Selling yourself: What's your USP?
Here’s the brutal truth: job hunting is sales.
You are both the product and the salesperson. The employer is the customer.
Especially when you’re older, and maybe you haven’t looked for a job in a while, standing out from the crowd of job seekers can seem like a daunting task.
Defining your USP, or Unique Selling Proposition, in detail is a great step in the right direction. If you don’t know what you’re selling, how can you expect anyone else to buy it?
What is a USP?
At its most basic, this simply means how you differentiate yourself from all the other similar job seekers out there.
What makes you unique? What makes you better? How do you set yourself apart from all the other people who do what you do?
(If your first thought reading that was, “No one does what I can do,” then you’re halfway there.)
Why is the USP important? Before you can stand out among the dozens or hundreds of applicants for a job, you need to figure out, in detail, why and how you do.
Creating your USP
One great way to start is with a freeform brainstorming session, going over these main concepts:
Audience: Who is your ideal employer? Be as specific as possible, and don’t be afraid to exclude people. (You might even think about the question: who *isn’t* my ideal employer?)
Problem: What problem do you solve for that ideal employer? What pain are you eliminating? How is your employer better off after hiring you?
Position: What sets you apart from others? What makes you unique? There are many ways to differentiate yourself: experience, range of skills, perspective, and many others. Focus on a handful of things that really make you one of a kind – things that make a tangible difference to someone who would hire you.
Getting to the heart of it
Once you have done that brainstorming, edit all of it down to a handful of sentences – a short paragraph bringing together your ideal employer, the problem you solve for them, and how you solve that problem in a unique way.
Then put it aside for a while, maybe a few days. When it’s fresh, come back and do your best to edit that paragraph down to one sentence. That will take some effort.
“I am sorry this letter is so long, but I did not have time to make it short.”
-Mark Twain
But in making this effort, both the thinking and the writing, you will set yourself apart from the flood of candidates who are just “spraying and praying” with job applications. This is especially useful if you’re older, because you often have to prove yourself in ways that younger people do not. And your USP will inform everything you do going forward: resumes, cover letters, interviews – even how you look at job listings.
You can do it. I have faith in you.