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If you brand it will they come? While it may sound like one big field of dreams, a carefully crafted and customized personal brand will not only convey your value and define your vision it will also offer a unique perspective to prospective employers and hiring managers. It’s all about marketing yourself in the way that is going to get you noticed and essentially get you the job.
You might be tempted to brush off personal branding as a passing trend but in reality, the only thing passing by will be your dream job – that is unless you make a commitment to developing your very own personal brand. Your run of the mill objective for your resume is just not going to cut it anymore. So let us find out what better with a head to head battle- branding statement vs. objective for resume.
For the amount of time, you spend writing and rewriting your resume it can be very disheartening to know that the time spent by hiring managers reading your resume is minimal. Sorry to say, but true. That is why you need to grab their attention immediately and compel them to keep reading.
The top half to third of the first page of your resume should be BAM, POW, WOW! Knock them out with your intro and they’ll get back up for more.
And the winner is
Take a look at the following examples. The first one is a non-branded objective statement seen way too often by hiring managers and recruiters. The second is a personal branding statement that clearly translates the candidate’s unique value.
Boring Old Objective For Resume
Creative marketing professional seeks a position within an organization that will allow me to utilize my skills with the potential for growth.
Attention Grabbing Branding Statement
Forward-thinking marketing professional offering a unique combination of creativity and analytical skill with the ability to assess both vantage points simultaneously for an effective balance of visual nuance and sound business decisions which are easily transferable into a variety of positions.
Which one do you think is going to hold the reader’s attention?
I hope you can clearly see the advantages the second one has to offer. If you are still holding onto the old school resume format it’s time to let go and embrace the new trends in resume writing. It might not be your style; you might think it’s too over the top but you have to realize that this is a marketing tool and you need to sell yourself.
The perfect resume may exist, luckily there is a whole lot of variety in the way we can craft a resume. No matter how you slice it, the key objectives are the same, however. Your goal is to seize the average 15 seconds that a recruiter or hiring manager will accord your resume, and be the one he/she calls.
How do you do that?
The goal of a resume is to get an interview and ultimately a job. The perfect resume will do this like an advertisement that spurs the consumer to action. You must brand and differentiate yourself, and show the value and skills you bring to the job in question – demonstrate how your employment would solve the company’s challenges and meet their goals.
Prescreening is often done from a database or online search. Your resume needs to include the keywords associated with the position and companies/industry where you want to be hired. If you are preparing an open resume; you need to anticipate the keywords.
If you are applying for a specific position with a company; read, research, and understand the company’s needs to inform your keyword choice. The next reader of your resume will be scanning it for specific content. Keep these keywords in mind as you build your resume.
Personal Branding Your Objective
Personal branding is important to the success of a job search. Why is it so important? Because as a unique job seeker, it helps define you as an individual and makes you stand out as a prime candidate.
Make a great first impression, cut to the chase. Brand yourself with a tagline. This is an objective but goes further creating an image of you as the professional. However, this isn’t your old school objective for a resume. This tagline should explicitly and concisely identify you. It will specify the job you are applying for and the business challenges you can solve.
Branding Your Resume
There are aspects of your background that make you incredibly unique and highly qualified—and your job is to highlight those aspects so that hiring managers don’t have to guess whether you’re perfect for the job.
Develop a Strong Title/Job Target
Your title/job target is the first impression a hiring manager will have when reading your resume. This short phrase provides a quick summary of what you’ve accomplished and why you are the right person for the job. It helps to set the tone for who you are as a candidate. This tone should remain consistent throughout the resume and any other information the manager receives from you.
Add Links to Your Professional Profiles
Another great technique for building your personal brand is to link to your professional profiles. Keep in mind that, most times, your resume is submitted online and can easily be linked to Web sites. If you link to your LinkedIn and Twitter profiles, as well as one or two other professional sites you have, you give the employer a chance to learn more about the contributions you’ve made in your field.
Summarize Your Career Highlights
You can also develop your personal brand by creating a career summary section. You want the most important moments of your career to stand out in this section.
These moments might include your winning salesperson of the year five times, or your efforts as a team leader that resulted in record revenues. It’s good to list at least four highlights, but make sure they’re tailored to the job for which you’re applying.
Turn Your Duties into Initiatives
Instead of listing the duties you were given on any job you’ve worked, it’s great to brand yourself by listing your initiatives.So if you were in charge of taking phone messages and created a new system that made message delivery more effective, don’t just write, “Answered calls and delivered messages.”
Write a couple of sentences starting with developed or initiated, then talk about what you created and how it helped the message-taking process flow more smoothly throughout the office.
Consider Testimonials
Adding testimonials to resumes is still a unique concept to many job seekers, so taking this route could automatically make you stand out. Find two or three reputable references in your field to vouch for your greatness in a one- or two-sentence quote. This could really help to back you up as a strong candidate.
There’s nothing better than standing out as the strongest candidate each time you apply for a job. Increase the odds of being that person by developing your personal brand in your resume.
We are always eager to hear from our readers. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding CareerAlley content.
Good luck in your search,
Joey
The description of your work history should show the value proposition you represent. The very brief paragraph or the bullet points that elaborate your skills and experience should back-up your branding statement.
Make each bullet count, so you keep the reader’s attention and make sure that your value proposition is obvious and compelling. Feature your accomplishments, enumerate your goals met and/or exceeded, demonstrate the value you provided such as higher revenue produced, products brought to market on budget and on time, cost-cutting results.
A skills section at the end serves to quickly summarize the knowledge, skills, certifications, abilities that you offer. This ranges from general to specific embracing technology, functional, industry, management and soft skills.
Remember, this is your 15-second ad. It must look nice and professional, and the content must present you as the solution to the business problem in a compelling and immediate way.
We are always eager to hear from our readers. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or suggestions regarding CareerAlley content.
Good luck in your search,
Joey
