Career Solutions for Creative People by Ronda Ormont

Author:Ronda Ormont
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2001-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

What It Is—And What It Can Do For You

I use the term “personal commercial” because like an actual product commercial, your verbal self-presentation is an informative, powerful, memorable, highly focused marketing tool that is prepared in advance, of very short duration, and designed to encourage further exploration. Let’s review those characteristics in detail.

• Informative. Your personal commercial must tells the recipient about the skills or experience you have that can benefit them.

• Powerful. Bethany didn’t actually say anything dreadful in the encounter she described, but she did not present herself powerfully. The confidence, conciseness, and polish that would have signaled to the dean that she was a highly capable professional were missing. Your personal commercial should not only say the right things—i.e., be informative—but say them in the right manner—i.e., convey your strength and professionalism through speech, tone, gesture, and organization.

• Highly focused. Obviously, you have a lot to offer! You cannot possibly showcase all of your goals, skills, and background in a sentence or two. Instead, you must select only a few essential elements, ruthlessly weeding out any characteristics, talents, or experiences that are not essential to the kind of job you are looking for.

• Prepared in advance. When you’re actually “on the spot,” it is simply too difficult to think in a focused way about large themes such as your goals and your abilities. When you have a brief summary already in your mind, as I will show you how to do, encounters like the ones Bethany had become far easier. All you need to do then is make the slight adjustments that adapt your presentation to the situation you’re in and the person you’re speaking to.

• Brief. Companies like Ford, Microsoft, or General Foods do not have hours of airtime to extol the virtues of their products to consumers, and neither do you! They—and you—usually have a minute or less to catch someone’s attention. Even in the formal setting of a job interview, your prospective employer does not want to listen for twenty minutes as you answer the questions “Tell me about yourself” or “What do you think you can bring to our organization?” Nothing loses interest faster that than overly detailed, rambling replies. Your resume can give more detailed backup for the claims you make verbally. The verbal claims themselves must be crisp and concise.

•Encouraging further exploration. The makers of a television ad do not expect you to go out and commit $50,000 for a luxury car just on the basis of their sixty-second spot. All they want to do is pique your interest enough to get you to explore their product further. Similarly, your personal commercial is not intended to get you a job. It is only designed to get someone interested enough to explore a relationship with you further.

Once you have developed your personal commercial, you’ll find that it’s useful in a wide variety of situations—both when you are job hunting and later, when you’re building your new career. You’ll be able to use

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.