When you’re on the look out for a new role, a better role, knowing how to shout about your professional achievements in your career to date is something that many senior executives struggle with.
For some, any attempts at self-aggrandising feels uncomfortable, while for others there is the fear of coming across as being arrogant. However, self-promotion is not a luxury any of us can afford to keep hidden especially in today’s ultra-competitive jobs market.
Hiring managers are looking for people who have already faced the challenges that they are currently facing in their organisations. They want to see that you have the skills and tenacity to overcome them. But they’re also looking for leaders – role models and thought leaders.
So how can you master the art of self-promotion without coming across as confrontational? Here are 3 ways that will enable you to raise your professional profile without raising the temperature of your peers.
1. Use LinkedIn’s self-publishing platform
Could others benefit from hearing about your experiences? Can you offer invaluable insights or do you simply have a strong opinion on something that affects your sector? If you think you are an expert and have an opinion in your field, talk about it.
LinkedIn’s Pulse allows you to post thought leadership articles that can be read and shared by those within and outside your online network; thereby, raising your profile and demonstrating your knowledge and expertise in that area. Take a look at one post our CEO wrote, which has been read by 2,900 people to date.
2. Get social media savvy
If you think that social media is the preserve of Millennials then you’re missing a huge trick. Gen X-ers and baby boomers are increasingly seeing more and more roles being advertised on social media, with 73% of recruiters increasing their spend on ‘social recruiting’ over the last 12 months alone.
Keep your LinkedIn profile up to date, contribute to relevant discussions in your chosen groups and stay active on Twitter – share and re-post content that will be of interest to those within your network. In doing so you shine the limelight on yourself as someone who has his or her finger on the pulse of what is happening in your industry. But more important, it puts you on the radar of some of the companies you may want to work for.
3. PR yourself
Bill Gates famously commentated that if he was down to his last dollar he would spent it on PR. Luckily for him he has an estimated 79 billion of those dollars to get through first before he has to make that call, but the point is that PR is a way of getting yourself seen and heard by the right people at the right time.
Contact the publications that serve your industry and offer to write about your specialist field, ‘telling’ them your unique perspective and how it is relevant to a story they will already be familiar with. Approach the organisers of your industry’s leading conferences – are they looking for a guest speaker, could you add to the agenda?
Putting yourself ‘out there’ isn’t actually about you, it’s about how you can support and engage with those in your industry and the insights that you can bring to the table for the benefit of the greater good. Sharing best practice can go a long way in raising your profile and can lead to more career opportunities than you may have thought possible. Now that can only be a good thing, right?