/Session3Final.pdf) • Ask for next steps in the process: Consider summarizing the fit or overlap the two or more of you have discussed. Ask: ‘When can we reconnect?’ or ‘So if I haven’t heard from you by _____, may I call you?’ Consider: 4 Basic Interviewing types 1.) Screening Interview – Initial engagement or Telephone conversation • Your number 1 goal is to obtain a face to face interview. 2.) One on One – Face to Face traditional interview 3.) Sequential Interview – Series of several Face to Face interviews typically 30-60 minutes in length • Request the names and titles of those you will be meeting with in advance for Q&A insight 4.) Panel / Group Interview – Panel of Departmental representatives interviewing in the same session • Establish early rapport with each if at all possible. Remain calm, don’t rush to answer & smile. Intended take away understanding: Interviews must be ‘win / win’ for both parties. Make it a two-way dialogue

17. Interview Preparation Tips General tip: Opportunity Engagement • Consider using personal cell phone as your personal contact number • Ensure your voice mail message sounds professional and polite • Smile as you record your VM response message. Smiles come through over the phone. • Consider letting unknown callers call go to voicemail giving you a little time to review the company and opportunity you applied to before you return the call. • Standing when you speak on the phone lowers your voice tone slightly . Lower tone exudes self confidence. Exhaling slowly lowers heart rate and can calm initial engagement nervousness. • Your priority must be to transition the initial engagement to next steps. If it is not offered first, request an understanding of ‘Where do we go from here?’ or ‘Can I expect to hear from you soon?’ Intended take away understanding: Interviews must be ‘win / win’ for both parties. Make it a two-way dialogue

18. Interview Preparation Tips General Tip: Interview Preparation • Always research the company in advance to understand who they are and what they do. • On-line periodical articles that provide insight into promotions or difficulties the company might be facing. • Annual Reports provide key insight into company performance, strengths and weaknesses • Always review ‘commonly asked interview questions’ in advance of an interview to prepare crisp answers. Guard against negative responses to any question: Example: ‘How do you feel about your last boss?’ (Positive response: (He or She taught me quite a bit about budgeting and I am very grateful to he or she for that) • http://jobsearch.about.com/od/interviewquestionsanswers/a/interviewquest.htm • Always prepare your own questions for the interviewer (consider the offered link above) • Remember: The hiring manager very likely wrote the job description and as such provides key insight into that he or she is looking for. • Prior to your interview: • Consider printing a copy of the job description and with a highlighter pen, highlight or underline key requirements you will likely be questioned about. • Review your personal Success Stories in relation to the job requirements and consider penciling through your answers in advance. • Consider how you might structure your personal priorities objectives for each of the job description key requirements and how you might personally meet or exceed supporting that job requirement. • Minimize weaknesses or perceived liabilities • Take the time to understand various techniques of ‘how to answer effectively’ and emphasize personal strengths and tactfully channeling the conversation away from a perceived gap or liability. • http://www.pacificnwtech.org/tomscorner/Session3Final.pdf Intended take away understanding: Candidates that strategize to prepare are naturally more confident and relaxed

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