Show hiring managers your value in a job interview without sounding boastful or forced. Share results, numbers, and a strong career story that supports your fit for the role.
By Brad Nakase, Attorney
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Knowing how to market oneself is one of the most essential elements of starting a profession. You must promote yourself without coming across as arrogant. This is known as the professional humble boast.
It’s critical to understand when and how to be a professional humble-bragger. Selling yourself is essential in this cutthroat industry. Every firm seeks out the greatest candidates, but it’s rare that every organization will be able to hire the best. Your career could be made or broken by how you present yourself during an interview and when you are working.
Examine the two instances below and give them some thought.
Now, while each of these is a remark regarding the caliber of your work, only #2 is a modest, professional boast. What is the cause? First of all, the first sentence is highly qualitative. Apart from bragging about how many firms desired you and how much compensation you keep getting for what you still have, you’re talking about how important you are to an organization without really mentioning any accomplishments.
These fall under the category of what other people should say in your place. You know, like whenever you call yourself lovely, it’s not the same as when your mom calls you lovely. Furthermore, there is nothing in #1 that your prospective employer would find helpful. Nothing can be said about the work you claim was really valuable.
You’ll see that there are significant numbers involved when you examine #2. Your ability to succeed in your position has a quantitative, or more accurately, measurable, component thanks to the numbers. You demonstrated to them both the amount of work you could complete in a certain amount of time and the results of that effort.
This includes things like the raises you’ve gotten, the sales you’ve made, the amount of cash you saved for your business in a specific situation, the revenue you’ve brought in, any inadequate internal processes you helped enhance, and so on. The real question in today’s competitive job market is: “Can you sell yourself?”
Tell them the reason you should be hired rather than merely that you’re a great fit for the position. Furthermore, reciting your hard skills is insufficient. Your soft skills are equally important. Now would be a good moment to incorporate them into your “professional modest brag.”
After outlining the primary distinctions, let’s discuss what to emphasize and how to market yourself.
1. Act like a product
You must think like a marketer and ask, “Can you sell yourself?” It can be useful when attempting to separate your subjective emotions from the objective facts you wish to present. Examine yourself from the exterior.
What are your positive and negative traits? What drives you? What advantages do you offer? You must be able to act like any other salesperson since you will be both the salesman and the product you are selling. You must have a thorough understanding of yourself and have the ability to confidently respond to inquiries regarding the “product.”
2. Create a cohesive story
You won’t obtain the job with a disorganized presentation of your achievements, random numbers tossed in, and no follow-through. It’s more likely to perplex the interviewers. They will not understand what you’re saying. They will be left puzzled and trying to put together the details of your first point as you continue to ramble on about the second argument.
The chronological arrangement of the statements must not be disorganized. Although getting promoted following two years in a lower position is a noteworthy accomplishment, it is illogical to go from a promotion to the way you were recruited by a different firm earlier in your professional life.
3. It’s not always about you
You’re going to lose out on some important opportunities if you’re selling yourself while neglecting the demands of the firm you’re interviewing for. Do research on the business. Consider the corporate culture.
Emphasize the terms you see them employing. Use these as the foundation for your modest but professional boast. You may tell they prioritize detailing if it appears prominently in their JD, for example. When discussing your achievements, mention how meticulous you are. Describe how your professional development was influenced by your attention to detail.
4. Let the numbers speak for themselves
We’ve said it beforehand, and we’ll say it again: figures are usually the most essential aspect that a business considers. These are facts that are typically backed up by more qualitative arguments. Time-related & number-focused achievements make you stand out much more on your resume. Even during the interview, provide those percentages, the exact number of visitors a particular post attracted, and the significant statistics. Numbers make it easier to answer the question: “Can you sell yourself?”
Additionally, avoid sounding like a complex math textbook and spending the next twenty minutes babbling about numbers. Instead of putting them to sleep, you want to get their attention. Unless the interviewer asks you to go into further detail, make a list of at least four of the most significant numbers in your professional life and stick to it.
5. Eliminate jargon
The majority of individuals should be able to relate to you when you discuss who you are & what you do. Take care not to market yourself using jargon or acronyms that someone in a different field wouldn’t understand.
It is a real talent to simplify complex ideas. Here’s a tactic that can be useful: picture yourself attempting to justify your actions to your parents. When making an elevator presentation about yourself, use this formula.
For individuals in technology, accounting, and finance, where the jargon is specific to their fields, it is essential to deliver your presentation in words that the average person can comprehend. At the end of the day, success depends on one thing: “Can you sell yourself?”
Have a quick question? We answered nearly 2000 FAQs.
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