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Your Competitive Edge
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Job applicants need to market themselves as unique candidates by using personal branding techniques that demonstrate their specific characteristics that align with the job description - personal branding demonstrates how your soft skills and hard skills give you a competitive edge in the workplace. At times, our resume writers give your motivations context so that human resources can better understand your accomplishments.
For example, simply completing a project differs significantly from identifying the need to correct some problem and then finishing that project while maintaining your preassigned workload. This singular project demonstrates that you have the capability to identify a situation, develop a solution, and complete previous responsibilities while simultaneously working on that project. To what extent does this impact your value to an organization? You can acknowledge these characteristics on your resume: (1) multitasking (2) problem-solving (3) accountability (4) time blocking (5) strategic thinking (6) goal-orientation (7) leadership and (8) initiation and more.
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How Initiation Increases Your Value
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Hiring managers look for certain traits that enable the proper functioning of an organization. The capability to initiate conversations with coworkers will lead to positive outcomes by reducing attrition and increasing employee engagement. Initiation benefits managers and company trainers because the employee has demonstrated the ability to independently evaluate issues and to develop solutions - initiation is essential for self-starters.
People with initiative demonstrate the ability to assess a situation and to take action without being told by someone else what they should do. Initiative aligns with the fundamental profile of a self-starter. For example, if you work in a law office, there are several opportunities for taking initiative. While these tasks might not be appealing, they are tasks that need to be completed, such as organizing a file or cleaning out the storage room. Management considers these behaviors when assigning promotions or evaluating performance relevant to your raise.
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Demonstrating Affiliation as a Key Motivator for Success​
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Another important motivational factor is affiliation - the state or relation of being closely connected or associated with a particular group or company. People who are significantly motivated by affiliation receive gratification by building relationships and belonging to the group or company. Let our organization give your motivations context in order to harness the full potential of personal branding. ​​
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Motivated by affiliation, people seek situations where they can connect with coworkers, build relationships, and belong to the organization. For example, if you are seeking employment with a nonprofit that helps impoverished communities, then you would need to let human resources know that you make fighting homelessness a priority and you would also let them know that you strongly identify with groups that are committed to helping homeless people find safe shelter. If you are looking for employment as a defense attorney, then you would want to let the legal firm understand that you are motivated to help people with civil litigation and white-collar criminal defense. You receive gratification by helping people solve their legal problems. You are motivated to eradicate injustice in the workplace. This is affiliation and this motivational trait is influenced by your Emotional Intelligence (EQ).​
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Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Your Personal Brand
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We have identified unique motivational factors that span across a gradient that ranges from high to low. For example, one motivational factor is affiliation. This is not a yes or no situation. Everyone has this motivation. The question is, to what extent do you demonstrate this trait? Emotional reactions can be known by communicators because people are hard wired to react to triggers that lead to predictable emotional reactions on a person by person basis. Acknowledging triggers demonstrates your capability to perceive and control emotions not only in yourself but also in other people.
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Marketing Your Insights Regarding Emotions
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To be successful, you need to be able to understand settings and scenarios that lead to certain emotions. You need to understand context. Basically, even if you have the right hard skills for the job, you could fail in the workplace because you lack the ability to acknowledge your triggers that lead to positive and negative outcomes. Know yourself. Managing emotions is essential for success.
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New triggers can contradict expectations. Interactions with other people can lead to feelings of rejection, and these feelings could make you defensive instead of probing the criticism to find common ground. So, how should you prepare for certain outcomes? Understand subject matter. Acknowledge potential criticisms. Have your counterpoints ready and be respectful. The goal is to reach positive conclusions based on mutual respect. Your EQ allows you to accurately market your personality profile. Let employers know that you have the right profile for the job because you remain calm and clear minded during stressful situations.
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How to Use Open-Ended and Close-Ended Questions
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Applicants communicate better if they know the differences between open-ended and closed-ended questions. Close-ended questions provide limited insights to the personality of the applicant. These questions generally require a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Human resources often use a close-ended question to lay the groundwork for an open-ended question that requires an in-depth response.
For example, the hiring manager asked, "Do you handle stress well?" After you affirmed that question, the hiring manger followed-up with the open-ended question, "Please describe a time when you faced a difficult situation and explain how you managed this stressful situation." Human resources representatives will use open-ended questions to learn more about you and how you handle stress in various scenarios.
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During your interview, create mental notes about the values that the company wants to find within an applicant. In the previous situation, this close-ended and open-ended combination was utilized by human resources to determine the personality characteristics of someone applying for a position as a customer service representative providing troubleshooting advice for customers in a call center environment. Some customers can be verbally abusive - how well you would handle stress will be an important talking point in the interview.
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Stressful situations can be manifested in many different ways. Not only will you encounter difficult scenarios when interacting with customers, but also from the job itself when striving to meet deadlines and when interacting with coworkers. Let human resources know that you consider a healthy amount of stress to be a motivational factor that prompts you to work through assignments in an organized manner. While you can think outside the box, you have a high motivation to follow proven procedures and to determine and replicate best practices.
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You would increase your value to the organization by describing communication processes that minimize stress. Acknowledge to the hiring manager that you implement active listening skills that inform communicators that you understand their messages - you do this by reading body language, asking relevant questions, and summarizing subject matter. Active listening establishes an in-depth connection among communicators because this skill demonstrates respect and empathy. You are fully engaged in the conversation and you understand the objectives of the people in the communication. Their point of view is important and they should be heard - active listening minimizes the potential for stressful situations by building and maintaining relationships.
The most important part of an interview is your closing statement. This statement addresses your enthusiasm for the employment opportunity. You must provide human resources with key reasons that you are the right person for the job. Underscore your skills and qualifications. A great closing statement lets the hiring manager know that you have been using active listening skills by summarizing the key talking points of your interview.
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For example, you would want to address the part of the interview that focused on how well you handle stressful situations while assisting customers in a call center environment. Let human resources know that you understand the importance of validating the emotions of the customer from the beginning of the phone call. This allows you to gain control of the conversation. Once you have achieved this goal, you will use close-ended questions to efficiently resolve these potentially volatile situations.
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What is the Right Tone of Voice in a Resume?
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There are many different tones of voice ranging from casual, to knowledgeable, to confident, to straightforward, to humorous, to arrogant, and more. Generally speaking, our resume writers use a voice that is formal and knowledgeable. The decision to use this voice stems from the wording of the job offering. If the job description uses a casual tone of voice, we would be inclined to use a voice that is casual and confident.​​ The right tone of voice provides insights to your personality profile.​​​
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Connect with human resources to market your personality profile. This can be achieved by researching exams such as the one offered by Isabelle Briggs Myers and Catherine Cook Briggs. Personality exams illustrate what you would bring to the organization and how you would leverage your personality traits to achieve the successful completion of your responsibilities. Learn as much as possible about the position and determine how well your motivational variables align with the responsibilities of the job opening.
These exams can be comprehensive. One authority determined that there are 48 specific motivational factors that influence behaviors. These motivations include compliance, consistency, goal orientation, sole responsibility, shared responsibility, power, and initiation. For example, these profiling exams can determine whether you are introverted or extroverted, and human resources decides how well an introverted person would function within a position that requires consistent communications. These examinations determine what you offer a company and how will you react in certain contexts.
Get the Most Out of Your Job Summary
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Applicants can market their personality profile in the job summary section of their resume. The summary section is located at the top of the resume under your name and address. From the start of their resume, applicants need to use the appropriate tone of voice in order to set expectations with human resources. If you apply for a position as a customer service representative in a call center, you would express that you take control of conversations so as to attain your goals. You acknowledge that you like to create targets and that you use problem-solving skills to achieve those goals.
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As a customer service representative, you attained a high calls per hour average and a high quality assurance percentage - these accomplishments demonstrate your ability to identify and to complete goals, so it would be beneficial to put goal orientation into your summary. A job summary should be one to three sentences. You would elaborate on the specific goals that you attained in the employment history section of your resume. Your calls per hour average and your quality assurance percentage should be included as important bullet points. It would be beneficial to explain how you attained these goals. Did you use the services of a career coach? Did you take advantage of on-the-job training? If you receive gratification from turning ideas into action and by getting tasks, projects, and conversations started without being told or reminded to do so, then you have demonstrated initiative, one key motivational factor valued by organizations.
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A Personal Branding Example
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Our resume preparation service illustrates your attitude toward diverse motivators that include teamwork, money, honesty, compliance, tolerance, achievements, and group environments. These diverse motivations demonstrate personality traits that are measured by employers. For example, if an applicant wants employment as a project manager, we could brand him or her as a self-starter who excels at cost tracking and stakeholder communications. Our applicant excels at handling budgets and communicating persuasive information. This unique background information allows our writers to brand the applicant with a tone of voice that is knowledgeable and authoritative. ​​
Additional Benefits of Personal Branding
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Resumes must be easy to read because the goal is to take the guesswork out of the hiring process. Our resume writers create documents that demonstrate the importance of implementing personal branding techniques with a consistent tone of voice. A resume writer establishes a relationship between the applicant and the employer by marketing motivations that fluctuate from one applicant to another. We brand essential motivations that position you as the best person for the job.
Personal branding positions applicants in the mind of the human resources representative. Positioning creates powerful results. This technique differentiates candidates in a competitive workplace. To be successful, applicants must address reality and resume writers understand that this reality resides in the mind of the human resources representative. Our writers create unique selling propositions (USP) in order to gain the favor and the attention of hiring managers. An USP differentiates job applicants in the crowded workplace environment.
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While some companies use USPs to market their products to consumers, job applicants can demonstrate their personal brand by communicating their unique motivators and their unique background that led them to this employment opportunity - focus on vital competitive differentiators that drive you to achieve the type of success that you want to attain for yourself within a certain type of company culture.
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Why Should You Care About Company Cultures?
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Would you like to work for a corporation with a purpose-driven credo? How would you like to work for an organization with a clear credo and a stellar corporate culture monitored through metrics? This sounds great! Everyone has goals that they want to achieve in the workplace, and your personal brand demonstrates your capabilities. Before you start sending out resumes, have a good idea regarding what you expect from prospective employers. What are the values of the employer?
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One of the most important metrics addresses diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Employees need to know that they have value in the workplace. Once you get that email or phone call from human resources, develop questions that focus on company culture. How is retention from one department to another? How is employee turnover throughout the company? Organizations committed to employment culture will have these statistics at their fingertips. These statistics are precise enough to determine fluctuations between population groups within an organization.
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More Information Regarding Company Culture
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People go to work to actualize personal objectives. Some applicants seek work because they are driven by goal orientation. They solve new dilemmas because these scenarios provide them the opportunity to enhance their self-worth. Other people go to work simply because the pay is good and their coworkers are amicable. One thing is clear - if you prioritize culture, you should be concerned about concepts such as retention, adverse impact, and employee turnover.
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Some people are work horses who never seem to be affected by long hours in the workplace. Other people look for a work-life balance that creates a supportive environment in order to promote their well-being. Why is this metric important? First, employees who attain a work-life balance tend to be more productive. Second, this metric identifies employee burnout before it become an issue. This metric allows management to proactively address the potential for burnout. Third, these workers tend to have enhanced employment satisfaction.
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Profile Testing and How Your Personal Brand Indicates Success
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To arrive at conclusions regarding your personality, some employers stipulate that applicants must complete a comprehensive personality exam. Furthermore, ​if employees want to move up within a company, they could be required to take a test that measures their likelihood for success in their new position. There are several tests. One exam, the Hogan Personality Inventory, comprises 206 true or false questions that must be completed within 15 to 20 minutes. Why do companies want to poke around in your head? There are several reasons.
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For example, the employer might want to measure your degree of inquisitiveness by asking whether you use creativity and imagination when problem-solving. Furthermore, if you demonstrate that you thoroughly research assignments when problem-solving, you will be branded as a creative problem-solver. Some organizations require personality profiling tests to determine your emotional competency for success.
Our creative problem-solver would do well at overcoming unforeseen challenges within an organization that is consistently changing policies and procedures. On his resume, the applicant demonstrates the potential to fuel innovation in adverse situations. These exams determine whether you are a good match for the employment opportunity. How long have these assessments been used in the workplace?
The Origins of Personality Profiles
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Everyone has heard of the Hippocratic oath. This ethical code serves as a guide for the appropriate conduct of doctors. The ancient Greece physician Hippocrates developed this theory, and his contribution to psychology influenced the creation of personality profiles. Sometime later, the philosopher Plato hypothesized the creation of four personality types. Philosophers and doctors have been refining these concepts for centuries. One of the biggest breakthroughs in personality profiling stemmed from the work of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in 1913. He identified four key psychological factors: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition.
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In 1962, Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers published their findings on personality type indicators, and these scholars based their findings primarily on the work of Jung. The Meyers-Briggs assessment has helped companies build effective teams by placing the right employee in the right position at the right time. Meyers and Briggs identified 16 personality types.
This tool provides insights that help human resources understand the complexity of interpersonal relationships. What does this have to do with personal branding? Everything. Your personal brand lets organizations know whether you have the right profile for employment within a given field, and this demonstrates why you should become familiar with job descriptions and company cultures. Position yourself as a self starter by using effective language.
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Using Active Verbs to Demonstrate Authority
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Polished communication skills should be a part of your resume, and if you choose to acknowledge EQ as a part of your skill set, be sure to include outcomes that have quantitative results such as talk time in a call center where you applied troubleshooting techniques to resolve the questions of consumers. You can apply this trait as a bullet point that uses active verbs such as composed, convinced, advised, coached, informed, illustrated, and persuaded. These verbs overtly acknowledge the importance of communications and they engage human resources in a dialogue. Avoid passive 'be" verbs because they demonstrate a lack of authority. ​ ​
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Clear Communications and Resume Preparation Services
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Reputations establish expectations between senders and receivers of communications. There are communication barriers that include selective interpretation and emotional disconnect. Resume writers mitigate barriers by using clear and simple language that is effortless to read. Resumes need to be accessible so that hiring managers can easily locate and interpret essential information - our resume examples illustrate how our writers breakthrough communication barriers.
Considering these barriers, resume writers will create documents that are appropriate for the type of employment being sought. Your resume language will be relevant to the position, and personal branding techniques will deliver messages that are in-depth and easy to read. We create branded documents because we know how to position your values that resonate with the expectations of employers. While we place a premium on soft and hard skills, we also leverage your personality traits to demonstrate your potential for success within your field of choice. Informed decisions are the best decisions! Contact our resume service in order to attain success in the workplace! ​​​​
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