In nursing job interviews and other high-stakes career-related interactions, it’s your responsibility to make the case for why you’re an amazing nurse and the perfect fit for a particular position or healthcare organization. How do you make the case for who you are and what you bring to the table? How do you take ownership of your personal brand
?
Own Your Brand
The first thing to understand is that you represent your brand, and when you’re in the nursing job market, you’re proclaiming your worth.
Every nurse or healthcare professional has a brand, whether they know it or not. Some aspects of your brand include, but are not limited to:
Resume, cover letter, and other career-related documents
LinkedIn profile
Social media and internet presence
Networking style
Your network
Organizations you belong to
Community service and volunteerism
Education
Personality, communication style, etc.
Here are some questions to ask yourself:
What’s the nature of my personal brand?
How do I identify myself?
How do I communicate my expertise and skills?
What’s my 30-second elevator pitch?
How do I want to be perceived as a nursing professional?
What makes me a valuable employee?
Knowing yourself and what you want to communicate is crucial, especially to those who might be your next employer, client, colleague, or collaborator.
It’s About Sales
Some nurses may find the term “branding” difficult to digest, but it’s the best way to describe it. In the context of personal branding, we can consider the job market and career development processes to be very much akin to the sales process.
I don’t blame you for saying, “Me? A salesperson? But I’m a nurse, not a seller of used cars!” However, when you apply for a job, submit your resume, write a cover letter, and attend a job interview, you’re essentially selling yourself to that potential employer.
Remember that the thing you’re selling is you, including your knowledge, life experience, professional background, expertise, and everything else that defines who you are as a human being, healthcare professional, and nurse.
Learning to be a successful and convincing salesperson is one key to nursing career success in a crowded job marketplace with stiff competition.
Own Your Value
One secret to making your case is identifying, recognizing, and owning your value. If a potential employer wants you to explain why you’re the best fit for a position, you must clearly and effectively articulate what makes you stand out from the crowd.
Identify it:
To identify what’s superlative about you, objectively examine who you are and how you came to be the person and nurse you are.
Consider doing a 360-degree review of your nursing career, analyzing and compiling a list of your certifications, training, education, knowledge, and experience. Remember that so-called “soft skills” like communication and emotional intelligence are just as important as “hard skills” like venipuncture and catheter insertion.
Recognize it:
Once you’ve identified, qualified, and quantified your nursing career profile, the next step is recognizing the facts of your expertise, experience, knowledge, and ultimate marketability. You can have an alphabet soup of letters after your name, but if you don’t see your worth, those letters serve little purpose. For example, you need to acknowledge that you took the CCRN certification course, passed with flying colors, and are a critical care leader in your institution.
Own it:
After recognizing your value, the next giant step is internalizing and owning who you are so you can speak matter-of-factly about your accomplishments and skills, letting go of any shame, embarrassment, or self-defeating thoughts or beliefs that get in your way.
Find the strength to unapologetically look a potential employer in the eye and tell them about your amazing experience and expertise. They need to know that you’re worth the thousands of dollars their institution will shell out to onboard, train, and integrate you into the organization’s culture, so paint the picture of your value for them.
In a job interview, you must have the wherewithal to make the case for why you’re the ideal candidate, and this first comes from your own belief in yourself. Many nurses have trouble tooting their own horn, but this is what’s necessary in order to make an assertive case for your value.
You’re Worth It
You are the product or sum of your experiences, expertise, knowledge, skills, education, and life experience. You also have intuition, your feeling nature, and your particular brand of nurseness.
When you walk into an interview or market yourself for a job or promotion, this is not a moment to be shy, modest, or withholding.
The next chapter of your life and career is before your very eyes. It’s time to step into the limelight and wax poetic about what a great investment you are.
A little bravado and some bald-faced self-promotion are called for when trying to advance your career. Be an assertive communicator who isn’t afraid to stand up and tell it like it is when it comes to what you’re all about. Your future awaits you.
The post Own Your Nursing Brand first appeared on Daily Nurse.