Awesome: How To Stand Out

Megan Fitzgerald, career coach for expats, is writing a series on how to stand out titled Expat Careers & Businesses: How To Stand Out in the Global Marketplace.  This is a multi-part series… in her second series (read the first one here) she talks about… me!  How flattering.

I’m going to share what she says about me… and then tell you how this applies to YOU.

Megan writes (read her entire post for a context and more depth):

BECOME THE MEDIA OR AN INDUSTRY AUTHORITY

For example, my colleague Jason Alba (and former expat) became a thought leader and an online “hub” in the career space by blogging everyday for a year. He shared about his own challenges as a job seeker and the tools that he developed to try and help him manage that process. The wealth of knowledge he shared, his authentic and engaging style and his regular engagement with his readers made him a credible, real, and respected voice amongst thousands of blogs in the career space. He then leveraged his technology experience and his own learning from the job search and blogging to build an incredibly powerful service called Jibberjobber. To say it helps jobs seekers manage their career and network effectively would not do it justice. There is nothing elsecomparable in the marketplace and I invite every career professional to visitJibberjobber see what it can do for you.

Jason’s thought leadership in job search and networking naturally led him to becoming an expert on how other online tools can be of help to job seekers – namely Linkedin and Facebook. He has written two excellent books to help guide job seekers and careerists – I’m on Linkedin – Now What? and I’m on Facebook – Now What? (co-authored with Facebook expert Jesse Stay). Both of these publications further enhanced his status as an expert. Now he is in high demand as a speaker for events around the world as well as a media source for leveraging Linkedin in the job search.

How cool is that?

There are a couple of things here that she isn’t 100% accurate on, but it doesn’t matter.  It’s a very positive writeup.  When she thinks of someone who is doing it right, I came to mind as a success, and she is sharing that success, and my products/services, with her clients and blog readers.

If she ever gives a presentation on this, she might use my story as an example.

MY BRAND IS SOLIDIFIED IN HER MIND.

You can’t pay for that type of branding…. can you?  Perhaps you can, but that strategy is reserved for companies with gobs of marketing dollars.

The average person, with no marketing money, CAN get this type of branding.

YOU CAN GET THIS TYPE OF BRANDING!

You want someone in your profession or industry to write something like that about YOU, right?  Or when their boss comes to them and asks if they know anyone with an expertise in ______, you want them to think of YOU, right?

You can make that happen, if you have a strategic approach to your own branding.

Here’s another snippet from her post:

Granted the time and work to become an trusted authority is not for everyone, but it is another option for those keen to stand out and get noticed in the global marketplace.

So true.

So who are you?  Are you the still kicking against the pricks (biblical term… guess what pricks are?) applying to openings on job boards, or are you “keen to stand out and get noticed in the (global) marketplace”?

Work for your career.  No one else is going to do it for you!