Selling yourself
The company I work for has a certification program that everyone has to go through if they want to be promoted. It’s a few tests of operational knowledge and a couple of online trainings. The idea is that you have to be there at least a year and have a performance review rating of “good” or better before you can become certified. If you’ve been there less than a year, you can request to have the service duration requirement waived.
The catch is, you have to write the “business case” for why you should receive this special treatment. A business case. For why the company should send me a certificate and a pin, and allow me to put the word “Certified” on my business card 6 month early.
We’re taught to be modest and not to brag about our accomplishments, which is a nice ideal for social settings, but can screw us a bit in business. In interviews, resumes, client presentations, we have to sell ourselves as much as is necessary to achieve our desired objective. But we still don’t want to appear arrogant.
So how do we accomplish it?
First, there are numbers. Everyone wants high-producing people who work ahead of deadlines. I wrote about how I achieved the productivity standard of X dollars for a new employee in 7 months instead of twelve. So talk about how at your previous position, you finished a project a month ahead of deadline and 15% under budget. This works in sales, too- talk about how much time and money your product or service will save the client.
Second, understand how you can solve an employer’s problems. It’s a rare company where they hire on extra people just because they have some extra money in the budget. Companies have problems that they believe can be solved by additional staff. So what do you bring to the table? In my business case, I wrote that since I have recently become the most senior technical recruiter in my office and am participating in the training of the others, it would make sense for me to be certified, lending me extra credibility in that role. Give the employer an additional way to think about how you would fit in at the organization. What’s special about you that will solve their problems?
It’s not enough to present your qualifications and expect that the employer will connect the dots to see what a great employee you’d be. You have to show them all the reasons that you are uniquely qualified for their opening.