How to Master the 3 Moments of Truth for Job Seekers

15 marketing tips for best selling your skills on the job search.

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

What is The Zero Moment of Truth?

Google recently launched Winning the Zero Moment of Truth, a powerful new ebook by Jim Lecinski, Google's Managing Director of US Sales & Service.

• The Zero Moment of Truth, or ZMOT for short, is the online decision-making point where today’s consumer determines whether to proceed in purchasing a product or service.

The Internet has not only changed how we, the consumers, decide what to buy, but also the way that marketers of products and services must promote their offerings to grow their businesses.

Before the digital age, the traditional product marketing model included the following stages:

Traditional Marketing Model

• Stimulus: Person sees an ad or hears about a product
• First Moment of Truth: Person goes to the store, finds the product and buys product
• Second Moment of Truth: Person takes product home, uses product and responds to the experience

Therefore, to successfully grow their sales, marketers had to ensure that they had effective and creative advertising (Stimulus), strong shelf presence with multiple facings and product displays at key retailers (First Moment of Truth) and product and usage experience quality that satisfied or exceeded consumer expectations (Second Moment of Truth).

With the evolution of the Internet and social media, the model has changed to include the Zero Moment of Truth or ZMOT.

New Marketing Model

• Stimulus: Person sees an ad or hears about a product
• Zero Moment of Truth: Person “googles” the product to learn more about its features and to see what other people have to say about it
• First Moment of Truth: Person goes to the store, finds the product and buys product
• Second Moment of Truth: Person takes product home, uses product and responds to the experience which may involve posting reviews or telling others about it

Now in order to be successful, companies worldwide must also win the Zero Moment of Truth by ensuring their brands, products, services and events are present, found and liked online.

Why the ZMOT is critical for job seekers

As career professionals, we really need to put on our self-marketing caps and look at this model from a career search and management perspective to understand how we might master these 3 moments of truth for our own career success.

New Marketing Model for Job Seekers

• Stimulus: Employer receives a job application or resume and/or comes across a potential candidate online or in person
• Zero Moment of Truth: Employer does some online background research to learn more about this candidate
• First Moment of Truth: Employer conducts an interview(s) with the candidate to further investigate company and job fit
• Second Moment of Truth: Employer hires candidate, manages candidate and provides performance feedback to candidate over time

While this is clearly relevant to job seekers, this applies to all professionals, whether you’re seeking an opportunity, currently employed or working for yourself.

Current employees may simply be focusing more on their Second Moment of Truth so to both ensure their performance and growth potential meets or exceeds the company’s expectations and ultimately maintain their employment.

Entrepreneurs may actually be passing through all three Moments more often than anyone as they are constantly networking and pitching their brands and offerings to gain sales and/or clients.

How to master the 3 moments of truth for long-term career success

Zero Moment of Truth

Invest some time and energy into being present online, being found online and coming across credible, competent and qualified in whatever career direction, function and/or industry we have chosen to pursue.

This could include many different tactics, including:

• Claiming your own domain and maintaining a personal website
• Completing a 100% profile and getting active on LinkedIn
• Requesting LinkedIn Recommendations
• Cleaning up your Facebook profile
• Blogging on industry-relevant topics on leading blogs or your own
• Getting quoted in industry publications via services like HelpaReporter.com
• Getting published and/or self-publishing content

First Moment of Truth

• Make sure you identify your personal brand and develop a short 20-30 second elevator pitch to introduce yourself, your brand and your value.
• Practice networking online and in-person with others in your industry or field of interest.
• Consider reaching out to new contacts for informational interviews, as well as practicing your interview skills with a mentor or someone you trust.
• You may also want to review your work history and write out several experiences that feature your skills and/or accomplishments.

All of these activities will not only help you expand your network of contacts, but will also help make you more comfortable and confident presenting yourself and your personal brand when the time comes to stand out from the crowd in an interview for new career opportunities.

Second Moment of Truth

Once you get the job, you now need to perform and prove to your employer that they made the right decision.

• Ask your managers and cross-functionals as many questions as possible, no matter how dumb they may seem, so that you can hit the ground running in your new role and support them effectively.
• Establish a work-life balance early on that is healthy for you, as this will help motivate you to perform better in the long run.
• Ask for regular feedback and act on your opportunities for self-improvement.
• Don’t forget to ask for recommendations when appropriate, as these will help you later in your career.

Remember that everything you do to master the Second Moment of Truth, including work experience and skills, networking and recommendations, supports future passes through the Zero and First Moments of Truth.

Obviously, these are just some of the countless ways you can master these 3 Moments of Truth; however, using this model and thinking about your career as a cycle through these 3 moments may help you better prepare yourself for both career advancement and career satisfaction.

Question of the article

What are your thoughts? What strategies and tactics do you recommend for mastering these 3 moments?

Tell us in the comments

About the Author

Chris Perry, MBA is a Gen Y brand and marketing generator, a career search and personal branding expert and the founder of Career Rocketeer, MBA Highway, Blogaristo and more.

This article is part of the Over $4000 in Prizes: The 5th Annual JobMob Guest Blogging Contest, which was made possible thanks in large part to our sponsors:

	Marcus Tandler’s JOBlog is Germany’s oldest blog about job search & careers.
	Rabbi Issamar Ginzberg is an internationally acclaimed advisor to successful business owners, known for his small business ideas.
	WebHostingBuzz is a reliable web hosting company based in MA, USA.

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If you liked this article, you must read Why You Should Google Your Name Right Now.

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