Me. Pick Me!: Marketing Yourself for a Job

By E. Corrine Byrd

Whether you're looking for your first job, changing fields or replacing a lost job, job hunting is a frustrating process that can make even the most confident and qualified among us a little nutty. Often, competition is fierce and patience, thin.

Every possible edge job seekers can gain becomes critical.

Written by prominent marketing and communications specialist, E. Corinne Byrd, Me. Pick Me, Marketing Yourself for a Job is a dynamic step-by-step program for clever job campaigns, including ideas and suggestions for resumes, cover letters, performance pledge letters, power interviews, golden gifts and more. Discover secrets to wow employers Stand out from the competition with personal marketing strategies Create the best interview of your life! Use the power of visualization and affirmation for results Write and use words that get you hired - with sample scripts Use the power of public relations to get your ideal job Become a star employee to get promoted Learn to negotiate salary and get pay raises!

Sharing personal examples, often infused with humor and always with encouragement, Byrd shares insights gained from more than two decades of award-winning public relations and copywriting experience, marketing and sales management. Her years as an executive in a world-famous motivational company provide readers with a unique brand of fail-proof job search techniques, plus an on-the-job system for climbing the ladder of success.

Engaging, informative and filled with useful tips, the book will help everyone from college grads, to mid-level managers, to executives, say and do the right things to get a job.

Byrd will become your personal coach, as she shows you exactly how to achieve communication charisma and personal selling power for maximum advantage in an ultra-competitive employment marketplace. The book is designed to give the job seeker a competitive edge in wowing a potential employer and fast-tracking a career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Feb 15, 2007
• ISBN: 9781412206822

E. Corrine Byrd

Her diverse career experience also includes serving as president of a public relations company in Houston, Texas. In that capacity, Corinne gained national attention as the winner of a public relations excellence award, presented by Walter Cronkite, for copywriting acumen and design of a six-week marketing campaign. A contributing writer for a national pilot project and book, Cases of Women Who Have Wonª, she has additionally written, designed and coordinated the production of corporate collateral materials and campaigns over a two-decade marketing career to include magazine and newspaper ads, editorial copy, press releases, speeches and media ads. In a consultant capacity, Corinne has developed and implemented integrated strategic marketing and communications plans including brand positioning and development, partnership alliances, web site and e-Commerce development. She has an extensive background in sales and training, and writes, lectures and consults to help individuals present themselves more powerfully. Earlier in a sales career, she was first in her company to negotiate a national contract with a top Fortune 500 company. In another setting, she was the companyÕs statewide top producer. Throughout her career, Corinne has assisted and conferred with leaders from athletes to astronauts, celebrities to executives. Besides being a champion contest speaker, sheÕs led conferences, seminars, workshops and meetings reaching thousands of people, addressing topics from marketing to motivation. Corinne is a consultant and speech writer for some of AmericaÕs top CEOs. A vocal soprano soloist and a former professional model, sheÕs a former Participant of Leadership Houston; a 1990 Corporate Representative - Houston Post's Businesswoman of the Year; and a member on several boards. Corinne has directed and performed in a myriad of musical presentations and theatrical performances, among those the ABC nationally-televised Houston Christmas Pageant. A native of Missouri, Corinne attended the University of Houston and holds a B.S. in business administration from Chadwick University in Birmingham, Alabama. Her family includes five children, three daughters-in-law, and two grandchildren. Corinne and her husband reside on CaliforniaÕs Pacific coast.

Book preview

Copyright 2006 Corinne Byrd Star Production Career Services.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

Note for Librarians: A cataloguing record for this book is available from Library and Archives Canada at www.collectionscanada.ca/amicus/index-e.html

ISBN 1-4120-9458-5

ISBN 978-1-4122-0682-2 (ebook)

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Contents

Acknowledgments

Foreword

Introduction

CHAPTER 1   Get Going!

CHAPTER 2   Job Hunting With Prowess

CHAPTER 3   Creating Your Marketing Campaign

CHAPTER 4   Interviewing With Panache

CHAPTER 5   Becoming a Star

CHAPTER 6   Negotiating Money

CHAPTER 7   Living Your Dreams

CHAPTER 8   Resources

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Sincere thanks to my family, friends and a host of professional mentors who have influenced my work as a speaker and author. I have been guided, helped and challenged to greater heights by those incredible relationships.

Special thanks to my husband, David, and all our children—David Jr., Travis, Adam, Dale and Jacquelyn—who have consistently supported me in the quest to Dream It. Do It!

Foreword

I first met Corinne Byrd and caught a glimpse of her positive energy and panache when she was Director of Marketing & Public Relations for Zig Ziglar. She’s a dynamic woman with a wealth of business experience in advertising, marketing and sales, and has held varied, interesting jobs from executive assistant to professional model, to public relations firm president. Corinne is also an exceptional writer who brings knowledge, humor and insight to these pages.

In this book, Corinne shares words of wisdom about how to design a marketing campaign to market yourself for a job. She sets out sophisticated marketing, advertising and public relations tactics and shows you how to sell yourself to a potential employer. An award-winning copywriter and veritable idea machine, Corinne gives you suggestions you’ve likely never heard before about how to really present yourself, how to get noticed among a crowded field of applicants.

This is a one-stop job book that covers everything including resumes, cover letters, phone conversations, interviews, and salary negotiations—tremendously valuable information about how to get hired. Corinne gets right to the point on every topic, with writing so concise that you don’t need to invest days reading it.

Whether you are a recent college graduate or a career veteran, you will find the book a how-to-get-hired, how-to-get-promoted blueprint loaded with terrific advice about how to fast track in your job, and tips for negotiating raises. You will also get encouragement to go for the gold—the job you really want.

With much enthusiasm, I highly recommend this powerful book. I consider it a must-have for anyone seeking to position themselves in today’s seriously competitive job market.

—Tony Jeary, Author, Coach to America’s top CEOs, Workshop Leader, Speaker, Strategist

Tony Jeary, Mr. Presentation™, is the author of over a dozen books including Inspire Any Audience and Life is a Series of Presentations. He personally coaches CEOs of dozens of Fortune 500s including New York Life, Daimler Chrysler, American Airlines, Ford and Walmart. Tony is CEO of a presentation design and business strategy firm, High Performance Resources, Inc. He has collaborated with such greats as Zig Ziglar, Peter Lowe and Brian Tracy. Tony also loves to share his practices in a variety of different speaking sessions based on his best-selling books.

Introduction

Surely one of life’s greatest challenges is finding suitable employment—work that provides enjoyment, meaning and monetary success. Locating employment of that ilk can be a daunting, sometimes prolonged search replete with struggle and worry for many people.

Whether you’re looking for your first job, changing fields or replacing a lost job, job hunting is a frustrating process that can make even the most confident and qualified among us a little nutty. Often, competition is fierce and patience, thin.

Given today’s market, every advantage you can muster is critical. You’ll need all your wits to refine job search skills and to design a marketing campaign that differentiates you and gets you noticed. You’ll also need pluck, that unbending fortitude of spirit and mind, to keep at it until you get what you want.

Here is a broad-brush look at the topics which follow and the objectives to accomplish:

Understand how right thinking drives right results

Recognize the power of visualization and affirmation

Assess your skills, interests and the job market

Learn how to create an effective, attractive resume

Polish interview and presentation skills

Create a marketing and public relations campaign to distinguish yourself

Be aware of the consumer buying process and make it work for you

Learn what it takes to become a star employee

Master basics of negotiating a raise or promotion Embrace enthusiasm, persistence and the ability to bounce back

Manage time, stress and the temptation to quit

My goal is to make this time together a benchmark for the advancement of your career and control of your future. Here’s to your outrageously successful job search!

CHAPTER 1 

Get Going!

Everything you can imagine is real.

—Pablo Picasso

Going after a job, promotion or raise feels at times like a journey to the twilight zone. Why is it such a challenge to get the job you want and then fast-track your career to move up in the ranks of a company? Besides the fact that there are 6 billion people in the world and it seems thousands of them are applying for the job you want, could it be because it’s impossible to establish a hard and fast set of criteria by which a person gets a job or gets ahead?

Landing a job or promotion is a nebulous search for how an employer’s mind works, how they think, what they want, how they perceive you and your worth to their company. It is a mysterious mix of personalities, preferences, and perceptions. To further obscure matters, hiring and promotion decisions are often joint decisions, decision by committee. Nonetheless, you can control you—your part. You can control what you think, say and do. You can control what you learn about the job-location process. You can benefit from your mistakes, and use the power of your mind to learn new communication skills, increase your confidence and grow your personal power. Remember the adage: Luck is preparation meeting opportunity? Let’s address how to GET READY the best we can to receive and to bring about these results we want to see happen.

I’m sometimes amused at the way people answer the question: What is success? No matter what the altruistic answer, success is inexorably linked to how much money we make or how much money we have. Last time I went grocery shopping, the clerk said, Check, cash, ATM or credit? Even though good relationships and other factors make up a happy life, the grocery store has little interest in my health or marriage. Success and money are linked together whether we like it or not. Even though YOU are NOT your money, money rates right up there with oxygen, as Zig Ziglar says. Unless you were born a Rockefeller or are a lucky investor in the stock market or real estate market, work is the opportunity to earn money for living. A life without work, a life without money, is a life without choices and a life without dignity.

Right Thinking About Work and Money

Any analysis of career advancement deserves careful scrutiny of what you think about work. What body of information is parked in your brain about work and about money? To get your desired results, you need to have right thinking, effective thinking about these subjects. You can have the best marketing strategy and campaign in the world, but it will only be of short-term help unless your thinking is also ingenious.

Everything you do, everything you achieve starts with your thoughts. Your brain thinks it and unless you summarily, consciously veto it, your body acts as its servant. Your brain, that inexplicable piece of potent equipment, is the most powerful tool you have at your disposal in the quest for career success. Mind control, in essence, sets the stage for prosperity and success (or for the reverse, poverty, misery and failure). Success in life, success in a job, success in finding a job in the first place, begins with control of your mind.

The mind can do amazing things. Documented circumstances over many centuries recount paranormal events based on mind power. I once interviewed and wrote a biography of a woman who, among other experiences, underwent a Cesarean section without any anesthesia. For real. Surely, we can use our brainpower to achieve desired results in the employment realm, as well. In creating our own career outcomes, we become what we think. A bank robber sits around and plans how he’s going to rob a bank. Conversely, a doctor thinks about how he’s going to get through medical school. He already sees himself practicing medicine. Our minds follow the objects of our thoughts, ultimately fixing our choices. I’ve heard it put this way: What you think about, comes about.

Given that, what are some traps we fall into that short-circuit our aspirations? Often, we have defective thinking about money, thoughts that limit and sabotage us. Often, money is associated with pain, fear, lack, deprivation, worry. Maybe you’ve had few positive experiences surrounding money. Bottom line is that you need to get comfortable dealing with the issue of money, because it’s basic when asking for a given salary or for a raise in pay. If talking about money makes you squirm and sweat, you’ve lost your leverage. Here are a few clues as to your comfort level with money: Do you question a store item that was rung up incorrectly? Do you negotiate price with a salesperson over a major purchase, say a car or furniture? If you purposefully avoid addressing the topic of money, do some introspection. Get in a quiet place for a couple of hours. Sit down and write out what money means to you. Write down everything you think or feel on the subject. Make a list of happy thoughts and negative experiences related to money. Being aware of what your preconceptions are will help you make changes, to face issues head on, to talk about money more naturally. Realize, too, that money is merely a commodity of exchange. Cash is a stack of paper with no meaning except the meaning you attach to it. Since money is the vehicle that will make your personal goals a reality, get comfortable with the belief that money is your friend, not your enemy, not something you lack. I have a Napoleon Hill tape in which he said, "Your subconscious