Promote Yourself (2 page)

During college, I got an internship at an event promotions company doing grunt work—printing, scanning, and I even got the CEO's coffee a few times. This was about to be another “I-don't-want-to-do-this-job-again” episode, but I noticed some of my coworkers creating flyers and doing design work. The next day, I showed my boss the Web sites I'd created and was running as a hobby. He saw that I was pretty tech-savvy and he gave me a chance to work on the company's Web site and design brochures.
Lessons learned: Just doing my job wasn't enough. In order to get ahead I had to really stand out, and the skills I learned outside the workplace could help me get promoted
inside.

On March 14, 2007, I read an article that changed my life: “The Brand Called You,” by Tom Peters. In it, Peters talked about the power of personal branding and the art of crafting your ideal career. It hit me that that's exactly what I had been doing during college—I just didn't have a term for it. I knew that I enjoyed helping other people with their careers and it was something that I was good at. At the same time, I saw that career management was shifting to online brand management and that it was increasingly possible to use the Web to build a career. I did a quick Internet search to see whether anyone else my age was talking about personal branding online. There wasn't, so I jumped in.

The first thing I did was change the name of the blog to Personal Branding Blog (I know, not terribly inspiring, but it gets right to the point). And I set about learning as much as I possibly could. Then I turned things around a little and used what I knew and was learning to teach others (which helped me learn even more). Every night, when I came home from work, I'd write a new blog post and I'd comment on every article on the Web that was even remotely connected to personal branding. No more weekends or free evenings for me, and I found that it was a terrific way for me to show what I knew and to get feedback at the same time. Slowly, slowly, the blog began to grow and I became an expert people were contacting for help. After a few months, I was able to get an article published on another site. And then, after I'd been pitching them for months,
Fast Company
did a profile of me as a young leader in the personal branding space.

Someone at EMC saw the
Fast Company
piece and gave it to a VP who was just getting into the social media space. I worked with the VP to create a new position in the PR department: social media specialist. All of a sudden, people were coming to me, asking for my help with social media. I had shown my employer what made me special and unique in the marketplace—my personal brand—and become a high-value employee. Lessons learned:
If you work really hard, make yourself an expert on something, and pursue your passions, you
will
be able to achieve what you want.

Over the years, I've seen way too many people of my generation working in jobs that make them miserable (according to MetLife's tenth annual Study of Employee Benefits Trends, a third of Americans would like to be working for a different employer within the next twelve months). Many of my fellow young professionals have contacted me, asking for advice on how to move up in their company—talented people who felt stuck and who didn't learn what they needed to know in school (largely because it isn't taught). They aren't using their talents to their full potential. They know they'd like to move to another position in their company, but they lack the necessary skills and don't know how to get them. Some have great ideas but don't have the backing to develop them on their own. Almost all of them want to make a change, but they don't know how to evaluate their options or where to get started.

So, here's the deal. I've been there. I know exactly what it's like to feel frustrated and unfulfilled. But more important than that, I know what to do to move beyond those obstacles and position yourself for real success. Over the course of this book, I'm going to show you how to do the same.

Before we go on, a quick point of full disclosure. By 2010, my Personal Branding Blog had become much more than a hobby—it had helped me land a deal for my first book and had brought me a number of speaking and consulting gigs. So I decided that leaving the corporate world to form my own company was the next logical step. My friends and coworkers were stunned. They couldn't believe that a twenty-six-year-old would quit a well-paying, nine-to-five job and start a business without any corporate backing. They said it was a risky move, and some even said that I was crazy. The most senior leader in my department predicted, “Before you know it, you'll get bored and join McKinsey or another consulting firm.”

As it turns out, they were wrong. I wanted to be in control of my own destiny and I had the right mix of passion, expertise, ambition, and confidence that allowed me to make my new company, Millennial Branding, a success. Now, while I'm an evangelist for entrepreneurship, I recognize that this path is not for everyone, nor should it be, especially at the start of your career. That said, resist the urge to start thinking that working for a company is somehow “settling.” I've discovered that entrepreneurship is now accessible to everyone regardless of age or occupation. You don't need to own a business to be an entrepreneur, but you do need the entrepreneurial mindset to be successful in business. In a study in partnership with
oDesk.com
, we found that 90 percent of people say being an entrepreneur is a mindset instead of someone who starts a company. It's also a set of skills: selling, motivating others, working with teams, persistence, among others. You can learn and perfect all of those skills by being entrepreneurial
within
your company, taking advantage of your employer's deeper pockets and corporate structure. (This is especially important if you've got a lot of student loan debt, little or no access to capital, and/or you're still living with your parents.) Frankly, I'm happy I worked for a big company. What I learned there made me a better entrepreneur later. Now, I'd like to bring some of the lessons I've learned as an entrepreneur—both on the job and on my own—back to the young employees who are working at the kind of company that I worked so that they can succeed at any job, in any market, and pursue their passions to the fullest no matter where those young workers set out from or where those passions lead.

 

New Workplace, New Rules

The workplace of today is quite different from what it used to be. And, as I mentioned earlier, schools aren't preparing their grads for it. For example, a lot of colleges are telling their students to wait until the summer between junior and senior years to get internships. Really? That may sound good, but I guarantee that the less work experience you have, the harder it will be to get an internship when you really want one. There's also not nearly enough communication between academic departments and the career services offices. Someone needs to be communicating with actual employers to find out what skills they're looking for. But that's not happening. And here's the result: Intel, which has a very generous tuition reimbursement program, recently cut 100 colleges from their list because their internal audits showed that employees who graduated from those programs didn't perform at the level expected for their degrees. Ouch. At the same time, the number of Web sites that offer training in topics that really matter in today's workplace has exploded. If schools were doing their jobs, those places (which we'll talk about in Chapters 2 and 3) wouldn't exist. You'll need to learn how the new economy works in order to be successful at navigating it. All of these factor into how you develop your career in order to get noticed and get ahead. This is the new reality of the workplace.

All in all, if you want to succeed in today's workplace—to develop your career and get noticed—you'll need to learn how to navigate your way through an economy that seems to be changing every day. Here's a brief guide to some of those changes. We'll explore them and a lot more as we go through the book.

 

1. You job description is just the beginning.
If you want to succeed in today's workplace and make a name for yourself, you'll have to do a lot more than what you got hired to do. In fact, your job description is just a scratch on the surface of what you should be doing. Always be on the lookout for new projects and collaborations with other groups, and do as much training and development as possible. This will position you to better compete for bigger roles when they come up. Andrew Goldman, VP, Program Planning and Scheduling at HBO/Cinemax, put it nicely when he said, “We live in a world where you can't just be doing the bare minimum unless you're working for your dad.”

 

2. Your job is temporary.
As the world changes, so does the workplace. Companies are acquiring or being acquired, merging with other companies, or crumbling. Your team could be eliminated, your position outsourced, or you might lose interest in your job altogether. It's no surprise that according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average American will have about eleven jobs between the ages of eighteen and thirty-four. The job you're in now is just one stepping-stone along your path.

 

3. You're going to need a lot of skills you probably don't have right now.
A recent Department of Education study shows that companies are having trouble finding and retaining the right talent. The DoE estimates that 60 percent of all new jobs in the twenty-first century will require skills that only 20 percent of current employees have. Soft (interpersonal) skills have become more important than hard (technical) skills. It's never been easier to acquire hard skills—and those skills will only get you so far. Companies are looking for leadership, organizational, teamwork, listening, and coaching skills.

 

4. Your reputation is the single greatest asset you have.
Titles might be good for your ego, but in the grand scheme of things what really matters is what you're known for, the projects you're part of, how much people trust you, whom you know, who knows about you, and the aura you give off to people around you. Sure, what you do is important, but what others
think
you do can be just as important if not more so. If you build a strong reputation, the money and opportunities will find you.

In 2011, when I polled 450 of my blog readers at
PersonalBrandingBlog.com
, 92 percent said that knowing how people perceive them at work would help their career. Employees are begging for feedback. But in my experience working with corporations and individuals, most people are either too afraid to ask for feedback or they aren't getting enough of it to make a difference.

 

5. Your personal life is now public.
According to a study by my company and
identified.com
, the average Gen Y employee is connected to sixteen coworkers on Facebook. What that means is that when you leave work, you're still connected through the relationships you have with your coworkers online. As a result, even things you do on your own time can affect your career—in a big way. The fifteen seconds it takes you to tweet about how much you hate your boss or to post a pic of you passed out with a drink in your hand could ruin your career forever. Even the smallest things—how you behave, dress, your online presence, body language, and whom you associate with can help build your brand or tear it to the ground.

 

6. You need to build a positive presence in new media.
There are plenty of benefits to new media and the convergence between your personal and private lives. Your online social networks enable you to connect with people who have interests similar to yours. Your online presence can help you build your reputation, and the educational opportunities available online can help you dig deeper into the things you're passionate about and want to become an expert in. And, as we'll talk about in later chapters, expanding your social network will eventually help you in your career by putting you in touch with people who know what you can do and are in a position to help you get ahead.

 

7. You'll need to work with people from different generations.
Because the combination of economic need and increasing life spans is keeping people in the workplace longer, you will undoubtedly find yourself working shoulder to shoulder with people of all different ages. (In some professions, experienced workers are competing for entry-level jobs with recent graduates, since they are willing to take a pay cut to stay employed.) There are now four distinct generations in the workforce: Gen Z (interns), Gen Y (employees), Gen X (managers), and Baby Boomers (executives). Each of these generations was raised in a different period of time, has a different view of the workplace, and communicates differently. By learning how to manage relationships with those in other generations, you will be more successful.

 

8. Your boss's career comes first.
If your manager is unsuccessful, his frustrations will undoubtedly rub off on you, and the chances you'll ever get a promotion are pretty slim. But if you support your manager's career, make their life easier, and earn their trust, they'll take you with them as they climb the corporate ladder—even if that means going to another company.

 

9. The one with the most connections wins.
We have moved from an information economy to a social one. It's less about what you know (you can find out just about anything within seconds with a simple Google search), and more about whether you can work with other people to solve problems. The rapid pace of technology, information, consumer demand, and the constant shifting of organizational hierarchies is going to impact how you manage your career at work. If you don't get—and stay—connected, you'll quickly become irrelevant to the marketplace.

 

10. Remember the rule of one.
When it comes to getting a job, starting a business, finding someone to marry, or just about anything else, all it takes is
one
person to change your life for the better. People may be saying no all around you, but as long as one person says yes, you're on your way. Successful people get what they want because they understand that it only takes one opportunity to get to the next level, and when they reach that level, it takes only one more to get to the next level. It's up to you to get those people on board to support your career.