Job Search = Part Popularity Contest + Part Personal Branding - Work It Daily

Job Search = Part Popularity Contest + Part Personal Branding - Work It Daily This is the last week of the contest we are holding where one lucky reader will win the Ultimate Career Coaching Experience. To enter, you simply have to read this post and then comment why you deserve this package. Then, you need to encourage people to ‘like’ your comment which equates to a vote. The person with the most ‘likes’ by midnight December 31, 2010 is the winner. A dialog has started within the comments as to whether the person who is considered by many as most deserving should lose to the person who was able to get more votes â€" a.k.a. a popularity contest. For those of you who might be thinking, “J.T. didn’t think through how this contest works,” you are mistaken. Actually, I designed this to be part popularity contest. The reason I had people comment in order to enter was because I wanted to see how they currently represent their personal brand. I believe every job seeker is a business-of-one who has to educate potential customers (a.k.a. hiring managers and people who can refer them to hiring managers) on their value. Posting the reason you deserve the Ultimate Career Coaching Experience is the first step in seeing if your personal brand resonates with readers. Do they support you, or do they feel turned-off by the way you present yourself? Additionally, I set the rule the person with the most votes wins. So, even if their brand doesn’t compel readers to vote for them, they can at least show me their determination to win by asking everyone they know to help them. That kind of proactive work to leverage their network is what gets a person hired â€" and it’s the kind of trait I want our winner to have. Why? Because I can help them improve their personal branding, but I can’t force them to make the kind of effort it’s going to take to get hired. That requires a willingness to get out there and ASK for votes beyond the simple comment you place in a post. Which will you vote for? The most deserving, or the most popular? Or, perhaps neither? So, for all of you that haven’t entered, I encourage you to click here » to take a look at the contest comments and ask yourself the following: “Who deserves my vote?” If you don’t choose to ‘like’ any of the posts, then ask yourself, “Why did I decide nobody was worthy of winning the Ultimate Career Coaching Experience?” Then, post your reasons why below. In doing so, you’ll help lots of job seekers understand how their representation of their personal brand missed the mark. That kind of feedback can really help a job seeker. Photo credit: Shutterstock Have you joined our career growth club?Join Us Today!