Knowing how to sell yourself in order to return to the labour market
You need to know how to do it! How many people out there are constantly talking about themselves, believing the things they say are interesting and useful to Others.
Or alternatively, managers who interview prospective candidates for their company and instead of listening and verifying whether the candidate can contribute to the business, end up speaking about themselves and above all judging the candidate on the basis of how much they followed their own words.
How many people have been using LinkedIn lately to show off or to get "likes" as if it was Facebook? It's fine to share knowledge or highlight particularly relevant or innovative posts, but you should probably avoid advertising yourself over routine training courses you may have held here and there ...
Are you aware of the manager who undertakes mentoring activities for start-ups with the actual intention of showing off and taking centre stage?
Why is this idea/observation important for a person looking for new professional opportunities?
Because the market positively values people who offer something concrete and ... the roles a person has held in a company do not necessarily offer an idea of whether someone is able or unable to do something.
What demonstrates that one is able to do something are concrete examples of what has already been achieved: a project, a sale, a negotiation. Indeed, just discussing the companies in which you have worked or the roles you have covered in the past is counterproductive.
It gives the idea you’re entrenched in a hierarchical company model, where knowledge is not shared, careers are linked to seniority and power is in the hands of a few coordinated people...
Managers, especially men, are invited to remain vain if they so wish, but in the professional field when they want to make a positive impression they immediately fill their mouths with facts, results, teams led towards goals, innovative methods researched and applied ... with humility.
A person can be humble even if on paper ... "you would never have expected it".
A real example!
A short time ago I conducted a workshop on "The transition from working for a company to self-employment " and I brought a former manager of a large bank as evidence of the evolution which affects, or will affect, all "baby boomers".
Would you have ever guessed that this person consults SMEs and that to get where he is today he had to roll up his sleeves, as they say, and study how to extract data from SAP and process it in Excel in order to produce data for the management audit of a small company?
Or still, that he studied (and not just read on the internet) a course on what the business model canvas consists of and that to start working as a consultant, he worked for free without even having his expenses reimbursed!!!
Hats off to him. This is how it’s done!
