Peter Allen shares a few tips on how to improve the view of how others see you.
Anyone who’s looking for a job—and who isn’t looking for a job, a promotion, or a next career step? — needs to answer the important question, “How do people see me?”
As I work with career coaching clients, this topic comes up frequently. We work carefully on such questions as these:
Does your resume tell a compelling story?
Do you have the right photo, banner, and headline for your LinkedIn profile, which is everybody’s home page right now?
How do you answer that dreaded four-word opening, “Tell me about yourself”?
All this has to do with how image, reality, and perception come together.
What do you do when the pieces are not completely aligned? The answer: you need a makeover!
Tips from Broadway
I haven’t seen the Broadway musical Wicked, but I’ve become a little obsessed with one of its songs, “Popular.” In this song, Galinda (who later becomes Glinda the Good Witch) explains how she’s planning to help the green and less prepossessing Elphaba (the future Wicked Witch of the West). Galinda is a classic perky sorority girl, and the song—cleverly tongue in cheek—explains how Galinda plans to make Elphaba “popular.”
The music is delightful (give your day a three-minute lift and watch this version), but it’s the lyrics we need to look at here.
Popular, you’re gonna be popular!
I’ll teach you the proper poise
When you talk to boys,
Little ways to flirt and flounce! . . .
You’ll hang with the right cohorts,
You’ll be good at sports,
Know the slang you’ve got to know.
So let’s start—’cause you’ve got an awfully long way to go.
It’s not about aptitude,
It’s the way you’re viewed,
So it’s very shrewd to be . . .
Very, very popular—like me!
Now, nobody’s going to find (and keep) a new job without aptitude, but the way you’re viewed matters a lot, too, so they can find you and discover just how great you are.
Read the full article, Popular, You’re Gonna Be Popular!, on LinkedIn.