How To Market Yourself For The Job Search or Dating Scenes

What you need to reel them in.

This is a guest post by Ofra Kleinberger Riedrich. If you’d also like to guest post here on JobMob, follow these guest post guidelines.

Business relationships are no different from private relationships – the difference occurs because of the context in which the relationship exists.

And so, it has occurred to me that business tactics can surely help people be more successful also in their private life – when looking for a partner, or in the bridge in between – such as when looking for work.

In the words of Rabbi Shmuly Boteach – dating is like going on a series of interviews for the most important position in your life, the position of a spouse. In the search for a loving partner, the modern dating scene allows for business marketing tactics as tools that can assist people to self-market themselves as desirable dates to the opposite sex.

When looking for employment, you need to present yourself at your best to your prospective new boss.

In this short blog, I want to review the AIDA marketing model and how it can be used on the way to true love or new employment on the way to furthering your career.

The “AIDA” Marketing Model

In business schools, a marketing model called AIDA is taught, which refers to a simplification of the process that a client undergoes from first being aware of a product, showing interest in it, contemplating the advantages and disadvantages of buying it, deciding to buy it and then finally making a purchase.

The model is named after the four phases that a potential client goes through before becoming an active customer; taking the first letter of each phase, resulting in the easy to remember acronym AIDA. This short article will review this model from the viewpoint of the search for the perfect partner or the perfect job, as well as the marketing efforts you can undertake to acquire them both.

The Opera AIDA composed by Giuseppe Verdi, deals with a tragic love story, but the AIDA marketing model can perhaps be a means to a happy end. Using the model to find true love or a great job, you need to view yourself as a product that needs to be properly branded in a market of potential partners or would be employers.

If you self-brand properly, your dating or employing “clients” will see you at your best and these potential partners in your private or working worlds will be interested in getting to know you better, on the road to true love or successful employment.

Phase 1: “A” for “Awareness”

In order for potential partners or employers to want to contact you, they first need to be aware that you exist.

The Awareness phase is the time in which you, as a self-marketer, look to expose yourself to as many potential dates or companies as possible. This phase usually starts with modern high exposure marketing tactics, such as creating a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a LinkedIn profile. You should also register yourself in job search websites (e.g. monster.com).

However, if you want to go for a more personal and direct approach and still achieve relatively extended exposure, you need to make small changes in your life routine, so that you can meet new people. Like water ripples, small steps are the starting point of big successes. You have to be realistic. You still need to maintain your routine in such areas as work, children, and daily tasks, but you can make changes that allow you to meet new people by taking a new angle to such regular activities.

• Go to a new gym or drink coffee in a new local spot
• Buy your milk in a new supermarket around the corner, and not in your regular shop
• Start a conversation with people you do not know on the street

Another marketing tactic on a smaller scale that can still be good for exposure is to organize a party. Invite your friends and colleagues and ask them to invite their friends and colleagues. Enlarge your circle of acquaintances. Maybe one of your new found friends will also become your lover, or may know of a new position on the market for a person of your skills.

Phase 2: “I” for “Interest”

A potential partner or employer that has been exposed to you and is aware of your existence must now develop an interest in dating or hiring you. In order to spark such interest, you need to look your best. Cleanliness and appearance are part of your self-marketing efforts. Every product needs to have an attractive package, so that potential clients will take it off the shelf to take a further look.

• Register to a gym and attend regularly
• Personal hygiene is also of the utmost importance. Go see a stylist, get dressing tips – yes, this advice is valid even for men!
• Purchase fashionable new outfits in the right colors for you, iron your shirts and get a new haircut
• Women who are not used to using makeup should start slow, with one product (lipstick or mascara are good to start with) and work their way up to using a full cosmetic line
• Use good perfume, do not buy the cheap stuff

Take time to invest some thought to your appearance, even if you are just going to the supermarket or the grocery store. When going on a date or an interview, dress in accordance with the occasion and the dressing code of the company, or according to the type of outing you have planned.

Phase 3: “D” for “Decision”

After the initial contact and gaining the first interest of the potential date or employer, you have to talk them into “buying the product”, in this case, keep them interested so they will indeed go out with you or choose to invite to another interview.

Conversation is key.

The first few words you say to a new acquaintance and potential partner or employer is parallel to what is known in business as the Elevator Pitch. You have a short time in which to pass over the right marketing message verbally. Your conversation should convey information that will make the right impression on your potential date or prospective employer and assist in their decision to actually continue their liaison with you.

Have you achieved a first date? Make sure your date wants to go out with you again. Did you pass the interview with the direct manager, see how to keep the interest of the company by getting through the HR interview successfully. Keep the interest up so that after each meeting with you they will once again decide to see you again, to want to get to know you better, even fall in love with you or hire you.

How? Be happy and natural. People like to be connected to positive people in both a working atmosphere as well as a private one. Laughter is a great way to succeed in giving your date a good time, its also good in an interview if not overdone or our of place. Think about what you say, but be yourself. You should sell a product that is true, meaning you should truly be who you are.

Remember that it’s not all about you. People liked being listened to. Marketers in business talk about understanding the problems of their clients and branding products as possible solutions in order to increase sales. Listen to your date. Find out what they like. Learn about their interests and prepare your next meeting accordingly.

Listen to your interviewer and answer their questions with relevant information. Try to position yourself as the solution to all the problems your prospective boss may have in your line of work.

Phase 4: “A” for “Action”

You have made all the preparations. Your potential date or prospective employer has undergone the entire purchasing decision process. If you marketed yourself well, you should have acquired a regular date or a new job.

But people are not products, and maybe things did not yet quite work out so well for you? It may well be that a potential partner is aware of your existence, is indeed interested in you and has even inwardly made the decision to ask you out on a date, but shyness or lack of security has prevented them from acting according to their decisions. If that is so, then it’s time for you to take action! Take the initiative and ask someone out! Do not let another person’s shyness be the barrier between you and a true love story from which dreams and fairytales are made of!

Do not let your own reserve be the reason you could not acquire the perfect position you have been dreaming about for so long! Keep initiating, take action and contact prospective employers – until you reach your goal.

By passing on this message of commitment, you are branding yourself as a person who is ready for the long term, and your prospective date or employer will be happy to know that is the case. They continue to purchase your brand, they will stay together with you to form a successful partnership – at home or at work. And the Brothers Grimm would say to this… “And they lived happily ever after…”

About the Author

In 2003 I decided to change my career, and I have been writing about anything and everything ever since. In the last 6 years I have been working as a MarCom Manager, and I have grown professionally and learned alongside the changes in marketing tactics. My blog “The Content Guru” focuses on various and changing tactics available in the modern marketing brief. On LinkedIn: http://il.linkedin.com/in/ofrak007.

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If you liked this article, you'll also enjoy How To Date Your Way to a Job.

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