Marketing Your Graduate Degree
A Graduate Degree is a great addition to your professional portfolio. It shows that you consider yourself to be a specialist in your field, and that you have gained knowledge that will help you expand your professional abilities. That said, having a graduate degree does not automatically open doors for you. When you are looking for work opportunities, you are still going to be scrutinized for the entirety of your experience, and what you can do for employers. Therefore, you have to work at making sure that you know what they need, what you have to offer, and how to clearly make the connection for them. Here are some suggestions of how to do that.
Know Your Target
In order to know what to say to people about yourself, you have to know what their needs are. What do they need? Who are their customers? What are their corporate goals? How does what you would do for them fit in with attaining their goals? The most impressively written resume and cover letter for a marketing position will not be looked at seriously for a communications disorders job.
Know what the job titles are that you are most suited for, and know what skills and experiences companies are looking for in those positions. If you’re qualified for them, you probably already have these, but you have to communicate to others that you do have them.
What Do You Have To Offer?
When potential employers look at your qualifications, they don’t just see a Masters Degree, but a person who has had numerous experiences. Maybe you worked in the family business for years, or did a really big project on an internship. Do you have experiences dealing with different cultures?
You are the product and, as in any marketing campaign, you need to figure out what your differentiating feature is. How are you different from everyone else who will apply for the positions that you want? Start looking at everything you’ve done in your life, and find the experiences that you’ve really enjoyed and how you can tie those experiences into your marketing of You, Inc.
One of the best ways to do this is to ask people whom you have worked with for their thoughts on what you do really well. Their answers may surprise you. Something that you may have thought was “no big deal” could be something that was really impressive to someone else. Use this exercise and others to come up with a list of your “saleable features.”
Making the Connection for the Employer
Now that you know what you have to offer, and what the employer needs, your next step is to make it obvious that you have the skills and experience that are needed in the position you’re looking for. The best way to do this is to show the areas where you have demonstrated your abilities in the past, specifically detailing the talents you know that they need and you like to use.
These are best used in accomplishment stories. Accomplishments are compelling when you can frame them in the SAR method:
- Situation: What was the situation that you found yourself in?
- Action: What action did you take to change or improve the situation?
- Result: What was the situation as a result of your action?
Example:
While I was interning at Channel 12, I was in charge of distributing publicity materials to community organizations. I noticed that while we had many publications, we did not have anything on having our on-air staff speak at community events, and we had a number of requests for this information. After mentioning this to some of my co-workers and getting some advise, I made a proposal to management that we should put together a brochure for this special need. After getting approval, I worked with the graphic designers and the public relations manager to craft a tri-fold handout which detailed how to arrange visits from Channel 12 anchors to schools and community events. Since completing the handout, it’s been the 5th most downloaded file from the Channel 12 website, and public appearances increased by 8%.
Where to Use Accomplishments
You should use your accomplishments in all ways of marketing yourself. Practice using your accomplishments in your:
- Resume
- Cover Letter
- “Elevator Speech” (What you says when asked ‘Tell Me About Yourself’)
- Conversations at Networking and Professional Events.
