​Demonstrating Value: Develop a Career Marketing Plan

Identify your competitive advantage and communicate it well to the appropriate audience.

Job Market
When creating a marketing plan, you first need to identify your targeted job market.
  • List your targeted job title(s)
  • List your targeted industry or industries
  • List your targeted geographic region(s)
  • List your company size and type preferences

Assess your targets.
  • What's happening in your targeted industries and geographic region?
  • List the names of companies that fit your targets.
  • What market opportunities are available that could increase your chances of success?
  • What market threats exist that could decrease your chances of success?
SWOT Analysis
Analyze yourself in relation to your job targets.
  • What does a successful candidate for your targeted position look like? How do you compare?
  • What is the organization looking to gain, change, or avoid? How can you help?
  • What are your strengths and weaknesses in relation to the ideal candidate?

Map out short- and long-term goals and objectives.
  • What can you do to maximize your personal strengths, take advantage of the market opportunities, minimize your personal weaknesses and diminish the impact of threats?
Articulating Your Personal Brand
Bring your analysis together to build your personal brand:
  • Summarize your top five strengths that set you apart from the competition
  • Based on these strengths, describe the value can you add to your targeted companies
  • Describe your accomplishments as evidence of your strengths and proposed value.

How would other people describe you? How would you like to be known? Are these two profiles similar or dissimilar? Your brand is both who you are and how you are perceived by others.
Building Your Marketing Plan
If your current perceived brand is not that strong or if it emphasizes something you would rather de-emphasize, you may need to place more emphasis on your strengths by telling your stories and delivering consistent messages in both word and deed.

Incorporate your strengths, brand and personal statement into your job search marketing material (networking communication, resume, social media presence, cover letter, interviews, and portfolios). Target your marketing material to a specific readers or segments.
Adapted from material that originally appeared in the University of Illinois Alumni Association's Virtual Career Center
© 2020, Julie L Bartimus Consulting, Naperville, Illinois