How To Paint A Vivid Picture Of Yourself On Your Job Application

By Arnie Fertig

One of the hardest communications lessons you might have to understand as a job hunter is how to tailor your message to the circumstance in which you find yourself. In some instances, you need to give more detail about what you've done and where you've done it. Sometimes it is all about the facts: what you did, where you did it and what you achieved. But other times it's about you as a person, the values that motivate you and your overall story.

Just as your camera will shoot a very different picture of a landscape depending on the length of lens you use, the picture you paint of yourself will have much of the same content, but look quite different, depending on the type of document you compose.

Your branding statement will be very short and succinct, just a sentence or two. Your elevator speech will have the branding statement somehow embedded into it, but expand upon it, and include direction you are seeking to take.