While ability and desire are both crucial to your success as a job seeker, these are attributes that can be shared by thousands of other applicants. Ultimately, a job application may hinge on what you can offer as an individual, and your unique aspects of skill and experience that set you apart from your rivals. Promoting what you can bring to a role is critical, and this process of selling yourself to a brand reveals a lot about you as a viable candidate for work.
What is Required for the Role?
An interview is arguably the ultimate sales pitch where you promote yourself as a solution to a company’s problem, so focusing on your strengths and how you have overcome weaknesses is they key to getting hired. Consider the following as key attributes which are considered as desirable amongst employers.
- Being a problem solver is the most sought after skill by employers, and boasting this in your armory means that you can be an asset and valuable in any given role. People with leadership qualities or the ability to identify and resolve issues are fairly unique amongst employees, and also have the potential to progress within an organisation.
- Teamwork is also a critical skill, and it requires an ability to transfer your individual focus and attributes in order to benefit a company objective. Not only this, but it requires an ability to work and innovate without disrupting an existing team dynamic, so a particular type of personality is required in order to thrive.
- Self-motivation is important regardless of your status as an individual worker or team player, as you must be able to push yourself and remain focused in order to achieve deadlines and company objectives. Without this attribute, employers would fear that they would need to micro-manage your performance to achieve time sensitive tasks.
What Can You Bring to the Role?
Once you are aware of what employers are looking for in addition to qualifications and experience, your challenge is to sell your personal brand in a way that meets these requirements. For example:
- Consider your resume carefully, and think about any specific job role where you have encountered a problem with a client or customer. How did you resolve this issue, and what process did you go through to achieve this?
- Examples of functioning within a successful team can often prove to be the best showcase of your individual value, as they provide context in terms of what tasks you performed and how they benefited your organisation. These are crucial, and reveal a critical awareness of the needs of others and a company as a whole.
- Consider anything that you have achieved that is a product of your own initiative and motivation, such a self funded qualification for an example of attainment outside of work. Such examples help to prove your credentials as a self-made success, and encourage an employer to trust you in any given role.
What are your views on how best to sell your personal brand to succeed in an interview?
