This is the last thing anybody wants to do, it’s not easy, its awkward and everyone always worries how they come off.
But it’s a necessity to life – especially in technology.
Whether it be to an interview, a performance review or meeting someone at a conference for the first time, at some point you are going to have to Sell Yourself… not for the sale… but for the you.
Now this not about shilling the product you just spent 8 months working on, no this is about you the person having to show your team, your leader, your peers, etc that you deserve to be there and better yet, you deserve to take on new opportunities.
So what do you focus on when you are just selling you?
- What do you bring to the table?
- Why are you invaluable?
- What unique skill sets do you have? (Notice unique, everyone knows JQuery but what about your knowledge makes you brilliant).
- What would be the impact if you left? How much of a crater would you leave?
- Keep up with your platform and fields of interest in your industry?
But then how do you do this?
- It’s not a gathering of resumes, but the best way to show what you bring to the table it to put your work ON the table – show people what you have done, inside and outside your team.
- Take the hard, most risky work, volunteer for it, own it, make it yours and make it sing.
- Embed your creativity into all that you build, if we wanted templates, we wouldn’t be here.
- If/When you leave – you want them calling you months after you have left – not because your code is so bad, but because it is so good and you took the time to understand the problem in order to build it.
- Read, Code, Blog – Learn it, live it, love it, never stop, build your own following.
These are some ideas, but the list can go on and on and I hope your mind is whirring with ideas.
But here’s the secret to selling yourself, if you are doing it right, no one will ever know.
