How Your Personal Brand Can Help Your Job Search

How Your Personal Brand Can Help Your Job Search What if a university dropout had a simple solution to get the job you really want but don’t know how to get? In order to be the first person people think of when they need work done in your area of expertise or interest, you have to stand out. “Imagine work coming to you and opportunities arriving directly in your mailbox. Wouldn’t it be fantastic if you could receive calls from companies that want you to work with?” says Noam Kostucki, co-author of the new book “You are your brand”. Unemployment is now at 8.4% in the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics. Chances are that we all know someone who is struggling to get the job they really want â€" or any job at all. “I believe that everyone can turn their passion into a successful career in three simple steps,” said Noam, as he launched his new book “You are your brand”. Three steps to success: 5 word method Do you know how others see you and what they truly think of you? Select 5 words that describe you accurately from a list of positive attributes. Once you are satisfied with the words you believe represent you best, you send a link to your family, friends and colleagues and ask them to choose the 5 words they believe describe you best from their perspective. This exercise is truly enlightening for anyone who wants to get a job: if you don’t really know how people perceive you, how can you improve the image you present of yourself? Demonstrate what your brand stands for Does your CV say you are “hardworking and dedicated” like everyone else? Employers are not interested in what you say about yourself because they want to see the living proof of who you say you are. “The quality of a successful brand is determined largely by the degree of consistency between what the brand claims it will deliver and what it actually delivers,” explains Noam. The principle is the same for job seekers: interviewers want to see you walk the talk. What do you do that is shows what you stand for? Communicate effectively with the right people “I had a client who had been looking for a job for months. When I asked whether he’d looked through his network to see if someone had a job to offer, he surprisingly said he hadn’t thought about it. Couple of weeks later, he said he had met with a few friends who had jobs to offer but none of them had offered it to him. After a 30-minute conversation, I discovered he had asked people if they had jobs to offer, but he never said that he was looking for a job,” said Noam. Start telling the world about who you are and what you want using both traditional and social media: you must spread the word about what you stand for and what you want through job centres, social media, job boards, friends and random events. What communication channels have you not yet used and when can you start using them? The book shows how to get the job you dream of by becoming a “living brand”, attracting opportunities without going through the mindless task of job hunting. In a tough economy, how can you differentiate yourself from others and get that job? Noam explains: “Since I dropped out of university in 2006, I’ve followed a simple method that means I’ve never been without work. Everyone said it was impossible because I didn’t have a degree and I was too young to work as a business trainer and coach but I’ve given training and coaching in 13 countries.” Related: 5 Ways To Uncover Your Personal Brand’s Strengths Noam Kostucki is the co-author of  You Are Your Brand, find the book on Amazon. Image: Shutterstock