Should you sell yourself at work? If you want to move up the corporate ladder and get noticed, yes you should. At the end of the day, were all salespeople no matter what job we do and in virtually all aspects of our life. We sell ourselves to potential employers, potential customers, potential significant others and potential friends. Selling yourself simply refers to showing others what you are capable of and promoting your skills and worth to others. In a work context, selling yourself could refer to letting your peers and superiors know about your skills and the reasons why you exist in the company. If you work for a large company where its easy to get lost, the importance of some degree of self promotion becomes even more important if you expect to get noticed by higher ups. Do you work with people where you wonder exactly what that person does for the company? What purpose do they serve and would anyone notice if they stopped showing up to work? Learning how to market yourself is the best way to ensure you dont become one of these people. Here are some suggestions to help you get noticed and to sell yourself at work: Speak up in meetings. Obviously you dont want to just speak for the sake of speaking but how many times do you attend a meeting where you say nothing and let others do all the talking? Contributing during meetings is a great way to sell yourself and to get noticed by others. If you have something to say, say it. Not saying anything and not getting involved in meetings can be misconstrued by others as proof of indifference on your part. Get to know people in other parts of the company. I once worked for a company with over 5,000 staff. It was easy to get lost in the shuffle and it took me awhile to get to know people and for them to know me. That changed when I was nominated to work on a project that involved several other departments. Pretty soon, I had people from departments Id never heard of contacting me to discuss my work and to learn more about what I was doing. I very quickly started to get known in parts of the company that would never have known me if not for me being nominated for this project. Moral of the story: look for ways you can nominate yourself for projects that will get your name known in other parts of the company. Offer to work on a project or task that no one else wants to do. I once worked on a project that no one else wanted to do, a project that several other people had already tried and failed completing. I started working on the project and quickly managed to push it farther than anyone else had in the previous 3 years and received a great deal of praise from superiors because of it. I also got to know people in other parts of my company and they got to know me, too. The best part of this task was that even if it had have failed, it probably wouldnt have looked bad on me because several others had already tried and failed, too. Succeeding where others have failed is a great way to sell yourself. Make sure you get credit when credit is deserved. Ensure that you market yourself with the work that you send to others. Your work shouldnt come from an anonymous source. Ensure that your reports show that you wrote them and when possible make sure your boss (and their boss if possible) see what you are doing. There is no better way to sell yourself than by consistently completing good work but no one will know its from you unless you tell them. |
