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Your Competitive Edge
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Job applicants need to market themselves as unique candidates by using personal branding techniques that demonstrate their specific characteristics that align with the job description - personal branding demonstrates how your soft skills and hard skills give you a competitive edge in the workplace. At times, our resume writers give your motivations context so that human resources can better understand your accomplishments.
For example, simply completing a project differs significantly from identifying the need to correct some new issue on a different project while maintaining your preassigned workload. This demonstrates that you have the capacity to identify a new issue and to develop a solution to that issue while completing previous responsibilities. To what extent does this impact your value to an organization? You can put these traits on your resume: (1) initiation, (2) multitasking, (3) time blocking, (4) strategic thinking, (5) goal orientation, and (6) problem-solving.
How Human Resources Determine the Best Applicant for the Job
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With every hiring opportunity, human resources strive to attain pinpoint accuracy with their hiring decisions. It is obvious that employees require recognition, job security, competitive salaries, flexible schedules, and personal safety. While these benchmarks induce applicants to accept employment, hiring managers create a personality profile for the job seeker based on motivational factors aligning with the probability that the job seeker will attain success in the employment opportunity. Human resources value initiation, goal orientation, affiliation, and more.
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How Initiation Increases Your Value
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Hiring managers look for certain traits that enable the proper functioning of an organization. The capability to initiate conversations with coworkers will lead to positive outcomes by reducing attrition and increasing employee engagement. Initiation benefits managers and company trainers because the employee has demonstrated the ability to independently evaluate issues and to develop solutions.
People with initiative demonstrate the ability to assess a situation and to take action without being told by someone else what they should do. Initiative aligns with the fundamental profile of a self-starter. For example, if you work in a law office, there are several opportunities for taking initiative. While these tasks might not be appealing, they are tasks that need to be completed, such as organizing a file or photocopying paperwork. Management considers these behaviors when assigning promotions or evaluating performance relevant to your raise. This also looks good on a resume.
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The Purpose of Goal Orientation as a Motivator
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Goal orientation refers to a project that needs to be completed. Do you want to complete basic goals or do you want to achieve significant objectives that might become fundamental procedures? Employees motivated by fundamental goals focus on learning core competencies. At the same time, their peers demonstrate an orientation for completing core competencies better than their coworkers by tapping into a healthy dose of competition that boosts moral and productivity. Furthermore, job applicants can distinguish themselves from team members by placing bullet points on their resume to indicate high-levels of productivity and high-levels of quality. Awards and commendations make good bullet points on a resume as well.
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Goal orientation illustrates a key characteristic of applicants. These job seekers generate a high-level of effort and they think strategically to complete short-term and long-term goals. Strategic thinkers focus on determining internal strengths and weaknesses. Another important tactic focuses on external opportunities and threats. These applicants will be top producers with the potential to take on more responsibilities that provide them with access to more resources to enhance the bottom line of an organization.
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Demonstrating Affiliation as a Key Motivator for Success​
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Another important motivational factor is affiliation - the state or relation of being closely connected or associated with a particular group or company. People who are notably motivated by affiliation receive gratification by building relationships and belonging to the group or company. Let our resume writers give your motivations context in order to harness the full potential of personal branding. ​​For example, an employee demonstrates initiative by telling his manager that he wants to learn a new software application that will significantly enhance his skillset and increase his worth to the group.
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Employees motivated by affiliation seek opportunities to connect with coworkers and to build relationships so as to be an important part of the organization. For example, if you are seeking employment with a nonprofit that helps impoverished communities, then you would need to let human resources know that you make fighting homelessness a priority. If you are looking for employment as a defense attorney, then you would want to let the legal firm understand that you are motivated to help people with civil litigation and white-collar criminal defense. You receive gratification by helping people solve their legal problems. These are examples of affiliation and this motivational trait influences your Emotional Intelligence (EQ).​
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EQ and Your Personal Brand
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We have identified unique motivational factors that span across a gradient that ranges from low to high. For example, one motivational factor is affiliation. This is not a yes or no situation. Everyone has this motivation. The question is, to what extent do you demonstrate this trait? Emotional reactions can be known by communicators because people are hard wired to react to triggers that lead to predictable emotional reactions. For example, if a coworker believes that his or her solutions to company problems are not being acknowledged, the employee would predictably feel slighted. Acknowledging triggers demonstrates your capability to perceive and control emotions not only in yourself, but also in other people.
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Marketing Your Insights Regarding Emotions
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To be successful, you need to be able to understand settings and scenarios that lead to certain emotions. You need to understand context - situations that impact your triggers such as meeting deadlines and receiving unfavorable feedback. Basically, even if you have the right hard skills for the job, you could fail in the workplace because you lack the ability to acknowledge your triggers that lead to both positive and negative outcomes. Know your triggers because managing emotions impacts your likelihood for success.
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Emotional triggers can contradict expectations. Interactions with new people can lead to feelings of rejection, and these feelings could make you defensive instead of probing the criticism to find common ground. So, how should you prepare for certain outcomes? Understand subject matter. Acknowledge potential criticisms. Have your counterpoints ready and be respectful. The goal is to reach positive conclusions based on mutual respect. Your EQ allows you to accurately market your personality profile. Let employers know that you have the right profile for the job because, for example, you remain calm and clear-minded during stressful situations that require meeting strict deadlines.
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Why Should You Care About Company Cultures?
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Would you like to work for a corporation with a purpose-driven credo? How would you like to work for an organization with a clear credo and a stellar corporate culture monitored through metrics? This sounds great! Everyone has goals that they want to achieve in the workplace, and your personal brand demonstrates your capabilities. Before you start sending out resumes, have a good idea regarding what you expect from prospective employers. What are the values of the employer?
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Important metrics acknowledge the significance of diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging. Employees need to know that they have value in the workplace. Once you get that email or phone call from human resources, develop questions that focus on company culture. How is retention from one department to another? How is employee turnover throughout the company? Organizations committed to employment culture will have these statistics at their fingertips. These statistics are precise enough to determine fluctuations between population groups within individual departments and throughout the entire organization. Communications comprise a significant portion of how things get done - all employees have distinctive communication styles that impact environments.
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How to Handle Different Types of Communicators Within a Company Culture
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One aspect of company culture describes how employees communicate with one another. Considering these interactions, employees need to understand how they can communicate ideas, opinions and information with one another. Get to know the communication styles of your coworkers so that you can use these observations as a means for developing your personal brand. For example, you could note that your EQ led to productive communications by demonstrating empathy with coworkers. Employees divide up into distinct communication groupings: (1) passive, (2) aggressive, (3) passive-aggressive, and (4) assertive.
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​Passive communicators hesitate to speak up, avoid conflicts, and suffer from low self-confidence. There are ways to engage passive communicators. Coworkers can ask passive communicators for their opinions in a group setting. While some people are uncomfortable speaking up in a group environment, you should engage them with written communications such as emails first. This makes the coworker more willing to engage in verbal communications because you have established trust through one communication channel. Let the passive communicator know that their point of view has value and that you would find it beneficial to have them verbally present their position to the group.
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Aggressive communicators attempt to control conversations, come across bluntly, and resist compromising their position. To effectively communicate with aggressive communicators, remain calm and stay focused on the issue. Do not get drawn into an argument. Use your active listening skills to summarize the primary purpose of the communication. Acknowledge the position of the aggressive communicator and demonstrate empathy to lessen tension. By repeating their primary point of view, this acknowledges that you clearly understand their position. Let them know that they have been heard.
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​Passive-aggressive communicators withhold important information to demonstrate their displeasure with the communication message. They engage in behaviors that undermine the purpose of some project to illustrate that their point of view remains correct, and, furthermore, they address issues with coworkers not directly related to the project in order to demonstrate that they are a victim of the assigned project. There are several tactics for interacting with passive-aggressive coworkers. Measure your responses calmly, stay focused on the issue, seek clarifications to topics, and encourage open and direct communications. Let them know know that you value their straightforward input.
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Assertive communicators state their positions clearly and directly while being respectful of the points of view of coworkers. They speak with conviction and confidence while demonstrating respect for the opinions and feelings of other people. They take ownership of their point of view, and interactions with assertive communicators can be highly productive. When communicating with this type of coworker, speak directly and concisely. Furthermore, show respect for their point of view. This type of communicator is willing to address constructive criticisms and these communications lead to productive outcomes.
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On your resume, you can reinforce your personal brand by stating that you demonstrated empathy to develop trust with diverse communicators. You can further impact personal branding by claiming that you addressed how coworkers recognized your persona through consistent perception management. Furthermore, you can claim that coworkers would describe you as someone who fosters relationship building by creating important connections through authenticity. This means that your communications are truthful and accurate. These characteristics are important to anyone interested in affiliation, goal orientation, and initiation.
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Prioritizing Culture and Finding a Work-Life Balance
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People go to work to actualize personal objectives. Some applicants seek work because they are driven by goal orientation. They solve new dilemmas because these scenarios provide them the opportunity to enhance their self-worth. Other people go to work simply because the pay is good and their coworkers are amicable. One thing is clear - if you prioritize culture, you should be concerned about concepts such as retention, adverse impact, and employee turnover.
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Some people are workhorses who never seem to be affected by long hours in the workplace. Other people look for a work-life balance that creates a supportive environment in order to promote their well-being. Why is this metric important? First, employees who attain a work-life balance tend to be more productive. Second, this metric identifies employee burnout before it become an issue, and this metric allows management to proactively address the potential for burnout. Third, these workers tend to have enhanced employment satisfaction.
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How to Use Open-Ended and Close-Ended Questions
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Applicants communicate better if they know the differences between open-ended and closed-ended questions. Close-ended questions provide limited insights to the personality of the applicant. These questions generally require a 'yes' or 'no' answer. Human resources often use a close-ended question to lay the groundwork for an open-ended question that requires an in-depth response.
For example, the hiring manager asked, "Do you handle stress well?" After you affirmed that question, the hiring manger followed-up with the open-ended question, "Please describe a time when you faced a difficult situation and explain how you managed this stressful situation." Human resources representatives will use open-ended questions to learn more about you and how you handle stress in various settings.
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During your interview, create mental notes about the values that the company wants to find within an applicant. In the previous situation, this close-ended and open-ended combination was utilized by human resources to determine the personality characteristics of someone applying for a position as a customer service representative providing troubleshooting advice for customers in a call center environment. Some customers can be verbally abusive - how well you would handle stress will be an important talking point in the interview.
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Stressful situations can be manifested in many different ways. Not only will you encounter difficult scenarios when interacting with customers, but also from the job itself when striving to meet deadlines and when interacting with coworkers. Let human resources know that you consider a healthy amount of stress to be a motivational factor that prompts you to work through assignments in an organized manner. While you can think outside the box, you have a high motivation to follow proven procedures and to determine and replicate best practices.
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You would increase your value to the organization by describing communication processes that minimize stress. Acknowledge to the hiring manager that you implement active listening skills that inform communicators that you understand their messages - you do this by reading body language, asking relevant questions, and summarizing subject matter. Active listening establishes an in-depth connection among communicators because this skill demonstrates respect and empathy. You are fully engaged in the conversation and you understand the objectives of the people in the communication. Their point of view is important and communicators should be heard - active listening minimizes the potential for stressful situations by building and maintaining relationships.
The most important part of an interview is your closing statement. This statement addresses your enthusiasm for the employment opportunity. You must provide human resources with key reasons that you are the right person for the job. Underscore your skills and qualifications. A great closing statement lets the hiring manager know that you have been using active listening skills by summarizing the key talking points of your interview.
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For example, you would want to address the part of the interview that focused on how well you handle stressful situations while assisting customers in a call center environment. Let human resources know that you understand the importance of validating the emotions of the customer from the beginning of the phone call. This allows you to gain control of the conversation. Once you have achieved this goal, you will use close-ended questions to efficiently resolve these potentially volatile situations in a timely manner. Interviewees utilize tones of voice impacted by word choices, pitch, volume, and the speed of the communication.
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What is the Right Tone of Voice in a Resume?
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There are many different tones of voice ranging from casual, to knowledgeable, to confident, to straightforward, to humorous, to arrogant, and more. Generally speaking, our resume writers implement a voice that is formal and knowledgeable. The decision to use this voice stems from the wording of the job offering. If the job description uses a casual tone of voice, we would be inclined to use a voice that is casual and confident.​​ The right tone of voice provides insights to your personality profile.​​​
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Connect with human resources to market your personality profile. This can be achieved by researching exams such as the one offered by Isabelle Briggs Myers and Catherine Cook Briggs. Personality exams illustrate what you would bring to the organization and how you would leverage your personality traits to achieve the successful completion of your responsibilities. Learn as much as possible about the position and determine how well your motivational variables align with the responsibilities of the job opening.
These exams can be comprehensive. One authority determined that there are 48 specific motivational factors that influence behaviors. These motivations include compliance, consistency, goal orientation, sole responsibility, shared responsibility, power, and initiation. For example, these profiling exams can determine whether you are introverted or extroverted, and human resources decides how well an introverted person would function within a position that requires consistent communications. These examinations determine what you offer a company and how will you behave in various contexts.
Get the Most Out of Your Professional Objective
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Applicants must market their most important accomplishments within the professional objective section of their resume. Your professional objective is located at the top of the resume under your name and address. From the start of their resume, applicants need to use the appropriate tone of voice in order to set expectations with human resources. If you apply for a position as a customer service representative inside a call center, you should express that you take control of conversations in order to achieve your responsibilities with professional rapidity. You acknowledge that you like to create objectives and that you use strategic thinking to fulfill goal orientation. ​
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A Personal Branding Example
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Our resume preparation service illustrates your attitude toward diverse motivators that include teamwork, money, honesty, compliance, tolerance, achievements, and group environments. These diverse motivations demonstrate personality traits that are measured by employers. For example, if an applicant wants employment as a project manager, we would brand him or her as a self-starter who excels at cost tracking and stakeholder communications. Our applicant excels at handling budgets and communicating persuasive information. This unique background information allows our writers to brand the applicant with a tone of voice that is knowledgeable and authoritative. ​​
Additional Benefits of Personal Branding
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Resumes must be easy to read because the goal is to take the guesswork out of the hiring process. Our resume writers create documents that demonstrate the importance of implementing personal branding techniques with a consistent tone of voice. A resume writer establishes a relationship between the applicant and the employer by marketing motivations that fluctuate from one applicant to another. We brand essential motivations that position you as the best person for the job. Your personal brand will be unique to your profile. This is your personal, unique selling proposition (USP).
While some companies use USPs to market their products to consumers, job applicants can demonstrate their personal brand by communicating their unique motivators and their unique background that led them to this employment opportunity. Applicants must focus on vital, motivational differentiators that drive them to secure a certain type of employment influenced by the culture and the communication styles of coworkers.
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Personal branding positions applicants in the mind of the human resources representative. Positioning creates powerful results. This technique differentiates candidates in a competitive workplace. To be successful, applicants must address reality and resume writers understand that this reality resides in the mind of the hiring manager. Our writers create an USP in order to gain the favor and the attention of hiring managers. An USP differentiates job applicants in the crowded workplace environment. ​
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Profile Testing and How Your Personal Brand Indicates Success
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To arrive at conclusions regarding your personality, some employers stipulate that applicants must complete a comprehensive personality exam. Furthermore, ​if employees want to move up within a company, they could be required to take a test that measures their likelihood for success in their new position. There are several tests. One exam, the Hogan Personality Inventory, comprises 206 true or false questions that must be completed within 15 to 20 minutes. Why do companies want to poke around in your head? There are several reasons.
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For example, the employer might want to measure your degree of inquisitiveness by asking whether you use creativity and imagination when problem-solving. Furthermore, if you demonstrate that you thoroughly research assignments when problem-solving, you will be branded as a creative problem-solver. Some organizations require personality profiling tests to determine your emotional competency for success.
Our creative problem-solver would do well at overcoming unforeseen challenges within an organization that is consistently changing policies and procedures. On his resume, the applicant demonstrates the potential to fuel innovation in adverse situations. These exams determine whether you are a good match for the employment opportunity. How long have these assessments been used in the workplace?
The Origins of Personality Profiles
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Everyone has heard of the Hippocratic oath - an ethical code that serves as a guide for the appropriate conduct of doctors. The ancient Greece physician Hippocrates developed this theory, and his contribution to psychology influenced the creation of personality profiles. Sometime later, the philosopher Plato hypothesized the creation of four personality types. Philosophers and doctors have been refining these concepts for centuries. One of the biggest breakthroughs in personality profiling stemmed from the work of the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung in 1913. He identified four key psychological factors: thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition.
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In 1962, Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers published their findings on personality type indicators, and these scholars based their findings primarily on the work of Jung. The Meyers-Briggs assessment has helped companies build effective teams by placing the right employee in the right position at the right time. Meyers and Briggs identified 16 personality types.
This tool provides insights that help human resources understand the complexity of interpersonal relationships. What does this have to do with personal branding? Everything. Your personal brand lets organizations know whether you have the right profile for employment within a given field, and this demonstrates why you should become familiar with job descriptions and company cultures. Position yourself as a self starter by using effective language.
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Using Active Verbs to Demonstrate Authority
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Polished communication skills should be a part of your resume, and if you choose to acknowledge EQ as a part of your skill set, be sure to include outcomes that have quantitative results such as talk time in a call center where you applied troubleshooting techniques to resolve the questions of consumers. You can apply this trait as a bullet point that uses active verbs such as composed, convinced, advised, coached, informed, illustrated, and persuaded. These verbs overtly acknowledge the importance of communications and they engage human resources in a dialogue. Avoid passive 'be' verbs because they demonstrate a lack of authority. ​ ​
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Clear Communications and Resume Preparation Services
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Reputations establish expectations between senders and receivers of communications. There are communication barriers that include selective interpretation and emotional disconnect. Resume writers mitigate barriers by using clear and simple language that is effortless to read. Resumes need to be accessible so that hiring managers can easily locate and interpret essential information. Focus on fundamental resume characteristics to understand how our resume writing service breaks through communication barriers.
Considering these barriers, resume writers will create documents that are appropriate for the type of employment being sought. Your resume language will be relevant to the position, and personal branding techniques will deliver messages that are in-depth and easy to read. We create branded documents because we know how to position your values that resonate with the expectations of employers. While we place a premium on soft and hard skills, we also leverage your personality traits to demonstrate your potential for success within your field of choice. Informed decisions are the best decisions! Contact our resume service in order to attain success in the workplace! ​​​​
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