31/05/2022
Sell yourself. They will buy you.
Most of the people who want a new job do not understand that they are also providing a service.
You are like a one-man company.
You have one client - your employer.
You are offering a service to your client (your customer) that is your employer.
Imagine you are buying something.
Will you buy it - if it is not useful to you?
Will you buy a washing machine that doesn't clean your clothes well?
Will you buy food from a restaurant, if it is not good enough?
Will you pay for a bus ticket that doesn't give you a comfortable ride?
When you are buying something - you want to make sure that you are getting enough value out of it - more than what you pay for it. Isn't it?
Similarly, when you are trying to get a job, YOU are the product.
Your employer is "buying" your services.
Your employer is paying a "monthly subscription fee" to keep you employed. That's your salary.
When you consider yourself as a brand, product, or service, then you will understand that it becomes important to "sell yourself". Isn't it?
How can you market yourself and sell yourself?
Marketing yourself means: that people need to know that you exist.
Selling yourself means: you need to convince the people who "buy" you that you will provide more value to them than what they pay you back.
How to market yourself?
The best way to market yourself and let people know you exist is to start a blog and start writing.
Employers will not take your social media posts seriously. However, they will take your blog seriously. If you publish a book (or an ebook), they will take you even more seriously.
No matter which career path you are in, the best way to market yourself is to start a blog and write on the blog regularly (at least 1 post per week) about your industry.
If you are a designer, write about the latest things that are happening in the design industry, and what you learned out of it.
If you are a performance marketer, write about the latest tools and techniques in performance marketing.
If you are an app developer, write about the latest things in the app development world, and what you learned.
You don't need to become an "influencer" and get 1000s of followers. You just need a few hundred readers, which you will get from your LinkedIn profile itself.
When you apply for a job, and your potential employer sees that you have a blog, he/she will be more likely to hire you compared to the other people who applied for the same job.
You just need to be better than the other candidates competing for the same job.
Just like a product or service doesn't need to be the best but just better than its competition to make sure that they get sold.
How to sell yourself?
Once you get to a job interview - it is a sales meeting to sell yourself. If the customer (employer) is convinced, he will buy (you).
He is signing up for a monthly subscription service where he expects a certain level of performance from you.
Your performance needs to make sure that the customer (your employer) gets more in return for the money he is spending.
No one cares that "you need a job".
If you try to convince your employer why the job is very important for you, they will not hire you.
Remember, your employer doesn't care about you unless he is a close friend (in which case you shouldn't work where your friend becomes the boss).
Your employer cares about himself, and his own company. He wants revenue and profits.
He will hire you only if he thinks that hiring you is a good investment for his company.
That means you need to convince your employer that he will get more in return for what he pays you as a salary.
The best way to sell yourself is to convince your interviewer:
How your contribution to the company will help them make more revenue.
That's all.
Convince them that (you) are a good investment for them, and they will (buy) you.
Market yourself.
Sell yourself.
