Your Brand

You know, of course, that your name is your brand. Anytime someone hears your name that conjures up a mental image — not just a physical image (boy, I’d be in trouble if that’s all it was!) but an idea of who they think you are and what expectations they have of you.

For example, if you watch any television show you can pretty quickly figure out its target audience by the commercials that sponsor it. After all, nobody is advertising to five-year-olds during NCIS, and there are few bank commercials during Saturday morning cartoons.

So where is your brand found? If you see yourself as a “the higher ed major gifts gal” does your name come up at CASE conferences as a possible speaker in the major gifts track? If you are the “go-to guy” in foundation relations, are you mentioned at the local grant maker’s meeting (positively, of course)? Is your brand where you want to be?

There’s lots of ways to do this … writing, networking, speaking, and more.

Your career move this week? Write down your brand. What is it that you want to be known for, professionally? (Major gift money maker? Special events superstar? Direct mail diva?) How do you want to be known in your personal approach to your work? (Approachable? Efficient? Warm or cold?) Then ask … where is my “placement,” and is it right for me? Are you in the NCIS slot or Saturday morning fun?

Climbing the Ladder

We live in a hierarchical society. Maybe it’s our Anglo-Roman cultural roots, but despite our feeling that we’re an “independent people,” Americans like to know where they are on the “ladder of life” and like to climb that ladder. In fact, as Americans, we pride ourselves on the fact that the ladder is there.

The question is: should you climb it?

I know a lot of people who believe that “success” means getting to that next rung on the ladder. I won’t judge them for this. There’s a lot of pressure to go up. But I think each of us who decides to climb needs to ask, “Am I personally better off for climbing higher? And if I am, is my organization?”

Those are harder questions than we think. It’s natural to say “of course” on both scores. But some would argue that thriving in what you do, based on knowing your abilities and limitations, makes for a much more successful career than climbing a ladder that leads to frustration or worse.

So your career move this week? Step back and ask yourself: should I pull up another rung?

Walk in Their Shoes

How often do you put yourself in someone else’s shoes? If you’re like me, not often enough.

I think that one of the reasons that people dread hiring anyone is the process. It’s time consuming and, for a lot of people, intimidating. On the other side of that table, they could be as scared as you are.

Why would THEY be scared? This hire could make or break their career. They’re really not sure why the last hire didn’t do well. This may be a new job that they convinced their boss that they needed … and now they need to prove it. It could be that they’re an introvert, and the idea of having to encounter dozens of strangers is horrifying to them.

The career move here is not that you have an “advantage” over the person with the job, but that the playing field may be more level than you ever suspected … and that should make you more confident, and confidence breeds success.

Confidence + Confidence = Success

We’ve all heard it: confidence breeds success. So does that mean that you need two confidences to get one success? Once you have success, how can you get it to multiply? I know that one failure can kill a lot of successes … so does that mean that you save some confidence from a failure to breed more success?

Okay, I won’t tax your brain any more than I need to, but you get the idea … to be successful in your career you need some confidence. A single failure could take it all down, but only if you don’t manage to save some confidence along the way … which can be difficult, I know.

So your career step this week? Save some confidence. How do you do that? Make a file for thank you letters and affirmations from friends and colleagues. Seek out endorsements on LinkedIn. Get a few “thumbs up” on Facebook. Bank away these to save some confidence for when you do fail – because you will – you can breed yourself some more success.

Resume Abuse

Resumes are funny animals. They’re used, and abused, by a lot of people for things that they were never intended to do. For example …

A resume is NOT an introduction piece. Yet the first contact I get from hundreds of people from all over the world is their resume.

A resume is NOT a complete life’s story. Yet so many people cram every little detail of their lives into a few short pages … or worse yet, they don’t cram it in and send tens of pages.

A resume is NOT a business card, yet sometimes I get it at a networking event … “I just happen to have my resume here …” Really?

So your career move this week? Stop resume abuse! Use it for what it’s for … provide it when it’s requested (like in a job application) to SUMMARIZE the highlights of your career. First and foremost, your resume is an advertising piece, not a novel. Like an advertising piece, make it concise and readable so that whoever reads it wants to call you – and really get to know you.