Positioning
Keywords: niche, outstanding, snapshots, flavor,
Readings: Simon Sinek Golden Circle
What is Positioning
Keywords: identity, multiplicity
Why Position yourself?
One of the most critical parts of our lives is how we pitch ourselves to others eg. job, school, role interviews. Employers are always looking for the best talent they can find in the sea of candidates. You might think to stand out, you will need to "shout", but that is what everyone doing as well. This becomes a sea of noise that recruiters have to filter out to find the chosen ones.
Now, there is no need to raise your volume, but you ought to raise how you present yourself so you can be an outstanding candidate to land any job, scholarship, or role that you want.
Firstly, you need to learn how to pitch yourself with "positioning".
Testing your confidence
I believe everyone overestimate their abilities and underestimate how tough getting success is. We are all victims of the Dunning-Kruger effect,a cognitive bias in which people wrongly overestimate their knowledge or ability in a specific area. This tends to occur because a lack of self-awareness prevents them from accurately assessing their own skills. What this means is that we are blind to our blindness.
To test people on their confidence, I usually ask them to pitch themselves as if it was an interview for their dream job. The question always start off with "Tell me about yourself". I noticed that people:
long, windy sentence
generic claims of their qualities, abilities, goals, contribution to the team or companies
This is the best way to shed light on your shortcomings...
Ultimately, you will want to have a short paragraph that gives enough context on your current role, your past working experience, your strength, and where you want to be. This paragraph should be able paint a vivid mental picture of you in recruiters' minds.
Multiple positioning
Once you mastered positioning for a desired role, begin to see how you can use this concept to introduce or sell yourself to others in non-professional context eg. classroom, a romantic date,
Niche down
Sample niche
Animation
2D: cel, geometric shapes,
3D:
vfx: editing, compositing
Subject: broadcast, advertisng
Designer
Illustrative-driven:
subject: character design, storyboard, environment, concept,
aesthetics / styles: abstract, minimal
methods: digital painting, 3D, etc
How to niche down your motion design portfolio
What's marketable:
Questions
Zag & Onliness
Application
Statement of purpose
20% hero's journey narrative, 80% facts and career
Append a narrative element of how you and your career will transform when you are awarded the position, role, award, grant, scholarships, etc.
what is your desired future higher form of identity
what is the highest level of yourself you want to be
Here is an example for applying to , my transformation would be becoming an educator in the future, and to do so I need to refine my critical thinking and and deepen my domain expertise
Notes
Jodi Glickman on Pitching Yourself
You don't get the job not because you are not qualified but rather people do not believe your story
Destination
The key is landing the 2nd conversation with the other party
Questions
Why do I want to work for X company ?
What am I excited about now
What am I going to do next with my career
What am I trying to achieve today.
No: your life story
Yes: Hi, nice to meet you. I am in X industry for Y years, I have amazing returns and I want to go into Z. I was working in X and then went to Y, but my real passion is Z and I think I would be a great candidate for your program/job.
Backstory (not background; write your own story)
No one care about your resume
explain how your experience relates to the job
Talk about
Relevant experience
Transferable skills (quick-learner, agile, calm under pressure, juggling roles and tasks)
You are excited and passionate about X ,and you see the wave of the future going into that direction, and you want to be part of that change, working with companies who that are taking business in X direction.
Your experience: I spent alot of time in X, but I am noticing a trend or pattern in Y and that's why I am the right person to help take your business to next level.
Its not what recent that matters, it's what relevant
Connect the dots
It's not about the skills; the truth is you do not get hired is because people don't believe in your story or your destination. There is a doubt in your story. Until you convince yourself, no one is going to believe what you are selling.
Final notes
You need more than one pitch
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