While waiting for the Pacqiuao-Clottey fight to start, I am reminded why daring to be different and creating your own brand is very helpful in business and as an individual.
Whenever introductions are made in boxing, Michael Buffer takes the spotlight with his classic line “Let’s get ready to ruuummmbbbblllleeeee!” He has been a fixture in big fights that it is already hard to imagine boxing without him. He has created and already owned that famous line. I cannot even remember if I watched a boxing match without hearing him say those lines.
Mr. Buffer dared to be different and in the end, it paid well for him.
My sister will be job-hunting soon. She has asked me for some tips and techniques on how to get the jobs that she wants. I told her to be different to stand-out.
But there is a caveat here. Don’t be different just to be different. When I talk about being different, it is to highlight your difference and make it as an asset or a trait that can easily separate you from other people.
We went over her resume and studied how it was written. From my point of view, it was very generic. Just imagine, a recruitment officer would read and go through hundreds of roughly the same format of resume every single day. I feel sorry for the other jobseekers that have great skills but cannot sell themselves well.
So we edited her resume. We rewrote it in such a way that she can explicitly tell the company her accomplishments and gave figures to back it up. Furthermore, we changed her cover letter to a proposal letter that tells the company what she can offer based on company’s needs.
We also had mock interviews to help her answer the questions more confidently.
What is sad is that jobseekers don’t know that the interview process is also a sales call. The recruitment officer asks jobseekers questions to find out whether the skills of the applicant will be able to match the requirements needed to do the job well. The interviewer must come prepared and ready to sell himself and his skills to the company he is applying for.
My sister has already been short-listed by all the companies that had interviewed her. She hasn’t even formally graduated yet.
Recruitment officers remember her because of how she was able to sell herself. She stood out from the pack by selling her skills and how she can fill the needs of the company. She understood that companies are interviewing applicants because they have a need that only she can fill. She started this by presenting herself differently.
