Your Brand Is Broken. Call The Resume Doctor

By Jewel Bracy DeMaio
Job Search Strategist
PerfectJobSolution.com

Branding is popular these days. And just like when anything is popular, that means a lot of people are doing it, but a lot of them are doing it wrong. Chief Marketing Officers, in particular, can benefit from some branding guidance, because it's hard when you've marketed everything and everyone else, to be faced with the prospect of marketing yourself on your own resume.

So let’s talk about how to compose and position your brand the right way, in order to really get recruiters’ and employers’ attention. Plus, I’m going to give you exact language from a recent example of a chief marketing officer resume.

First of all, what is brand? The problem begins when you hear a lot of different definitions, but can’t determine what applies in your specific case. Brand is who you are. My philosophy has always been that the resume needs to be about who you are first, then what you do second. Your brand is your reputation, your identity, and / or your leadership profile.

Why do you need brand? Correct branding accomplishes several critical things on your resume: It articulates the precise value you bring to the table. It does so using language so compelling that the reader starts to think, “Yes, this is the person we need,” (not just, “This is the skill we need.”). Proper branding needs to be in place for you to position yourself as the ideal choice over the other candidates.

This brand comes from a perfect sample of a chief marketing officer resume: “Masterful corporate marketing strategist…history of delivering multi-million dollar impact and exceeding sales objectives by double and triple digits.”

What does that brand say about her? It immediately conveys why she differs from the competition. It strongly states that she knows what she can do for the organization. And the tone is such as to communicate that she commands top compensation for her expertise.

Jewel Bracy DeMaio has provided job search services to 6 and 7-figure executives for the last 15 years. She discusses more branding strategies in her free online master class, at PerfectJobSolution.com.