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Part of creating a career plan is understanding what your value proposition is to a potential employer. In the traditional sense, a value proposition is a strategic tool used by an entity or company to communicate how it plans to demonstrate value to customers (Payne, Frow & Eggert, 2017). If we apply this to your role as an entity (job seeker), how can you demonstrate that you can add value to your customer (employer)?
Part of the value proposition that you are trying to create, involves reflecting on your strengths. Specifically the strengths that your customer is looking for. Make a list of what key strengths you could potentially offer to an employer that would make you marketable and demonstrates how you add value. Is your customer service phenomenal? Maybe your analytical skills make your employers work easier to manage. What about your organizational skills? Can you knock out any job task with accuracy and expedience? Now that you have a list of strengths it would be nice if you had a way to validate your list.
How do you validate that your strengths are accurate and add value? There are a few ways. First, if you have access to past job evaluations (in any industry) go back and review them for support of what you perceive are your strengths. Next if you have a mentor who is familiar with your work, ask them for perspective. I will ask you to solicit honest and constructive feedback. If you don’t have a mentor yet, ask a coworker you respect for some insight. Again, be open to honest and reflective feedback. This will make it easier for you to truly consider what your value proposition is. Part of understanding your value, is also understanding your areas of opportunities or your gaps.
Now, let me give you an example of the type of feedback a mentor or a coach could give you. I was recently speaking to a physician leader and she expressed her frustration in recruiting an executive level physician leader. She told me she had, what appeared to be, a great candidate but that his resume (or his CV) was a mess. He was clearly qualified to do the work but she had to hunt for key qualifications on his resume. She told me that she decided not to pursue him as a candidate because she feared his resume would be what his administrative work might look like. I was stunned at the revelation. Here was a candidate that had probably spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on his education, preparing himself for this career yet he had submitted a terrible resume. How had this candidate perceived his skill set? A mentor or a coach could have told this candidate that his resume needed some work. How many jobs had this candidate been passed up for? Did he have any idea why? This is one example of how constructive feedback could potentially help you as a job candidate.
Now back to your value proposition. You have your list and you solicited feedback. What are your next step? There are a few ways to frame your value now. Ideal places include online bios, your cover letter and your resume. Work on highlighting value that is translatable across a variety of industries.
Your headline on LinkedIn for example could now be: Seasoned sales executive seeking healthcare industry opportunities or Highly organized, data driven analyst looking for further advancement in fast paced field. Any one of these newly focused and energetic headlines could get the right attention. I also recommend updating your resume and LinkedIn profile so that these key value propositions are highlighted so as to attract the right attention when an employer enters similar keywords in their candidate search. Looking at your skill set in a critical way, will help you to speak to and highlight your value proposition to the right employer. Having an effective value proposition will help to demonstrate your marketable talents and traits!
If you are ready to fine tune your value proposition in order to start a new career in healthcare, I can help you!
Dr. Raya
915-271-9372
[email protected]
https://www.linkedin.com/in/gingerraya/
https://drgingerraya.com/
Something good is about to happen!
Reference:
Payne, A., Frow, P., & Eggert, A. (2017). The customer value proposition: evolution, development, and application in marketing. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 45(4), 467–489. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11747-017-0523-z
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