How to Sell Yourself: The Guide to Exhibit Yourself as The Ideal Candidate
Landing a new job takes time and attention. You have to diligently show yourself in the best light to demonstrate why hiring managers should offer you the position. Without proper care, it is easy to be outshone by the competition. Luckily, how you are perceived is largely in your control. If you are hoping to land an exciting full- or part-time job in DC, position yourself as the ideal candidate. Here are our best tips.
Improve Your Resume
Your resume is an introduction to what you have to offer. If it isn’t clear, focused, and jam-packed with value, a hiring manager isn’t going to give it more than a few seconds of their time.
A resume doesn’t have to be fancy to be impressive. Instead, keep the formatting simple by balancing white space with text and using an easy-to-read font. Ensure that your resume is easily scanned by using clear headlines to separate the content and adding bullet points that draw attention to your accomplishments.
In addition, you need to target the content to the role. Make sure you include relevant achievements under each position heading, and quantify the details whenever possible. If any particular bullet point doesn’t provide the hiring manager with value, cut it.
Create an “ideal candidate” social media profile
Today’s job seekers should expect hiring managers to look them up immediately on social media. Be sure yours looks professional. By updating your profiles to reflect well on you as a professional, you can stand out from the competition.
Begin by reviewing all your current content, including posts, shares, and images. If something isn’t appropriate in a professional context, remove it. You may also want to audit your friends and followers to make sure there aren’t any people or organizations who would reflect poorly on you or may expose information you would prefer to remain private. Make sure to sell yourself as a poised candidate by filtering through the content that may be tagged in or associated with.
Then, add content that speaks to your education, skills, and experience, as well as a professional photograph. If you are using LinkedIn, the process is fairly simple since profiles are set up as a guide to an individual’s background. On Facebook and Twitter, you can treat your bio as a professional introduction by including information on your current role and career aspirations.
Send Handwritten Thank-You Notes
If you want to stand out from the crowd after an interview, a handwritten thank-you note goes a long way. Most job seekers rely on email messages to express their appreciation, so a handwritten note is typically a pleasant surprise for the hiring manager.
Now, this doesn’t mean you should forgo the email. Instead, do both. That way, the hiring manager gets a quick follow-up from you, as is commonly expected, as well as the handwritten note, which enables you to exceed expectations.
There are many ways to highlight yourself as an ideal candidate but the three areas above are crucial to your job hunt. Above all the best way to sell yourself is to be yourself, best of luck and happy hunting!
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