A Proposition All Your Own

Do we have a proposition for you

Companies spend considerable amounts of time, money, effort and brain power developing things like mission and vision statements, positioning statements and core competencies as well as something called their “value propositions.”

Just what is a value proposition? According to investopedia.com, “a value proposition is a business or marketing statement that a company uses to summarize why a consumer should buy a product or use a service. This statement convinces a potential consumer that one particular product or service will add more value or better solve a problem than other similar offerings.”

But you’re looking for a job

That’s all well and good, but what does this mean to you and to your job search? No doubt you’ve people say – and you may even have read it here – that looking for a job is just like the sales process – except that the product that you’re selling is… YOU!

If you want an employer to buy “you,” you had better have a pretty good reason. You had better have a good “value proposition” as to why they should buy you and not someone else.

As an older job seeker, your first thought may be to tout your experience. That’s only natural. But what exactly does that mean to the employer? “I’ve got 20 years experience,” you say. “So what,” answers the interviewer. “The last person I interviewed had 23 years experience. Why should I hire you?”

You need to be prepared to answer that last question. Experience is a good thing but how do you translate that into “value” for your prospective employer? By having more experience, does that mean that you can get the job done faster? Better? Get it done right the first time – with no expensive re-do’s? Do you have real-world examples to back that up?

That’s where the value resides. That’s what will separate you from the other candidates. That will give that interviewer the best reason to hire you.

More tips.