How can a personal marketing plan help you? According to some polls, 85% of people are unhappy at their place of work.
We spend way too much of our time at work (by some estimates, one-third of our entire lives) to spend it in roles that we don’t find fulfilling.
Making a career change can be incredibly difficult and scary, though. For this reason, many people never end up taking the leap.
Is it time for you to make a change in your career? A personal marketing plan helps you focus on the job and companies that you want to target. It also helps you to understand the value you offer to potential employers as well as identify skill or ability gaps. This will help prepare you for a successful job search or career change.
Here are five reasons why a personal marketing plan will help your career transition go more smoothly.
1. It Can Lead to Business Success
If you are a job seeker that is changing careers, a personal marketing plan can help you be more successful. Having a formal plan written down on paper can completely change the way you look at the process and how you execute. It brings clarity and focus to the things that are important to your future growth and success.
2. It Can Help You Understand and Achieve Your Goals
It’s hard to achieve your goals if you don’t exactly understand what they are. As a first step, start by outlining what exactly it is that you are looking to achieve in your career change and in your new industry. Think, job, industry, company, location, culture of the organization, all the things that are important to you.
Once you understand what your goals are, then you can start breaking them down into the steps it will take to achieve them. Until you have clarity, it’s all too easy to be swimming in a pool of uncertainty.
3. It Can Guide You to Research Opportunities and Trends in the Industry
Making a career change is a very big decision. Before you make the decision to take a leap, it’s important that you understand your career options to determine if your new career path will be the right path for you. You need to be able to answer the questions, “Will you find the work fulfilling and will it fit your needs?”
As we have witnessed, industries can change radically in short periods of time. So, if you grew up wanting to pursue a certain job, or career, it could actually be completely different at this point.
Industry Trends & Opportunities
Developing a personal marketing plan, as part of your job search, will essentially force you to research the industry trends and opportunities in front of you. The information will help you make an informed decision that’s right for you, pointing yourself in the right direction.
If you are making a major career shift into a totally different industry, it’s important to do as much research as possible. Be sure that your expectations for your new career are based on facts, not a lack of understanding or misinformation. The research phase is one of the most important steps in this process. After all, you’re better off finding out that a career path leads to nowhere now while you still have other options versus pursing it now only to find out there are no jobs later.
4. It Will Help You Understand What You Bring to the Table
To create a personal marketing plan you need to conduct a self-assessment to identify skills and abilities that you can leverage for your next job or career.
We all have strengths and weaknesses. So, when you conduct your analysis this will help you clarify both for you and enhance your self-awareness. The key here, is to then identify which skills that you’ve obtained that are transferable skills. In other words, what skills have you used successfully in your past or current job, that you can use in your future job or career.
Transferable skills can be hard, soft, or technical skills. Make a list of those that are transferable as well as examples of how you have used them in the past. These examples will help you as you market yourself and prepare for interviews.
5. It Will Make You More Confident in Your Career Change
Confidence is essential when you’re making a big change in your life, no different making a career change. Many people opt to stay in their comfort zones and not take risks for fear of failure. While fear can be a strong force, it is a sad reality that many people stay in an unfulfilling job that they do not enjoy simply because they do not have the confidence to make a change.
Do you want to build confidence in your ability to successfully make a career transition? Here’s how.
Getting Started
First, stop daydreaming and start taking real steps to put together your personalized marketing plan. The process will help bring clarity and focus to the value you have to offer potential employers, your career options, and together, form an action plan that you can use to guide your career transition.
Second, when you create your personal marketing plan, the self-assessments will give you a clear picture of where you are and what you have to offer. This picture will bring clarity as you will see things that don’t fit, skills, values, traits, experiences that you don’t have. At the same time, it will sharpen your focus on the skills, values, traits, experiences, and talents that you DO HAVE, which is even more powerful.
Consider Your Career Options
With newly acquired clarity and focus, you should now start listing career options for consideration. Develop of list of jobs that includes work that you want to do, as well as skills and talents that you have. Research each of the jobs on your list to identify options that meet the majority, if not all, of your needs and wants. Research might indicate that you need additional training or education. Consider this and plan for it accordingly
Understanding what you’re trying to achieve and where you trying to go, as well as the tools that you already have and that those that you can pick up along the way, can seriously boost your confidence. Think about it, why would you be confident if you didn’t have a plan?
The process of developing a clear, objective personal marketing plan guides you through the stages to bring clarity and focus on your career. The career consideration and research stages engage the critical thinking necessary to make an informed decision. Together, these steps plus the prospect of a better more enjoyable career future build confidence and energy.
A Personal Marketing Plan: An Essential Tool in a Successful Career Change
Creating a personal marketing plan when you plan on changing careers can help you to achieve the success you’re after. But, it’s not an easy process for everyone. Need help? Click here to learn about my career transition coaching services.
When you’re looking to change careers, you’ll also need a professional resume and cover letter. Check out our resume and cover letter services to see how we can help to create the documents you need. Highlight your skills, accomplishments, and goals.
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