There are plenty of books, blogs and websites that instruct job seekers how to write the perfect cover letter. Despite the glut of resources available, I still hear stories from hiring managers who share their accounts of horribly written and inappropriate cover letters that they receive daily from oblivious job seekers. Based on their feedback, we though we’d provide a brief guide to instruct job seekers how to write a truly awful cover letter.

1. Ignore the specific instructions provided in the job description. I know several employers who intentionally insert a series of instructions in their job descriptions just to see if candidates are capable of following instructions. Those applicants who ignore or overlook these instructions are immediately disqualified. Do you think these instructions somehow don’t apply to you? Think again.
2. Ignore the minimum requirements outlined in the job description. I worked recently with a candidate who wanted to apply for a job that called for specific professional experience and certifications that she didn’t have. Despite her total lack of precisely defined qualifications, she was insistent that she could perform the job and believed she could overcome her deficiencies with a persuasive cover letter. No, you can’t. Don’t waste your time or theirs.
3. Don’t proofread your letter. The single biggest category of cover letter disqualifications that I hear from employers concerns the overwhelming number of spelling and grammatical mistakes that elude the writer’s attention. My favorite is the cover letter from an eager college graduate to a highly regarded magazine detailing his burning desire to become a “poof reader.” He didn’t get the job. And neither will you if your cover letter contains spelling and grammatical errors. If writing isn’t your strong suit, have someone proofread your letter before you send it. You won’t get a second chance, so don’t blow the first one with carelessness.
4. Forget to do a search and replace on the name of the last company that you sent this letter to. Despite the fact that every cover letter should be customized to the specific company and position that you’re interested in, many applicants simply change the company name and reuse the same cover letter over and over. Hiring managers don’t appreciate your declarations of personal enthusiasm for a job with Company X when they work for Company Y.
5. Address it To Whom it May Concern. Nothing proclaims your laziness or lack of imagination more than your refusal to make any effort to find out who your letter should be addressed to. Make a phone call. Check the company website. Perform a quick search on LinkedIn. Whatever you do, find the name of a real person to send your cover letter and resume to. Then spell their name correctly.
6. Send it on  the letterhead of your current employer. Is the message you want to send that you’re willing to pilfer your employer’s supplies or that you’re willing to pursue employment opportunities on someone else’s dime? Neither is a winner. Go to OfficeMax and buy some nice paper. At least 24 pound plain white or ivory. Use it.
7. Proclaim your personal perfection. Nothing is more off-putting to a potential employer than a stranger proclaiming their perfection for a job that they just read about. I’m not sure which is more disturbing, the display of assured narcissism or the incredibly poor judgment, but neither will endear you to an employer. It’s perfectly fine to declare your eagerness to learn more about the position and to assert your conviction that your skills and experience would be a valuable addition to their company, but it’s wise to stop just short of proclaiming perfection.
8. Forget to put your name anywhere on the letter. Cover letters get separated from resumes. Put your name, address, phone number and email contact information on both your cover letter and your resume. You do want to get a call back, don’t you?
9. Forget to include your telephone number or email address. (See above) Imagine the frustration of a hiring manager who reads your cover letter, is impressed with your qualifications and writing skills and then has no idea how to contact you.
10. Attach a personal photo. Unless you’re applying for a modeling or acting job, it’s inappropriate to include a photo with your cover letter. I know HR professionals who will immediately discard a cover letter if there is a photo attached because of legal concerns and the fear of potential discrimination claims that could be brought by a disgruntled applicant who could prove that the company knew their racial or ethnic background. Photo = toss.

And since you hung in this long, here’s one bonus tip:
Extend your letter to two or more pages. There’s no excuse for your cover letter to extend beyond a single page. It’s a cover letter, not a deposition. The cover letter is not the appropriate forum to detail every aspect of your professional career and testify to your appropriateness for the job. Save it for the job interview. Keep your cover letter succinct and contained within a single page and you may just get that interview.

Behavioral interviewing cuts through the banalities of traditional interviewing and requires candidates to provide specific examples of their career skills, accomplishments, and behaviors.

In the traditional job interview, the interviewer peppered the candidate with a series of questions that the well prepared candidate had likely practiced for, including:

• Tell me about yourself. Typically results in a 90 second elevator pitch that may reveal their accomplishments, but not how they were achieved.
• Why should I hire you? The practiced respondent will have a single sentence positioning statement already prepared, but again, their response doesn’t provide any insight into how they work.
• What are your greatest strengths/weaknesses? No job seeker will reveal their actual weaknesses, but will attempt to position their weaknesses as strengths.  You need to dive deeper to determine actual weaknesses and to assess professional strengths.
• How do you deal with difficult co-workers/customers? Most candidates will tell you exactly what you want to hear. They all try to get along with everyone, try to be empathetic and understanding and have never had serious interpersonal issues on the job.

There are hundreds of books available to prompt the job seeker how to answer these questions. We’ve even posted detailed posts and videos to instruct you how to respond to these questions so we know that a practiced job seeker can provide their interviewer with all the right buzzwords and banalities to bluff their way through the interview.

That’s exactly why employers are shifting to behavioral interviewing and asking questions that require the candidates to provide concrete examples from their past and detailed information concerning the professional problems they faced, how they dealt with them, how they worked with others and what precise results were generated.

It’s almost impossible to fake your way through the response to a detailed question like:

This position requires an in-depth understanding of the dominant social media platforms and how they can be successfully leveraged to build relationships with our customers. Can you please describe the social media platforms you’ve used professionally and how you’ve integrated them into your marketing mix to achieve specific objectives?

There’s not much room for B.S. in the answer to a question as detailed as this. And the real strength of this line of questioning is in the follow-up questions that will inevitably arise. What were you thinking? Who else was involved? How did you split up the responsibilities? Each question requires details that can’t be easily faked or prepared beforehand and will generate more insight and honesty than the standard job interview questions.

The types of behavioral interview questions revolve around several themes, including:

• adaptability & flexibility
• ambition & initiative
• analytical thinking
• building relationships
• communication
• decision making
• delegation
• interpersonal skills
• creativity and innovation
• leadership
• planning & organization
• problem solving and conflict resolution
• self-assessment
• strategic planning
• teamwork
• time management

Sample Behavioral Interview Questions

The toughest part of the behavioral interview is that you can’t prepare for any specific questions that might be asked. However, you can prepare to answer questions on broad themes that will likely be explored, including:

• describe a project you worked on in the last year that resulted from your initiative. How did you initiate the project? Who was involved in the decision-making? What was your role during the implementation? What was the outcome?
• What was your biggest failure you’ve experienced? What were the business/personal ramifications? What did you learn?
• What goals have you set for yourself professionally and personally? How often do you review your goals? What do you do when you reach them or fail to reach them?
• Tell me about your creative process. Do you consider yourself a creative person? What inspires you?
• Describe your most frustrating project. Who else did you work with? How did you handle the difficult personalities involved? What lessons did you learn?
• Tell me about your last project. Were you more involved in the strategy or execution? Which one plays more to your strengths?
• How do you develop your subordinates’ skills? How do you assess their skills? Which staff member do you think you had the greatest impact on professionally?
• We’ve all had to work for difficult bosses. Tell me how you worked with your most difficult boss and how that has affected how you work with your own staff.

How to Answer Behavioral Interview Questions

Most guides on behavioral interviewing suggest that you follow the three-step STAR process when responding to a behavioral interview question. The STAR process includes:

1. Explain the Situation or Task you were involved with
2. Detail the Action that you took, and
3. Describe the Result of your action

So, taking one of our earlier questions, let’s see how you would apply the STAR response process to generate your answer:

Can you please describe the social media platforms you’ve used professionally and how you’ve integrated them into your marketing mix to achieve specific objectives?

The executive management of a national staffing company wanted to increase their visibility and desirability among technical job seekers nationwide. Although the company had a long history in the technical staffing industry, their name recognition wasn’t commensurate with their experience and capabilities.

Working with their marketing staff, we created a plan that centered around the creation and development of a Wordpress blog as their content hub that fed LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter accounts with constantly updated content.

We monitored the activity on the different platforms, surveyed our technical employees to determine which platforms were most important to them, and adjusted our social media mix to provide the content that was most in demand and generated traffic back to our website so we could capture potential candidates for our technical positions.

In just six months, we generated nearly 200,000 views of our online videos, increased traffic to our corporate website by 400%, captured over 200 new candidates and strengthened our relationships and increased our contacts with our current technical recruits.

The important thing to note is that the only requirement for a strong answer to a behavioral interview question is honesty. There are no right or wrong answers, just answers that are revealing and illuminating. And if you’re prepared for these types of questions, you can separate yourself from all the other candidates who never looked beyond Why should I hire you? as the toughest question they’d face.

The importance of the personal story was perfectly illustrated to me last week when I was approached by a friend asking for help in getting back in the job market. She had a resume and a LinkedIn profile – fulfilling the absolute minimum requirements for any job seeker – but had no idea how to jump start her search.

Initially, she wanted my help pursuing a senior development position with a local non-profit and asked for some help modifying her resume to make her more attractive to the organization’s director. However, a quick perusal of her resume convinced me that no amount of creative writing could transform her background in the hauling industry and real estate management into anything remotely appropriate for the opening she wanted to pursue.

Not wanting to dash her hopes upon the jagged rocks of reality, I sat down with her to discuss her previous work experience and asked her to recount some of her most distinctive, enjoyable and memorable moments from her previous jobs. Initially, she started to recount the tasks she performed in each of her previous positions, but I told her to put the resume aside and just tell me stories that stood out in her mind.

She described the day she was hired at the hauling company, interviewed in a dank interior office, lit by a single bulb and crammed from floor to ceiling with paper. Unopened envelopes, bills, unsent invoices, even checks, piled on every surface and jutting out of every cabinet and every drawer. The office resembled a scene from Hoarders and presented a challenge to my friend. She offered to get the entire office and business organized and running efficiently and was hired on the spot.

She then spent weeks opening every envelope, sorting payables from receivables, meeting with bankers to discuss how the company would work with the bank from that day forward, met with the accountant to clarify how the books should be kept, contacted all the clients to resolve billing issues and personally handled all client service calls. She took over the business and made it run. And she loved doing it. She faced a herculean task that would have driven me into one of the cluttered corners, whimpering in the fetal position and dove into the project headlong.

I love her story. And she had others. How she expanded their client base from 65 clients to over 3000 by herself. And how she handled all client service calls and built enduring relationships because her clients never called their hauling company, they called Paula. She became the face and voice of the company and turbocharged its growth.

Once I heard those stories, I didn’t care what accounting program she used, or how they processed payroll. I simply trusted that she could face a task – no matter how complex – dive in and get it done. And I appreciate it more because she excels at the things that I avoid. And I know dozens of business executives like me who desperately need someone who can organize their business and keep it running smoothly day to day. Is there a title for that? I don’t know. But I know there’s a story to tell that will let Paula put whatever title she wants on her business card.

So, what are your stories? The ones that are so memorable you still remember the tiniest details? They don’t have to be your greatest successes, either. Frequently they result in failures that taught you permanent lessons. As long as they continue to inspire you, they’ll inspire your listener. So jot them down. They’ll separate you from every other job seeker who focuses on their tasks without sharing the technicolor details of their real accomplishments.

Control Your Contact
You don’t want to get hiring calls while you’re at your current job or while you’re making lunch for your kids. You need to be in a private area that allows you to focus on the conversation. In addition, you need your resume, your list of questions and a notepad in front of you to jot down important thoughts and details and you need to be prepared. Provide your prospective employers with a single number to reach you. Typically this is your mobile number. If you receive an unscheduled call, ask if you can call back when you’re available to speak privately or have them reschedule the call at a time when you can be prepared. Make sure you have a very professional voice mail message on your mobile phone and check your messages regularly. Return every call as soon as possible and if you end up in a phone tag situation, be persistent and proactive.

Focus
Only conduct interview calls when you are able to devote 100% focus to the call at hand. If you get a call while you’re in your car or out in a social situation, ask to reschedule the call. The hiring manager wants to conduct the best interview possible and will understand that you can’t focus on the interview if you’re distracted. They will be understanding and accommodating and will respect your desire to perform your best.

Practice Your Answers to the Tough Questions
You know exactly where your professional weaknesses are, and you should expect that they will be revealed during the interview. Do you have a lot of project experience but not much management experience? Are you competing with MBA’s when you only have an undergraduate degree? Did you move to four different companies in three years? Be especially prepared to discuss these difficult issues, and determine how you can position your weaknesses in the best possible light. Knowing how you are going to respond to tough questions makes them much less intimidating.

Google Yourself
Every job candidate should be aware of all the information that will be revealed about them during a public web search. Every employer I know conducts at least a quick Google search on every job applicant just to discover what’s out there, so make sure you conduct an Internet search on yourself to preempt any surprises. In this new age of social media dominance, you need to be aware that your social media activities will also be reviewed by many employers and recruiters. Expect your Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter pages to be examined, and if you have anything on your sites that can be considered offensive or inappropriate, either remove the items or shield them behind privacy walls. Anything that remains public can and will be used against you during your job search.

Arm Yourself With Information
When you apply to a company, it’s incumbent upon you to learn something about that company. Knowledge is power. Read their entire website. Learn their company stories, how they were formed, what their mission statement reveals and familiarize yourself with the entire breadth of their products and services. Read their News Release page to see how they present themselves to the public and to determine how active they are in their industry. Then do a Goggle news search to see if they’ve been in the news for any reason, good or bad. When you’ve done your research, you can be assured that you will stand out among the crowd of applicants with your ability to speak informatively about the company and its activities.

Tell Stories
The single biggest drawback of resumes is their focus on titles, dates and responsibilities. But your real job consists of daily stories that demonstrate how you work with others, clarify the skills you bring to each project and explain how you achieved specific results. Facts are forgettable while stories are memorable. For each position that you’ve held, write down the three most compelling and illustrative stories that demonstrate your expertise, your commitment and your management style.

Engage in Conversation
An interview is a dialogue, not a monologue. Although the interviewer will typically control the conversation and ask most of the questions, you need to engage the interviewer during your responses. If you’re asked about specific technical qualifications, respond precisely then ask how your skills would fit in or fill a need with the employer. Your responses should be limited to two minutes before you ask your own question concerning how your talent and experience would fit in with the employer’s organization. This is an excellent time to determine if you fit into their organization and culture. If their management style revolves around a command and control dynamic but you excel in an open organization with a less formal management structure, then both you and they should discover this early in the search process. Ask questions and engage in a real conversation about life and work within their company.

Final Thought
When you answer your phone, and there’s an employer on the other end, you’re on. You have to be prepared to convey your professional strengths, relate the value you bring to an organization and express your enthusiasm for their company.  Think ahead about what you will say, how you will respond to difficult questions, and have your personal stories memorized that will demonstrate the skills and experience you offer. Use your resume as a guide but let the conversation extend to the employer’s current pain and problems that hiring you will alleviate. If you’ve prepared, you won’t be anxious and you’ll deliver the great first impression that will get you the face to face interview that you really want.

Alec’s approach was so simple and so direct, that it will undoubtedly be copied frequently by other job seekers. And why not? It was imaginative, it was unique and it worked. No reason others shouldn’t push the same envelopes in their job search endeavors as well and take full ownership of their personal brand and determine precisely how it’s presented.

For those imaginative small business owners, you can do the exact same thing when preparing to meet with a client who needs SEO or social media services. Buy the Google adwords for their company name a few days ahead of your meeting. Then, during your pitch, ask them to Google themselves and see your pitch for their precise needs at the top of the page. They’ll wonder how you got the top position, they’ll be impressed that you know how to manipulate the page rankings and you’ll have demonstrated your capacity to outimagine your competitors.

Bottom line, you and your firm can appear distinctive and memorable. And that’s always a good thing.

In Episode 9 of our real-life, real-time job search experiment with Cleveland sales executive Tim Krenn, we prepare for an interview with the CEO of a potential employer.

Tim’s success in developing his personal branding characteristics and his distinctive personal branding statement (I’m the guy who can build the relationships with the people you most want to do business with) accelerated his job search success and resulted in positive interviews with the sales and HR directors of a local technology company.

While Tim prepared for his initial interviews by reviewing our video series on The Toughest Interview Questions Tim’s next step – interviewing with the company’s CEO – offers some distinctive challenges that differ from the standard job interview.

1. The CEO is not making the hiring decision. Although the CEO runs the company, in most cases hiring decisions are ultimately left to the executive who will manage the new hire. The desired result after interviewing with the CEO is permission to hire you, not a mandate to hire you.
2. The CEO can veto your hire. While the CEO typically won’t make the hiring decision, a disappointing interview can result in the CEO’s refusal to hire you. The CEO always has veto authority if they don’t believe you have the right skill set, experience or personal characteristics to succeed within their organization.
3. The CEO’s priorities are different from the hiring manager. Your interview with the hiring manager will likely explore in great detail your previous experience and how you would transfer your talents to their company and help him succeed on a day to day basis. The CEO has entirely different priorities and is focused on organizational issues, not departmental issues. As a job seeker you need to understand the CEO’s priorities include growing the company, developing talent, reducing costs and maintaining organizational cohesion. Your responses should focus on the CEO’s needs and how your hire can help him reach his organizational goals.
4. Culture trumps talent. The most frequently underestimated aspect of the CEO interview is the importance of company culture to the CEO. Successful companies align their employees behind shared values that define how the company does business and how employees deal with each other. No matter how talented you are, if your personal and professional values don’t align with the company’s, neither of you will be successful. CEO’s understand the critical importance of company culture and need to be reassured that you embrace their priorities and values.
5. The CEO’s questions will differ from the hiring manager’s. The CEO will typically be less interested in all the specific details of your past and will explore broader themes dealing with your understanding of their industry and their company, your personal goals and aspirations and your personal characteristics that can provide value to their company. Although you should be ready to answer the typical job interview questions, you should be prepared to answer a lot more questions dealing with how you envision your future and your career progression with the organization.
6. There’s no more important first impression. The CEO is accustomed to making quick judgments and decisions, and he’ll be looking intently for indications of potential problems or lack of fit with his organization. Your first impression must match his expectations of professionalism, attention to detail and consideration. The little things can have enormous impact, so make sure that you’re dressed impeccably, your shoes are shined, you have a pen available in your pocket, you have a portfolio containing fresh copies of your resume and a notepad to take notes and you show enthusiasm for the company, its industry and your specific position.

You should be excited about the opportunity to interview with the CEO. Reaching this milestone means that everything you’ve done so far has been successful and the company is hoping that you clear this final hurdle. So do your research, prepare for the questions that the CEO is likely to ask, show your confidence and enthusiasm and get ready for the job offer.

Your interviewer is going to expect that as an interested applicant to their company that you’ve done some homework and will come prepared to ask some insightful questions. However, what many job seekers refuse to acknowledge is that the primary purpose of the interview is to make the interviewer comfortable and confident in their hiring decision. It’s not about you, it’s about them.

Most of the questions that should never be asked during an interview are focused on what’s in it for the job seeker. Asking these questions portrays the job seeker as interested only in their own interests, not in the company’s interests and can torpedo your chances to secure an offer.

1. What does your company do? There is simply no excuse to arrive for any job interview without thoroughly researching the company and understanding their company, their history, their products and something about their industry and their position in that industry.
2. Do you do background checks? This question will sound the alarms in the interviewer’s head, immediately triggering concerns about what you may be hiding. Assume that all companies will investigate your background, confirm your academic credentials, check with your references and validate all periods of employment.
3. Do you do drug tests? Like the previous question, asking if they do drug tests raises concerns that you might not be prepared to pass a drug test or need some advance notice. Again, assume that every company will require a drug test and adjust your lifestyle if necessary to pass the test.
4. Do you have any other jobs available? If it becomes apparent during the interview that the job you’re interviewing for is well below your qualifications or anticipated compensation, it makes sense to interrupt the interviewer and inform them that you need to understand the growth potential of the position since you have 15 years of experience, have managed people and earned 25% more. That allows the interviewer to either explain the potential of the position or shift gears and present another opening that is more congruent with your experience.
5. Can you guarantee me that I’ll still have a job here a year from now? There are no absolutes in business, and there is no guarantee of future employment. Asking this question suggests that you have an expectation that the company owes you your job, not that you owe them your best effort. Work hard, demonstrate your value and you’ll likely still have your job in a year.
6. Can you tell me what public transportation is available nearby? Getting to work is your responsibility. So is learning how to get to work. If you require public transportation, investigate its convenience and timeliness before your interview. It’s not the company’s responsibility to show you how you can get to work on time.
7. Is (my/my spouse’s/my child’s) medical condition covered under your insurance plan? Although it’s illegal to ask you about any specific medical conditions you might have, if you volunteer that you or a family member has a chronic condition, that revelation may influence their decision to hire you. It’s perfectly fine to ask for a copy of their employee benefits booklet after a job offer is made, but it’s a bad idea to reveal any serious medical conditions during the interview process.
8. How many breaks do I get each day? Can I see the break room? Asking any questions about breaks implies that you’re more interested in those times when you don’t have to work than you are in performing the job itself. This prohibition also applies to asking anything about smoking breaks. Many companies prohibit smoking entirely and others recognize the additional health care burdens that frequently accompany smokers and prefer to hire non-smokers. Best to keep your concerns about breaks to yourself than provide a reason for an employer to reject you.
9. How many warnings do you give before someone is fired? Asking about any type of disciplinary process will raise immediate concerns about your suitability for the position. The interviewer will immediately wonder if you’ve had disciplinary issues in the past and if you will be difficult to work with. Better to avoid you altogether if there are any management concerns.
10. How soon can I transfer to another position? After spending the interview convincing the interviewer that you’re competent and interested in the job, it would be a huge mistake to imply that you’re more interested other potential opportunities. This question announces that you’ll jump at the first opportunity that presents itself and won’t be fully committed to the job that’s being considered.

Though readers may view this ongoing series tracking the job search of Cleveland sales executive Tim Krenn as an interesting case study, for Tim this is real life. The guidance we provide needs to produce real results in the form of a job offer out there in the real world.

That’s why this morning’s call from Tim was great news and an affirmation that we’re guiding him on the right path.

Tim had an interview this morning with a large technology company needing to break into a new market. Their sales director met with Tim and told him that they were interviewing a lot of candidates so he needed to know why he should consider Tim for the position.

With all the work that Tim had devoted recently to preparing his personal brand statement and constructing the stories that demonstrated his three key competencies, he was prepared to hit the question out of the park.

Tim immediately related his personal branding statement:

I’m the guy who can build the relationsips with the people you want to do business with.

And then recounted the stories from his professional experiences that demonstrated his ability to penetrate new markets, develop strong personal relationships and gain enduring market share.

The sales director told Tim that he was the only candidate who had a concise and direct answer to the question: why should I hire you? And it was the single element that vaulted Tim into leading consideration for the position.

Your personal brand is powerful and effective when thoughtfully constructed and deployed. Build yours today.

Day 4 of our real-life, real-time job search with Cleveland sales executive Tim Krenn.

For those of you just tuning in, we’re documenting the real-life job strategies and efforts of a Cleveland-based sales executive whose looking for a new job.

So far, we’ve had Tim create his social media identities on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, we had him take a headshot that could be used as his visual identity across all his platforms, we created a professional blog bullgoosesales.com focusing on power sales and networking and we’re in the process of creating Tim’s personal brand.

Creating a distinctive and memorable personal brand may be the most important component of your entire job search. Every job seeker is armed with the same tools: a resume, cover letters and a lot of hope.

But, not matter how well written your résumé is or how thoughtful your cover letter is written, you still haven’t done enough to separate yourself from the rest of the people seeking the same job. You’ve got to stand apart. You’ve got to be distinctive. You’ve got to be memorable. Bottom line: you need to build your personal brand.

Your Unique Selling Proposition
At the core of your personal brand is your personal branding statement. What is it that separates you in your professional field? What makes you unique and desirable?

In sales, this would be called your Unique Selling Proposition. What is the one thing that will make a hiring manager tell himself that he’s got to meet you?

The problem most job seekers make when they define themselves is their definition is simple a restatement of their professional responsibilities. “I’m a recruiter .” Or “I’m a tax accountant.” But that’s not nearly enough. Your branding statement has to be much deeper than that. It must really reflect your core strengths and attributes that an employer will desperately want to have.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, when working with Tim, his first attempt at defining who he was resulted in the generic statement “I’m a sales executive.” Having known Tim for nearly 20 years and having worked with him professionally, I knew there was much more to him than that.

360 Degree Evaluation
I gave Tim an assignment to talk with his former managers, peers and clients and ask them how they would describe him. This process of getting feedback from people above, below and at your peer level is often referred to as a 360 degree evaluation and can be enlightening and revealing.

The feedback Tim received was pretty consistent and included descriptions like: genuine, passionate, empathetic, great listener, adjusts to anyone, understanding, personable, sincere, caring, achieving, personable and visionary.

The dominant theme revolved around Tim’s ability to connect with his clients and peers and build lasting relationships. And in sales, those relationships are crucial because people do business with people they like. Tim builds lasting friendships with everyone from the machine operator to the CEO and is able to convert these relationships into sales.

The Branding Statement
This recognition resulted in Tim creating his own personal branding statement:
I’m the guy who can build the relationships with the people you most want to do business with.

It’s simple, it’s focused and it’s intriguing. It’s the type of statement that invites the next question from a hiring manager: Tell me more.

Note what it wasn’t. It wasn’t a laundry list of everything that Tim can do. It didn’t include his record of achievement, though that record is impressive. It didn’t focus on his strategic sales and business development experience, though his skills there are also strong. But Tim focused on one thing. A single differentiator that leads to curiosity, interest and a face to face meeting where Tim can tell his whole story.

And that’s where we’re headed next. Telling the stories that illustrate who you are and why they need you. Stay with us as our real-life, real-time job search continues here on the Job Shopper.