No, this article is not about apes who enjoy talking about themselves. Instead, it focuses on certain aspects of human nature that are sometimes uncomfortable for the technical professional. In fact, I’d say that grabbing onto these skills and really working them is what separates the winners in the race for the best jobs.

Oftentimes the topic of self-promotion is so uncomfortable that some people would rather hide behind a fermentor than come out and deal with the subject directly. That’s because these ideas may contradict their academic training — or even cultural values from their upbringing. Not every country is as promotional as we are in America; everything seems to have some kind of spin here.

In South Asia, for example, employees are taught to take a very humble approach when dealing with their bosses. As you might guess, this approach doesn’t work well in the States at salary review time or during job interviews.

Take a look at this definition, a favorite of mine, and a quote that I think perfectly describes a fear that many technical people carry around with them:

Do You Suffer From this Inherent Fear?

You wouldn’t think that being able to stand up and take credit for what you do well would be such a difficult task. Yet, for more than two decades, I’ve watched as people trash their careers by adhering to the “rules” their professors taught them during school — rules about good science being all they need to be successful.

“Don’t worry,” that professor told you. “Just concentrate on doing good science, and it will sell itself.”

What a crock of hooey! In the job market (or day-to-day life in a company for that matter) you have to be able to tell people what you do well and stick up for your strengths and positive attributes. No one else is going to do it for you. In other words (and here’s the bad news) there’s a significant amount of selling involved in moving up the career ladder.

The reason I label this bad news is that most people reading this article don’t consider sales as a part of their job description. Ugh. It sounds as if we’re talking about used cars, or maybe that disgusting reagent salesperson with the unusual ability to clear the lab when she is spotted in the hallway.

Recognizing the Problem and Moving Forward

No matter how strong your technical abilities, those skills won’t advance your career unless others are aware of them. You are probably not comfortable with slick advice about how to advance a career by “stroking” those around you, and I don’t intend to lead you in that direction.

However, we all know how important it is to have the support and respect of your co-workers and the boss. If you are the sort of person who can’t express your strengths, than you will definitely be held back by those who can. And there are plenty of people out there who could take advantage of your weakness.

Think about people you know who have succeeded in the job market. Is it always the best engineer who gets the job? Or have you discovered (as I have) that these few are consistently the best at the process of getting the job? This process, to a certain extent, relies on salesmanship and marketing.

But you don’t need an MBA for this marketing plan. You can approach it with the low-budget, under-the-radar style I’d refer to as “Guerrilla Marketing.”

Make Like a Guerrilla

The term “guerrilla” (as opposed to gorilla) has been liberally used over the last few years to mean “a modest effort.” Books like Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson have popularized the concept of managing a large-company public appearance for some very small companies.

Similarly, I think it is important to have a marketing campaign going for your career, at least if you want to move up in your organization or be visible to those who can help you move up in another company. This isn’t the unethical, “sleaze” approach to selling yourself. This is simply doing everything that you possibly can to be in the right place at the right time. It is a matter of positioning.

“Positioning” is another word used by the professional marketer. It refers to educating the public about the strengths of a given product. In other words, good positioning ensures that the product is placed into the proper perspective for the consumer in a world of competitive products. A Mercedes-Benz is “positioned” as a luxury class vehicle of outstanding quality and it says something about the lifestyle of its owner. Advertising agencies work long and hard to put this simple picture into our minds.

How Do You Position Yourself?

Let’s say that you and I meet at a convention. We shake hands and exchange greetings. What do you think might be my first question, the one after you ask me how the job market looks? I’ll tell you right now what I’d ask. It’s the same that any hiring manager you meet along the way is going to come up with . . .

“Tell me about yourself.” Just four simple words, and not even a question, but it sure carries a lot of weight. It shows me that you suffer from the fear of self-promotion, or it provides the clues that tell me you’re a pompous windbag. In short, it’s a question you’ll get asked a hundred times in any year of job seeking, and one for which you need to have an answer ready to go.

One weapon in your Guerrilla marketing arsenal will be this short, sweet, and very specific response — one that positions you for the kind of job that you might be looking for. Written on paper, it’s only a paragraph, a few sentences at most. But one that you have committed to memory, as this isn’t the place to fumble.

Positioning on Paper

Similarly, we need to consider how we position our resume. Have you positioned yourself as “Biochemist” when your competitor for the same job has positioned herself as “Biochemist and Diagnostic Kit Product Developer”? In a world of CV’s where so many look the same, that additional positioning may be just what is required to get noticed.

Should one present the same resume or CV to all opportunities? Not if you want to get hired, you don’t. While this is not a resume-writing column, my belief is that proper self-promotion begins by re-organizing the way you present your data on a CV. This might mean that you have a dozen versions of your paperwork used for different purposes. Those applications went out with specific targets in mind and the language appealed to those open jobs.

Here’s an example of how choosing the right wording up front makes a big difference. Look at the following descriptions of two people, and decide which of these sounds like someone you’d most like to meet:

Person A: Intelligent, Sensitive, Hard-Working, Envious, Crafty

Person B: Envious, Crafty, Sensitive, Hard-Working, Intelligent

C’mon, admit it. Before you figured out that they were identical lists, didn’t you think that Person A sounded a lot more like someone you could associate with? This is due to what Dr. William Lareau, author of the book, “Conduct Expected,” calls the Primacy Effect. According to Dr. Lareau, you need to remember how important that first one-third of the first page of your resume is.

“Human beings have a marked tendency to attach extra significance or weight to information that arrives first,” he describes in the example from his book. That has been proven time and time again in our recruiting office. It baffles me why CV’s arrive in my office daily with the important information buried somewhere in the back — instead of up-front where those job-specific details belonged.

Although I never want to be accused of making snap judgments, I have found that I can usually guess at how an interview will go based on my review of a CV and the first few minutes of a telephone conversation. If in that brief meeting a person has difficulty telling me what it is that they do well, with a few relevant accomplishments, than I can make an assumption that, even with preparation, they will have the same difficulty when sitting in front of our hiring manager.

What can you do to overcome this fear of self-promotion? Begin by developing a thorough understanding of your own abilities and past accomplishments. Take a close look at your CV and determine just how you’re positioning yourself against the competition. Remember that few situations in a scientist’s life require salesmanship in the way that the job search does!


References

Conduct Expected, W. Lareau, 1985, New Win Publishing Inc., Clinton, NJ 08809

Are You Earning What You Are Worth?, G.W. Dudley & S.L. Goodson, 1995, Behavioral Sciences Research Press, Dallas TX 75234

David G. Jensen is the founder and chief executive officer of CTI Executive Search, a unit of CareerTrax Inc. (Sedona, AZ). CTI is a leading recruiting firm in the biosciences. You can reach Dave at (928) 282-5366.