Selling Air: Market your entry-level career


Everything has a market. If you could go back in time 30 years and tell someone people would be buying water in 2005 for more than the price of gasoline, you would probably be severely ridiculed.


Go back 15 years and tell someone you would be able to buy air in an oxygen bar and they would think you had been hitting the sauce.


Water and oxygen are interesting products because they are readily available, free and vital to life. Demand for them has been created out of, well, thin air. The basic principle of selling air or water is the same as selling an entry-level career in which you have no experience.


Entry-level workers are cheap, plentiful, and easily found. As a new graduate/entry-level worker with little or no real experience, what can you do to sell yourself to employers? The same as if you were selling air – package it well, market it effectively, and create a demand.


Packaging your budding career is the first and most important step. How you present your background and education in a resume is the make-or-break point. You have 35 to 60 seconds to pique the interest of the employer. The entry-level resume should be hard-hitting and aggressively written.


The key is to find your point of individuality and play upon it. Do you have an exceptional academic record that can be highlighted in your entry-level resume? Do you have an internship that adds value to your degree? Have you worked your way through school and financed your own education?


Appearance is also key to a good resume. By packaging your qualities in an attractive, eye-catching format, your entry-level resume will have an advantage over your competition. Appearance can be more than pretty whiz-bangs in a Word format. Even database-friendly entry-level resumes can be made more attractive with the strategic use of spacing, font size, and placement of text.


Marketing yourself as a valuable entry-level hire is the second component of success. With the Internet, sending out your entry-level resume is very easy, but are you sending to the correct people?


An indiscriminate resume blast may not be the best way if you have set strict parameters on location preference. You need to find out who would be in the market for entry-level workers with your education, and who might be a good match for your goals.


Creating demand is the third aspect of marketing your entry-level career. Personal career branding backed by solid research and an excellent resume will compel potential employers to contact you about joining their teams.

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