Branding yourself is one of the most important things you can do to improve your odds of finding a job. For all of you recent-grads who are in the midst of your job hunt, or just starting out, here are some tips for ending the seemingly endless search and landing the marketing/advertising job of your dreams.

Create Your Message

In J-School I was always taught describe who you are and what you do in three words. This is surprising hard, and still something I struggle with. For me, I’m a writer, graphic designer, social media specialist, video editor, public relations specialist, advertiser, digital marketer and more. How do I cut all of this down to 3 words? Well, you don’t. Not really. You just pick the most pertinent qualities depending on the specific job you are applying for, or pick three qualities that cover each of the bases. This is a constantly changing process as you develop new skills or apply for different jobs. For me, I developed a two-part messaging hierarchy.

The first tier reflects the industries I am looking to work in:

Digital Marketing // Advertising // Public Relations.

Tier two is more granular and adds a bit of personality and voice:

Wordsmith. Message crafter. Natural-born strategist.

I could’ve also gone with Copywriter, graphic designer, social media expert in the making, but like I said - constantly changing process.

Visual Branding

This is especially useful if you have design experience. When you think of all the world’s biggest brands, chances are an image of its logo pops into your head. This is exactly why creating a personal logo is so powerful. Creating a personal logo can be an incredibly difficult thing to do, trust me. Just like crafting your personal message, coming up with a logo that reflects your image is the tough part. Personally, I messed around with a variety of drafts over the span of several months before landing on one.

When you do settle on a “YOU” logo, make sure to place it everywhere: your website, resume, every cover letter, email signature … you get the picture. The marketing/ad industry hinges on branding, so communicating to potential employers that you can do this effectively will have a resounding effect on your hireability.

Update and Maintain Social Channels

First things first, make sure you have a presence on every relevant social platform. Don’t have a Twitter? Spend a week and get yourself set up. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you use it daily or hardly ever, just be on there. I tweet literally all day long for client companies at my current job, however I hardly ever use my personal account. Still, it’s a good thing to have. Selecting a consistent username across platforms is another key to your online branding strategy. That means your Twitter handle should match up to your LinkedIn and Facebook URL usernames. Facebook can be tricky given you're only allowed to change it once. Since many of us have had Facebook since our high school years or earlier, chances are you've already selected one. Let's just hope it's not facebook.com/sparklehorse31121. I would recommend first selecting a professional Twitter handle, one that is open for the taking, and then make it consistent for your other channels. To get the most searchability out of your usernames, try to avoid anything with numbers (ie. @adamjacobs55687). Something like @adamjacobspdx works much better.

Step Up Your LinkedIn Game

Although a social network, this gets its own section. First and foremost make sure everything is up to date and all the copy in your bio/descriptions/etc. is polished to a T. Also, make sure you add links to your website and any projects you’ve worked on. Now, for strategy … LinkedIn can be a powerful job search tool if you use it correctly. First thing I would recommend is to look up EVERY agency in the city you are looking for a job. Connect with every one you can find. This will allow you to get a full scope of the industry in your city and updates about what each agency is up to. From there you can connect with people who work at agencies you have interest in. If you are going to reach out to people, make sure to always use personalized messages and give them options. What do I mean? Do not go in saying are you hiring and leave it at that. It’s much more productive to go about it by asking if they have any openings and if not, if they would be willing to meet for an informational interview. Chances are they don’t have an opening, or if there are openings, the person you’re contacting may not know about them. Foot in the door, even if you’re getting impatient, keep that to yourself. Don’t be desperate.

Grow in Your Down Time

Job hunting can be a tumultuous time, some of the time. The rest of the time, there’s a lot of sitting, waiting, wishing. How you spend this down time is important. Now, I don’t mean waking up at 8am daily to search for jobs, that’s just a waste of sleep and won’t net you much (most of the time). However instead of heading out to the pool, or playing Xbox at your buddy’s house, put down the early afternoon beer and take a few days a week to grow yourself. Learn something new and valuable for your career goals. For me, this was design. I spent the better part of a month putting in a few hours a day to learn Illustrator and advance my InDesign skills. In fact, acquiring these skills is a big reason I was hired on after interning at CMD. I was able to create a hybrid position for myself, designing quick-turn graphics for social media use, which allowed my department to become more independent from the creative department, ultimately saving the agency time and money. With that said, make sure to enjoy yourself too before you jump into the working world.

Be Yourself

I can’t tell you how many people I’ve seen come in to interview at my agency rockin’ a full suit, with their 11x17 portfolio they made for college PR campaigns course under their arm while rest of us are wearing t-shirts. Now, I don’t recommend wearing a t-shirt to an interview by any means, but the agency culture is (for the most part) pretty casual. I’d recommend a button up and slacks or dark jeans. Apart from dress, let your creativity and personality shine through. Don’t be a robot sharing a pre-rehearsed script. If you’re funny, crack some light jokes, tell them some personal stuff about yourself, and seem genuinely excited about the work you’ve done and the agency you’re interviewing with. In my opinion, goofy dad jokes work wonders if you can own it. ;) After I had several unsuccessful interviews, I decided to switch it up and present myself in a more casual way … And guess what? I landed that job and never looked back.

All about the Attitude

Good attitude that is … If you have a good, optimistic and excited attitude, you are GOLDEN. Nothing goes further than a recognizable love for the industry. Now, you’re a college grad. Employers don’t expect you to know everything. Good agencies will help mold you and teach you the in’s and out’s. Communicate to interviewers your willingness to learn anything and everything. According to me this should be a MUST during an interview.

Now get out there and land that job of your dreams. No one’s going to give it to you, be unique and you’ll be just fine.

HOW TO KICKSTART YOUR PERSONAL BRAND