Professionals in Mexico: Building Your Personal Career Brand in 2010
Dec 16th, 2009 | By Fernando Espinosa | Category: Branding, Career, Job, Mexico Executive SearchThis year has forced 
us to witness the negative impact of the recession on an enormous amount of people from individual contributors to senior executives in both the US and Mexico. Most every industry and functional group has been hammered with the terrible news of layoffs, downsizings, rightsizings and operational shut downs.
Despite the news of escalating unemployment rates, we have continued to get search engagements from client companies; albeit at a much reduced rate over 2007 and 2008 – we have continued to make placements and we are continuing to observe companies making critical hires even amidst the recession. As 2009 is drawing to a close we are also seeing a slight uptick in new companies making contact with us and making plans to begin hiring and selection processes for the new year.
We are seeing some encouraging signs. We are cautiously optimistic that some of the opportunities that will arise in the first half of 2010 will hopefully absorb a significant number of the unemployed back into all levels of the workforce. This of course would be a great next step in improving both the U.S. and Mexican economies.
The problem we see is that many people at all levels both employed and unemployed are still not properly prepared for what is emerging as a very different job market. This is especially true in Mexico. We are still encountering many candidates that are lacking a good, solid job search strategy. We know because we have seen an inordinate amount of these people in the past 18 months and most of them are still in shock after reality had affected them in the form of a pink slip (lay-off).
We have received thousands of resumes from technical and staff personnel, Managers, Directors, VP’s and C- level executives in Mexico and very few of those send their information with a specific plan in place that would allow us to understand how we can assist them in their job search.
The overwhelming number of unemployed (or those in danger of being unemployed) that send us their resumes work in the Maquiladora industry or are coming from major construction companies. We have also received a significant number of candidates coming from Mexican national manufacturers, financial services, retail, oil and gas, consumer products, alternative energy and many others that have been forced to downsize. This ultimately translates into increased competition for the new positions that will be coming online in 2010.
Our recommendation to job seekers in 2010 is that before you engage in the exercise of sending the same resume everywhere for all kinds of positions available in the market, it would be better to spend some time in finding out who you are, what you do best and what you want to do with your life. If you haven’t taken the time to create a life and career plan, there is no better time than while you are unemployed.
You need to know what your technical competencies, experience, education and skills mean in terms of current market conditions. Forget what market conditions told you five years ago. This is 2010 and things are changing faster than ever which means you need to be conscious of what your “value-add” or “unique selling proposition (USP)” is. If you don’t know what your value is to an organization or what you do better than others, then you aren’t going to be able to sell it or yourself effectively.
Most career professionals have several sources of information at their disposal to learn more about their value-add. If you have significant work history, then you can always review your past performance evaluations. These are usually filled with tremendous amounts of data points and more importantly the opinions of “your most important client” – your boss. Your boss’ opinions will reflect his/her opinions on your qualifications along with your strengths and weaknesses.
Another good source of information would be getting a feedback on how you are perceived as a professional by your current or previous peers and subordinates.
If you have ever taken an accredited personality assessment such as a Myers-Briggs (MBTI) or DISC, then you can refer to the results of that assessment to refresh yourself with what your strengths are. If you have never taken such an assessment, now may be the time to invest in taking one. You just want to ensure that you are taking an accredited assessment and not something that an amateur industrial psychologist has devised as “their own assessment”. There are many accredited assessments on the market and many that cost as little as $150 to get at the kind of information that many professionals are simply not conscious of.
With your “value-add” information in hand, your next step is to research and narrow down your market niche very precisely. You need to decide what kinds of companies, industry sectors, functions and titles that could benefit from your expertise and qualifications. Select those tracks that you know you will have the most impact and get the most career satisfaction from and eliminate those that look less promising or interesting.
The next criteria you need to use to define this decision is to look for “employability”. You need to look for those companies that are in a better position to offer you the opportunity to acquire skill sets that can leverage your profile and provide you with growth opportunities or will allow you to develop more marketable skills and experience for other companies in the job market.
Once you are conscious of your “value add” and you have identified and narrowed down your market niche and are certain to obtain “employability” out of those companies you will be applying for, your next step is to brand yourself and prepare a sales and marketing strategy for your profile.
The first step in branding yourself is to ensure that you have all the information needed to prepare one or more resumes to present to your target companies. Start preparing those resumes to match the needs of those companies on your list that have vacant positions. It is important to understand that it is not the same to try to sell your profile to someone that isn’t currently hiring versus someone that is currently actively looking for talent.
You need to make sure that your resume has a “Summary of Qualifications” highlighting your unique value proposition; followed by a chronological outline of your Professional Experience. Briefly describe the companies you have worked for with special care to highlight your achievements while working there. No hiring manager wants to see a resume that reads like a job description. They want to know what you accomplished while you were in the role.
It should go without saying that you should ensure that all you have in your resume is true and you should be fully prepared to prove it. That being said, we have seen an increase in outright exaggerations and lies on resumes during this economic downturn due to the increased pressure facing many of the unemployed.
The next step is to make sure that your resume functions as a support document in your job search. Your resume should never lead your job search, it simply opens the door for you to the hiring manager. In today’s economy, you can easily supplement your resume and begin a long term personal branding strategy by creating your own website.
We are encouraging many professionals to purchase a domain name using their name (example - http://www.fernandoespinosa.com/). Domain names are very inexpensive now.
If you are fortunate enough to have a friend or family member that is a web designer then you most definitely cannot afford to go into 2010 without making this small investment toward building your professional brand.
Utilizing a personal website in a strategic manner alongside LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter is a topic that is more complex and detailed than this article will allow. Feel free to make contact with me for more information on this topic or stay tuned for a future article on this topic.
The items and exercises I’ve mentioned are just a small piece of the many options at your disposal to promote “Your Brand” and enable potential employers to understand what your value proposition is. In today’s rapidly changing talent market, recruiting and executive search consultants and employers expect to be able to find you within professional networks such as LinkedIn and if you have additional supplemental information on your own professionally created website connected to your LinkedIn profile, then you have gained even greater brand awareness of yourself.
The Internet continues to produce even more excellent search tools for recruiters and employers. Don’t you want to stand out and get noticed – even if you aren’t in the job market? Don’t you want the employer whose looking 12 months into the future to see who you are? It’s your brand and it’s your life, we encourage you to make the most of it!
We wish everyone the utmost in health, happiness and career success in 2010!!!
Fernando Espinosa is an Executive Recruiter in Qualifind, Inc. and is Mexico’s only member of the prestigious Pinnacle Society. He can be reached at (619) 421-7134 or fespinosa@quali-find.com for questions and comments.
Qualifind, Inc. provides professional and executive search services for specific disciplines and industries throughout the U.S. and Mexico. We are a U.S. based firm with our corporate offices in San Diego, California. We have branch offices and recruiting staff in the U.S. (i.e Chicago, Austin) and Mexico (i.e. Monterrey, Mexico City).
fespinosa@quali-find.com
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Thank you for this insightful note, many of those suggestions are not even realized for the unemployed executive, also looking for a Resume preparation consultant is avisable, many brilliant people are lousy sellers via its own Resume.
Hi Fernando, thanks for the article, there are many tips useful to me.
Excellent article Fernando. It provides a lot to think about it for seasoned professionals. Merry X-Mas and Happy New year. We’ll be talking soon.
Javier
Very good comments and advises. Thank you. Have a happy new year 2010.
Alberto
Gracias Fernando por tu articulo, agradezco el que te acordaras de mi, considero que tocas la medula de lo que debe de ser un ejercicio adecuado para buscar empleo en este dificil ambiente laboral en el que nos desarrollamos. deseo que tengas un año lleno de satisfaciones profesionales y que encuentres trabajo para mucha gente.
salludos y buenos negocios
MANOLO
Fernando,
May this New Year 2010 be a source of great happiness and consolidation of personal and professional success.
Thks for sharing such a good article and tips
something also to consider is to develop a personal contacts network that could also help executives to build their careers, since many good oportunities could come from that network
Warmest regards,
Eduardo
Hi Fernando; Thank you for this advaice. We need to be ready and updated for any opportunity. Happy new year 2010
Fernando, thanks for this useful tips that we can all use. happy 2010
Fernando:
Great insights, great article. thanks for sharing, I will post a link to PMI México’s group referring this valuable information. I’m sure it will be of much value to our communtiy of project managers.
Best regards.
Very interesting article Fernando, thanks for sharing. Have a wonderful 2010 too! We´ll be talking soon !!
Pia Puebla
Fernando, thanks for your accurate words through this article.
You draft pretty well our reality and defined very clear how we need to focus our thinking for this 2010 year. What you established as branding ourselves, will be the greatest strategy to get into the potential companies that will be emerging through this year. Keep writing on this subjects, I believe that knowledge must be shared.
This is an excellent article. Your advises are very valuable for someone looking for job, I found them very useful and helped me a lot. Thanks!
Fernando, this article is really very interesting as well as provides a good tool in order to improve and to sale our main brand, we.
Fernando, this is a great article with very useful information, that summarizes it in a practical way. Your advice will be beneficial to many in this year. Thank you
Fernando, thank you for sharing this article; it provides good insight on focusing and keeping track of our brand. One take away for me that is really interesting is investing on a domain name as an extension of your resume. I believe this could give us the competitive advantage and provide prospective employers the opportunity to know your body of work over the years, emphasize on your brand and streamline their decision making process.
Again thank you for sharing and all the best for 2010.
Best Regards,
Angel
Hi Fernando, Very accurate, trustable and professional article.
Thanks for sharing with all of us this excellent note. Sometimes we forget to construct a career plan and apply ourselves in looking for the competitive advantages we can provide to the market.
I believe this can be an excellent opportunity to improve our skills in detecting new opportunities and needs that allow us to construct our strategy for 2010.
i wish you the best for the upcoming year !!
Fernando,
Thank you for this information, will be useful for me, you are really a boundaryless thinker.
Hello Fernando,
As usual, you are providing very good insights that will help (for sure) so many professionals.
I remember a lot your support two years ago and despite of the things didn’t work as we expected, I learned from you so much, thanks!
All the best and keep walking!
Life is a beach!
Outstanding article!!!! Thanks Fer for share with us this kind of Methodology, as always I believe before to start a new activity we must to think simple “back to the basic” You totally right, we never make a plan for life and less during a bad times. Now I’m working with my personal website with a different focus like you.
Happy 2010.
Antonio
Fernando, thank you for sharing this enriching article… it is great! It will help everyone even those that are not in search for the new job experience.
Saludos y felìz año 2010!!
Hi, Fernando
It is a real good and helpfull article, it shows your professionalism and experience on the recruiting services.
Great information for unemployed and should be used for those who we are employeed and preparing for carrer advance, looking for higher position for continous learn process.
Keep doing this kind of articles and share with community of professionals
Kind regards,
Hi Fernando,
Good job in putting this article together, you push the “Right button” in reference to the Value proposition, it is a requirement in today’s highly competitive Market.
Thank you for your professional advice.
Best Regards
Carlos
Fernando,
Muchas gracias por ponernos al dìa, es artìculo para momento actual, preciso, concreto. En lo personal me va a ayudar mucho.
saludos y que se abran los caminos para todos en este nuevo año 2010
Fernando,
This is a very good article, it will help a lot of people including myself, I personally appreciate your worry for people who are looking for a job and sharing your experience from many years in this article.
Thank you very much and I wish you a very successful 2010 year.
Jesus
Fernando
Sin duda conoces bien el tema y definitivamente la direccion que marcas en este articulo puede ser tomado como una estrategia profesional la cual puede marcar la diferencia y hacer notar el “Unique Selling Proposition” como tu lo llamas de tal manera de tomar una ventaja competitiva laboral.
Excelente articulo y gracias por compartir tu vision.
Saludos
AO
Fernando,
Thanks for a very good article and your well sounded advice on how to deal with this unemployment crisis!
Great article, thanks for sharing. It provides a great framework for rethinking career strategies. Even if we are not job-hunting we definetely need to keep in mind (and apply) all of the mentioned elements to stay marketable. Easier said than done, but we must put the effort!!
Cheers,
Ricardo
Fernando, this is an excellent proposal, yes, 2010 is here and a new era..Value Add/UPS sells. warm regards juan manuel
Fernando , thanks a lot for all this info , very well written.
Finally someone has nailed it right on the head! Hats off to Fernando, thanks for sharing this, ABSOLUTELY insightful!
You’re right you must have a self-branding plan in mind to get the job you want.
Best Wishes,
Lilia Armenta
Fernando:
Thanks so much for this excellent information. Six years ago I took an Outplacement Course about that and it’s totally true all that you say. We appreciate that you share with us this valueble information about how we can more affective looking for a new job. Currently I’m looking for a job opportunity and I know that is very difficult because as you say the hiring managers are more careful with the selection. We need to know what we are looking for and what are our skills that we can provide to this new company in order to grow together.
Best regards
Sergio
Fernando:
Congratulations for an excellent article, which is very helpful at all times and even more in a competitive world we’re living.
José Luis