Brand YOU

Posted by: Kristen Newton, Director of Strategy Sep 10, 2008 1 Comments

I’ve been reviewing resumes for the last few weeks as Rock Creek searches for a marketing strategist to join our team. If you’ve ever been a hiring manager, you know how difficult it is to get a feel for someone from a resume alone. Of course I’m interested in credentials, experience, and education. But will the potential candidate fit in at Rock Creek? Are they articulate? Detail oriented? Able to connect the dots? The only way to know for sure is to read between the lines of the resume and cover letter, and then initiate a conversation.

What do I mean by reading between the lines? I start with checking for errors and misspellings in the resume and cover letter. Accuracy and consistency are a big part of the Rock Creek brand—as well as the brands of our clients—so it’s important that the candidate has an eye for detail. Is the cover letter brief, succinct, engaging? We need someone who can present ideas in concise, compelling prose. Does the candidate’s experience match the criteria in the job posting? While we’re big-picture thinkers who don’t always go with conventional solutions, our clients expect us to adhere to their requirements and follow their instructions.

These small errors and oversights can make or break whether a candidate gets to the next step in the hiring process. That’s why your resume and cover letter represent more than just a chronology of your experience. They give hiring managers insight into your personal brand. What matters to you? What do you stand for? Do your values match those of the potential employer? Most importantly, what makes you different, and therefore better, than another candidate? As communications professionals, these are questions that we help our clients answer when developing their organizations’ most powerful assets—their brands. Likewise, a new employee is an investment in our brand. We want to make sure we’ve done our due diligence to ensure a good fit with the internal culture and avoid costly mistakes.

Which brings me to another source that hiring managers are using more and more to vet candidates: Google. In the absence of a direct referral from a trusted source, Googling a candidate’s name offers yet another way for hiring managers to check out potential new hires. Some candidates may argue that MySpace and Facebook pages are private, but the fact of the matter is, if you don’t make them private, anyone can access them. So if you’re looking for a job, make sure that your MySpace and Facebook pages, as well as your Flickr account, blog posts, and online articles, position you in the best light. Do you really want a hiring manager to pass on you because of an embarrassing picture from your college graduation party?

Bottom line: if you’re looking for a job in this tough employment market (news flash: according to the Dept. of Labor, jobless claims hit a record high of 6% in August), put some thought into Brand You before sending out your resume. Make sure that every communication you put out about yourself accurately portrays who you are—or want to be.

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Kristen Newton

Director of Strategy

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