Julia Good work alone is not always enough to get ahead in the job. Even above-average results won’t help you if your boss doesn’t notice. The good news: you don’t have to work even harder to finally get noticed. The key to success lies in self-marketing. Here we give tips on how even reserved contemporaries can do this.
Brand beats performance: This is why self-marketing is so important in the job
You have the problem customers under control, your projects run like clockwork, you have exceeded the target values. It literally cries out for promotion.
There is also one – but not for you, but for your colleague, as you secretly call him. Of all people, the colleague whom you have to lend a hand all the time because he can do a lot less than you. Unfair? Definitely! But there is one thing that colleague can obviously do better than you: self-marketing.
And that is an important key to professional success. Various studies have shown that performance plays only a subordinate role in terms of career advancement in companies. More decisive is the personal image and that employees are seen by decision-makers, i.e. attract attention.
What exactly is self-marketing?
Don’t worry – selling yourself well does not mean that you have to constantly focus on yourself or ingratiate yourself with the boss, as said colleague might do. By definition, self-marketing means applying established marketing mechanisms to yourself and establishing yourself as a brand.
Ultimately, you are promoting yourself. This is not about disguising yourself or adorning yourself with someone else’s feathers. On the contrary: It’s about highlighting and emphasizing your own strengths – and you have a few of them.
In practice, self-marketing means:
- knowing your goals,
- to know who is helping to reach them,
- and to know how to convince these people of yourself.
The first step to your own brand: Analyze strengths
Be aware of what you are good at and what you want to achieve. Analyze your strengths. Even if this sounds uncomfortable to you, it has nothing to do with an exaggerated ego. Remember that with every application you are self-marketing and highlighting your strengths. That is exactly what got you into the job after all.
In the next step, you should check whether the image that colleagues and superiors have of your strengths corresponds to your own perception. This is important because the alignment of self-perception and perception of others is a decisive factor for successful self-marketing.
Here’s how you can do it.
- Direct: Ask colleagues what strengths they see in you. Do the same in the performance appraisal with your manager.
- Indirect: Observe which tasks colleagues and supervisors ask for support with. These are often the areas in which you are trusted a lot.
After this analysis, you will know what else you need to work on. You should take action where the feedback from colleagues does not match your self-perception. Show your colleagues what you can do! Offer your help specifically in areas in which you are underestimated.
Define goals: Know where the professional journey should go
Your professional goals must be in line with your skills and strengths. Otherwise, you won’t be happy at work in the long run. For example, if you prefer to work independently, then a team leader is probably not the right thing for you.
So ask yourself:
- What are you best at?
- What do you want to achieve?
- What goals can you achieve with your skills?
Once you are aware of your goals (and skills), you need to find out who can help you achieve them. Usually, these are people in higher positions. However, it does not always have to be your direct superior. It can also be a manager who is a few steps above you or who heads another department.
Then it goes to the target group analysis as in product marketing: Find out which of your talents and values the target person values. Is it flexibility, willingness to work or is it your creative approaches to solving new problems?
Starting shot for your personality campaign: Tips for self-marketing in everyday work
So the framework for your self-marketing campaign is in place – now it’s about making a name for yourself. What does that mean? Make sure that your colleagues and, of course, your “target persons” in particular notice the good work you are doing.
Opportunities for this usually arise on their own in everyday work. But you can also create your own options to showcase your services:
- Offer help: Support colleagues and superiors in a targeted manner with tasks that emphasize your strengths. Word of this usually gets around and you consolidate your image as a helpful and competent colleague.
- Deliver project updates: Give your boss interim reports at reasonable intervals (not too often) in which you make your performance visible. Don’t worry, it’s not intrusive, but rather looks professional.
- Take part in discussions: Meetings are the perfect opportunity to be noticed – sometimes even by senior executives and other departments that you have little to do within the day-to-day business. However, this will not work if you just sit there in silence. Speak up with well-founded comments or surprising ideas.
- You can also promote your strengths online: On LinkedIn’s online profile, for example, you can state your abilities and have them confirmed by others. At Xing, you can come up trumps in group discussions with well-founded specialist knowledge. Make sure to choose the terms that HR managers are looking for.
Blender? No thanks! Avoid mistakes in self-marketing
Things do not always go as well as with the said colleague Knalltüte: Excessive self-marketing can become an own goal and you are perceived as pompous and show-off.
This will attract your colleagues and superiors, too, but not necessarily positively. Because in the long run, no one will be screwed up by dazzlers and employees who constantly focus on their services – no matter how minimal they are.
So that your self-marketing campaign actually generates more appreciation and recognition in the job, you should heed the following tips:
- Stick to verifiable facts. Those who present their own performance better than they are walking on thin ice. At least other project members notice exaggerations and sooner or later find their way to their superiors. Once the credibility is lost, it can hardly be regained.
- Quality instead of quantity. Not every success is worth passing on. If you constantly rave about everyday activities, you are setting the standards for yourself severely. You should avoid that.
- Do not repeat yourself. Let your successes speak for themselves as much as possible. If that doesn’t work, point it out. But don’t repeat yourself. If the supervisor doesn’t acknowledge your performance the first time, you probably haven’t impressed them. Good advice for you to try other samples of your skills.
- Check out the pros and cons. Help colleagues and superiors in areas where you can add value and you want to distinguish yourself. Make sure, however, that you benefit from it – and that unpleasant tasks are not simply turned off to you.
