When it comes to sharing your career story, maybe in a resume, embedded in your LinkedIn profile, at an interview or across other forms of marketing collateral, there are some areas that will help you stand out from the crowd of other ‘maybes’.  As you start to break down this idea of identity, you will no doubt be confronted by the question as to what you stand for and how to express that. You have to start to break down your story into simple pieces that are engaging and memorable.

We all have amazing in us, we just don’t always know how to express it. There are things that you do better than anyone else, the things that create positive impressions, build reputation and are skilfully executed. This question goes to the heart of the value that we bring to an organisation. It forces us to dig below the surface of the ways that we often talk about ourselves and unpack what it is that makes us compelling and interesting.

In order for us to dive deep and talk about how amazing we are, we need to unlearn what we were told growing up as children by our parents, guardians and society.  We need to start to blow our own trumpets, we need to not quit while we are ahead, we need to be seen and heard…we need to earn that participation badge or medal. 

For many people, they don’t know how to express what makes them valuable to an employer. When we are in flow (a psychological state where things are just coming easily), we don’t bring awareness, or understand our behaviour, nor do we necessarily notice the impact. So, the very things that makes us great are the same things that we don’t recognise. They are also the things that we bring energy to, because generally, we bring energy to the things that we love.

Personal stories need to be founded in the HOW, not the WHAT. We spend all our time in the what leads to a competency-based perception of self and that misses out on the uniqueness that could be your competitive advantage. 

You need to develop a comfort in telling stories about how good you are.

We need to spend more time thinking about how we do things and less time thinking about the what we do. It takes awareness and courage to bring all of self to the conversation and we can’t be afraid of taking a few risks and opening ourselves up. We have a natural attraction to people that are a little flawed and very real, so we have nothing to lose. 

That’s my story and that’s also my superpower.  Well one of them. What are yours and how will you share them across your career marketing collateral?

For more of a conversation about how to pull this all together, contact me at james@yellowboxcareers.com.au