Brand Yourself as a Person of Talent, Not a Job Seeker

Employers call today’s job market a War for Talent. Why should you care? Because it signals a change in the way they hire. Employers are no longer making offers to people who can do the job. They are looking for those who will do more and can prove it.

If you have any doubt about that, take this test. Find a job opening for which you meet 100 percent of the stated requirements. You are, in effect, a perfect match for the position, so go ahead and apply for it. Then, wait and see if you’re asked for an interview. In many, maybe even most cases, you won’t be. Why? Because employers have changed the definition of “qualified” for their openings.

In the past, “qualified” meant competence. You could do the job. You could handle its responsibilities because you met all (or most) of its requirements. That’s how most people found their most recent job and the one before that and the one before that. It was an unwritten “rule of the game,” but one that we all understood and relied on.

Today, we can’t. “Qualified” now means something entirely different. Employers want to hire people who can give them an edge in the competition they face on the local, domestic and international levels. They are searching for people who can prove they will excel at their work. That’s what they mean by “talent” – people who do superior work from their first day on the job.

Proving You Have Talent

While employers may have changed their definition of “qualified,” those who are looking for a new or better job haven’t. You can use the same approach you have always used to determine if you have the credentials to be a credible applicant for an opening. Simply ask yourself whether you meet its stated responsibilities and requirements. If you do, go ahead and apply, but, change the way you describe your qualifications. Submit a radically different kind of application.

I call this application “a smart resume” because its purpose is not to prove you can do the job, but rather that you will excel at it. It has a number of differentiating features, but the following are two of the most important:

  • Prove that you make an impact at work. Resumes have always included a person’s accomplishments on-the-job. You describe the results you achieved in each of the positions you held in the past. Accomplishments, however, are difficult to judge because they are idiosyncratic to each organization. From an employer’s perspective, one company’s All Star can be another company’s Loser. So Accomplishments must be expressed in quantitative AND relative terms. In other words, don’t just describe what you did, but how far you moved the meter from the baseline to accomplish your results. For example, instead of saying, “I achieved gross sales of $1 million,” say “I increased sales by 25 percent year-over-year, achieving $1 million in gross sales in the last fiscal year.”
  • Prove that you are still getting better. Today’s workplace is morphing at warp speed. In many fields, half of the skills and knowledge currently required for success will be obsolete in just a couple of years. The only way to have a sustained impact on an organization, therefore, is to position yourself as a “work-in-progress.” No matter how senior you are, no matter how many years of experience you have, regardless of your accomplishments and track record, demonstrate that you are still gaining in expertise by enrolling in an appropriate course or training program and featuring that initiative in the Education section on your resume. That will signal to employers that you understand the need to stay up-to-date in your field and that you take personal responsibility for doing so.

The dirty little secret of today’s job market is that employers have changed one of the key rules of the game. They are still advertising for competence, but they are looking for excellence. Make sure they can see your ability to deliver superior work by submitting a smart resume – one that proves you have talent and will deliver it on-the-job today, tomorrow and into the future.

Thanks for reading,

Peter

Visit me at Weddles.com

Peter Weddle is the author of over two dozen employment-related books, including A Multitude of Hope: A Novel About Rediscovering the American Dream, The Career Fitness Workbook: How to Find, Win & Hang Onto the Job of Your Dreams, The Career Activist Republic, The Success Matrix: Wisdom from the Web on How to Get Hired & Not Be Fired, andWEDDLE’s Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet. Get them at Amazon.com and at the all new Weddles.com today.