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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Are you ready to get started? Schedule a complimentary session with me. We’ll discuss your situation and create a plan to move forward.

The post 5 Reasons Why Career Changers Need a Personal Marketing Plan appeared first on EZ Resume Services.

Did you know that the average person changes jobs 10 to 15 times throughout their career? With so many people changing careers, it’s important that they be prepared for whatever job they want next. But how?

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.  

Follow this guide for an example of a successful personal marketing plan to attract the best job offers. If you want to achieve your career objectives and amplify your personal branding in your job search, this guide is perfect for you. 

How Do You Write a Personal Marketing Plan?

Like with any marketing plan, you need to figure out what makes you unique and valued. Start by answering this question, “What is my unique value proposition?” 

Your value proposition is what separates you from the crowd. It’s what makes you stick out in a crowded job market. Is it your skillset, your experience, or how you brand yourself (how others see you)? Maybe it’s your values and your accomplishments?  

This is an opportunity for you to write a marketing plan that distinguishes you from the competition.  

Start by writing about what makes you unique, showing the value you bring to a job and to potential employers. This should be done as a self-inventory. If needed, ask a small number of confidants who can be honest and objective. 

Your personal marketing plan should also show your job and career goals. You want to be able to convey what your career objectives are in the long run. This is a critical part of developing a personal marketing strategy. 

It’s important to set measurable goals when you create your personal marketing strategy. This will help you build a timeline of where you expect to be in 6 months to a year.

Identify Your Target Job

Your marketing will depend on identifying your target job. You need to know what job you want to build an effective resume, highlighting your skills, experience and accomplishments for the job.  

When you identify your ideal job, your plan should be built to align your skills and qualifications to those needed to do the job you are targeting. List 2–3 job titles that you want to pursue as well as your final career objective.  

How Can I Effectively Use Place Marketing? 

Now that you have started to develop a personal marketing strategy and you have identified your target job, it’s important to consider place marketing. 

Place marketing is the action of marketing yourself to future employers in the place(s) they will be looking for candidates like you. Place marketing can be an effective strategy to increase your visibility to recruiters and hiring managers. You want potential employers to find you in the places they are looking, these days that means LinkedIn. 

For example, on LinkedIn, you should build a profile that highlights your skills, experience, education, training, experience, and achievements. This enables you to market yourself to recruiters and hiring managers in the place they look to find candidates for positions they seek to fill.

Simply put, you want to market yourself prominently in the marketplace where recruiters and hiring managers shop. This is how you can use place marketing for your career and be found for jobs online.  

5 Top Components of a Career Marketing Plan? 

Here are 5 components of a career marketing plan to effectively highlight your value to potential employers searching the market for candidates. 

The 5 key components are listed below.

1. Strategy 

The first component is developing a strategy, or plan. Start by listing the skills, experience, and accomplishments, that you have, that will most effectively showcase your value for your career or job target.  

Search your current inventory of skills and accomplishments for examples that include facts, and numbers that you can use to tell your story. If you lack skills and experience for your job or career target, there are ways to acquire them. You may need to volunteer and learn by helping others. You could also take classes or training programs through a local college or online. Showing actual examples of your work, whether it be social media management or working in construction, can be very powerful. 

So, the first goal is to define your strategy to help you market yourself for your job or career goal. The strategy will help you create a timeline and a blueprint for success in getting the job you want.  

This is the first step in building your personal marketing plan template to help you achieve your overall goals. The next component is Communication. 

2. Communication

Another valuable component of an effective personal marketing plan is communication. If you want a specific job, you need to figure out how you are going to effectively communicate your value to potential employers.  

An accomplishments-based resume tailored to your career or job target is only one way to effectively communicate your ability to meet an organization’s hiring need. Another way to showcase your value is through LinkedIn, your billboard online. Make sure your LinkedIn profile is well-optimized and professional. A third way to communicate is through networking. Networking can be one of the most effective means to communicate who you are and what you have to offer.

How will you communicate? Who do you know that can help you?

3. Brand

Another component of marketing is your brand. Your brand is who you are, what you do and how others see you. Your brand is what makes you distinct from other job seekers you are competing against. It showcases the value you bring to a business and the principles you hold or share with that business. 

The stronger your brand is the more effective it will be in helping you to stand out. In today’s digital age you want the high visibility that a strong brand will help you achieve versus the invisibility of a weak brand.

Check here for tips on how to better understand your brand. What does your brand say about you?

4. Budget

As you move forward in your career, you need to consider and plan for expenses to help you grow and maximize your career potential.

Expenses could include further education, training, and certification programs. Another area to consider is leveraging a professional to help you market yourself through résumé writing and personal branding. Whichever course of action you choose to pursue, you will need to consider the time and expense to become the candidate of choice for your selected job or career target.  

What education, training or certification programs will you need to complete? Will you hire a professional to help you build your personal brand and career marketing materials? Are you willing to commit to the time and investment needed? 

5. Research

The final component is research. You need to research what skills and abilities employers seek to fill their open positions. Research the job descriptions listed on the company’s website, job boards (like Indeed) and on LinkedIn. What requirements do you see (hard, soft, education, certification, etc.)?  

You also need to research the companies you want to work for. Research their mission, vision, value, and culture. Learn about their challenges, opportunities, and focus areas. Identify key players in recruiting as well as potential supervisors or managers in the areas you would like to target.

Use the information to tailor your marketing strategy and stand out in a crowded job market.

Now You Have a Personal Marketing Plan Example & More

After reviewing a sample personal marketing plan as well as the components of marketing, you should get started on building your plan today. Create a career marketing plan using the worksheet here, that helps you get the job you want. 

Start by listing information, responses or action items as outlined in each of the 5 component areas. Work and update your plan daily.

Need help? Visit our website to see how we can help you. Or, schedule a free 30-minute consultation with me to review your situation and get started on your career now.

The post If You Need a Personal Marketing Plan (Example Included), Read This appeared first on EZ Resume Services.