This essay applies product marketing principles to personal career planning, treating professional skills and values as a "product" to be positioned, priced, and promoted. The author identifies core differentiators — analytical ability, communication skills, work ethic, and a compassionate leadership philosophy — and maps them to a target market of ethically driven, innovation-focused companies. The paper examines ideal employer profiles, outlines the departments most likely to benefit from the author's skill set, and proposes a multimedia personal branding strategy involving blogging, YouTube content, and an active LinkedIn presence to attract the right professional opportunities.
My product is my analytical ability, my willingness to work harder and longer at difficult tasks than anyone else, my verbal skills, and my fearless presentation skills. I also have a strong passion to excel and achieve my professional goals, and I try to balance this drive with a genuine commitment to compassion. I firmly believe everyone deserves respect — from the night cleaning crew to the CEO. Everyone, regardless of where they are in life, deserves dignity and to have their voice heard. These are what I consider to be my differentiating qualities as a professional.
Thinking about a career through a personal branding lens means treating your skills, values, and work ethic as a product that must be clearly defined before it can be effectively marketed. Clarity about what you offer — and what makes you different — is the essential first step.
My product, or my service, is available to companies with strong ethical beliefs that place the customer at the center of their universe. I want to work for a company that has nothing to hide and chooses to serve customers with a clarity of vision and a sustained focus on delivering long-term value. I am offering my product — who I am — to these companies at a fair price, because I can bring a very high level of energy, enthusiasm, and passion to everything I do.
My product is, in essence, the ability to propel companies that fit my "ideal customer" profile faster and more profitably toward their goals than any competing candidate I might face. My ideal employer is also one that continually strives for greater innovation and actively looks to disrupt its own business model as well as its broader industry.
My top potential employers include some of the most innovative and interesting companies in the world. Box is a leader in online storage whose CEO has been visionary in navigating the enterprise market. Salesforce has completely disrupted the area of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software. Additional ideal employers include Google, LinkedIn, Southwest Airlines, Apple, and Facebook. All of these companies share a passion for transforming industries on behalf of their customers, and their cultures are highly oriented toward that mission.
"Departments and teams that need the author's skills"
"Multimedia and social media personal branding plan"
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