When you’re looking for a job, package yourself as a product unique from all other products. Sell your personal brand to land the job.

The national unemployment rate is 8.2 percent. According to a recent Bloomberg article, the breakdown reveals that nearly half of the states in the U.S. are equal to or higher than 8.2. That means if you are looking for a job, you are up against significant competition.  What can you do to stand out?  Establish your personal brand.  Do you articulate your value proposition as well as you could be?  Is your value proposition similar to everyone else competing for the same job?   Applying marketing concepts to your personal brand is a direction you can take.

You can apply these concepts when you are looking for a new job, planning to transition into another career or even climb higher in your existing career.  

The book “A Brand Called You” written by Peter Montoya and Tim Vandehey is a guide that can walk you through this process and is definitely inspiring.

Another inspirational resource is Denver-based speaker, Jung Park. 

 He’s a good friend of mine who travels across the country to educate organizations and college students about how to discover your personal brand.  One of his keynote topics is “Finding Your North Star: Using Identity and Passion to Find Success.”  Jung has helped many navigate their way to achieving personal goals.


Once inspired, it’s time to get introspective, which can be difficult or daunting for many.  Particularly if you are stressed out from diligently submitting your resume to dozens (or hundreds) of open job requisitions and you haven’t received a response.  Your resume may be getting stuck in the sea of resumes that companies receive every day. 

It’s important to revisit the value that you bring to an organization.  It’s more than where you’ve been and what you’ve done in the past.  It’s about how you can walk into a new organization and begin to deliver value immediately.  Position yourself as a better “product” and communicate effectively the value you deliver.

If we apply marketing concepts used to sell products and services to your personal brand, we can begin with the Marketing Mix, or 4 P’s.  Product, Price, Place and Promotion.  The “product” is you, your brand and your value proposition. Your personal brand is about your entire package, ranging from resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile and other social media profiles, to how you physically present yourself.  The “price” is the salary or consulting fees you are looking for.  “Place” is where you deliver your brand.  It can be within an organization as a full-time employee, or as a consultant/freelancer working from home, etc.  “Promotion” is how you communicate your brand.  What you say (your content strategy) and where you say it (communications vehicles).

Bottom line - figure out your strategy.  Fine-tune and crystalize “you” as a product and define your value proposition. Let people know you exist. Similar to corporations building awareness of their products and services to customers, you need to build awareness of your product/services.  What’s your plan? Where do you start?  Begin by writing your story about delivering value.

How you present and package that value is up to you.