Marketing Manager Seeking Position Part 7 Personal Brand
Marketing Manager Seeking Position Part 7 Personal Brand
By September 2009 I had worked in advertising for 10 years in the healthcare, real estate, telecommunications and medical device industries . Most of this time was in the traditional advertising agency setting where I had given the opportunity to learn it all.
So, after being laid off and knowing that at the time that so many others in my field were also laid off or going to be laid off, I set out to differentiate myself from my competition. I emphasize my ability to do it all by calling myself a marketing generalist. This is truly what I am but after talking to friends in the industry it sounds too bland.
The term generalist is a person whose knowledge, aptitudes, and skills are applied to a field as a whole and does not speak directly to my skill as a marketing manager. It became clear not too long ago that what I needed to do was market myself using the title of the position that best fit.
This too is a struggle because even the term marketing manager is fairly general. Job titles to some are unimportant and to others a key in deciding what level you have achieved in your career. My last position was account executive and that did not come close to all of the tasks I was responsible for. I was also managing the traffic of jobs through the agency, billing clients, paying vendors and managing the creative team hours.
I did hope, in the beginning of my search, to find a director level position. I thought I had the years experience required and certainly the knowledge. For some positions listed I do have the skills and years experience but I am missing one key ingredient, an MBA and there for am under qualified.
Not having the ability to go back to school, I quickly realized that I set my sights too high and started looking for manager level positions. I began running in to the problem of being over qualified for some because I had too much experience. This has continued to be a difficult challenge in my job search.
A challenge that is continuous, is finding positions where industry experience is not required. As I have written about in my other articles, my experience is in residential real estate. We all know what happened to that market and those job postings are very few and far between. I have applied to positions such as online marketing manager but with no luck so far.
So, I have been working diligently building up my LinkedIn network, posting my blog articles to Google and Twitter, reading and commenting on other blogs and doing tons of research on the job hunt. I am open to learn as much as I can to get my next position. And there is an overload of information out there on how to do all the things I am doing to market myself.
Every once in a while I will run across a tip or two on how to do it better or different. Recently during a webinar I was told that recruiters are now using Google to search for resumes and portfolios online. This was the first I had heard of this tactic but it made sense to me. If you are looking for a marketing manager, don't you want someone who can market themselves?
One of my tactics in marketing myself has been to spread the news that I am in the job market, send out my LinkedIn profile to every person I know and use as many websites as possible to post my information. In doing this I though I had been putting myself out there for Google to find me. Well, it was working if someone was doing a search for my name. Google Lucinda DeVries and check out what comes up. Then Google your name and see where you show up. Yes, it is called "ego surfing" but when you are marketing yourself, it is really called "doing it right".
What my challenge is now, is to get my information to be listed when a search is done for "marketing manager, Denver, CO." I am competing with all of the job search sites and need to find a way to overcome them in the rankings. Even with all the sites I am registered on it may become necessary to build a website where I can better use keywords and content with links to increase my ranking.
For now though, it is the free sites, and just getting my name out there as much as possible. I have wondered if any of this has helped get my foot in the door or give me a second glance. I went to an interview recently and was tempted to ask but thought that it may not be a good idea. After getting my "thanks but no thanks" standard email yesterday I realized I should have asked.
I do have Google analytics set up on my blog so I can see who is coming to my blog and I keep close watch on my LinkedIn stats as well. I did see during my last "ego surfing" adventure that other sites have picked up my blog. Measuring the success of my personal branding campaign has been a challenge.
I know one thing for certain; this has given me the opportunity to continually learn more about social media and fine tune some SEO skills.
So, I have some questions for you and I would appreciate if you could take a minute and add a comment with your response.
Where did you come from to find this blog?
Are you looking to hire a marketing manager?
Have you read any of my other posts?
Did you do your own "ego surf"? What did you find?
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