Marketing Yourself–Who, What, and How

In your career and life you need to be aware of (1) whom you are marketing yourself to, (2) what you are marketing, and (3) how you are marketing yourself. Each of these three things can make a major difference in the success of your job search. People who understand these three components can

• make tens of millions of dollars in a short time;
• get a job at a company that is not hiring;
• easily find positions in any economic environment.

Market to the Right People. When I first started working as a legal recruiter, it was early 2000 and the market for corporate attorneys in Silicon Valley was out of control. At the time, attorneys were leaving law firms to take jobs inside of Internet companies and were getting stock options in many cases. Some young attorneys made millions of dollars in less than a few years, and because attorneys perceived there was so much opportunity inside of young tech companies, they were “jumping ship,” leaving law firms as fast as they could. In response, law firms started ratcheting up salaries and hiring new corporate attorneys as fast as they could. I used to be a legal recruiter in Los Angeles and for the first six months or so that I was recruiting I did not place a single corporate attorney in Los Angeles. However, during this six-month period I placed probably 20 corporate attorneys in Silicon Valley. I placed corporate attorneys from small towns as well as firms in New Jersey within giant Silicon Valley firms. In many cases these were people who had been out of work for months. If a corporate attorney could make it to the interview and act with a modicum of professionalism in the interview, he or she would get the job. To say the market in Silicon Valley was incredible would be an understatement. At the same time, though, corporate attorneys were not in high demand in Los Angeles. Many of the corporate attorneys I was working with in Los Angeles waited weeks to get interviews, despite having stellar qualifications. The corporate attorneys simply were not having luck tracking down jobs in Los Angeles. It was the same thing in a few other cities around the United States. If you were a corporate attorney working in Los Angeles at the time, you might have become quite discouraged by the market and thought there was something wrong with you. In reality, there was nothing wrong with the corporate attorneys–it was all about the market trends at the time. The way the market works is among the most important things you can understand about your life and particularly your job search. You need to bring your product or service to the right market in order to succeed. If you put yourself in the right market, you will do exceptionally well. I met a guy my age not too long ago who attended the University of Michigan Law School. When he graduated from there, he had a difficult time finding a good job with a law firm in Detroit. He took a low-paying job with a company that was not that prestigious, because it was the only job he could get. Then, I think, he got fired and moved to the Bay Area. He was one of the first people hired at a major technology company and he got all sorts of stock options and made millions of dollars. After that he was one of the first few employees at another technology company and in less than a year, he made more than $50 million, when the company went public. He now spends his time traveling between multiple homes and investing in other technology companies. Do you think any of this would have happened if this person had stayed in Detroit, working his first lousy job? Of course not; he had to go to the right market, one that would make full use of his abilities and talents. It is all about where and to whom you market yourself. This morning I got a spam e-mail about a Russian bride dating site. I went to the site and then [Read more]