Parsons has launched the careers of illustrious designers who are synonymous with American fashion: Claire McCardell, Adrian, and Norman Norell; established industry figures Donna Karan, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, and Narciso Rodriguez; and, from the new generation of global designers, Proenza Schouler, Behnaz Sarafpour, Doo Ri, Vena Cava, and Ohne Titel. Follow them on Twitter for their regular #560chat.

Watch this video on YouTube.

There’s a lot of competition out there in my industry as a small business and career consultant. The ones who seem to do the best and have a revolving door of clientele are those who have built a unique brand image that really resonates with who they are, the customers they cater to, and effectively communicates the value of what they have to offer. “Why would you want to work with me?” is the question that the best brands answer loudly and clearly in their messaging, and no doubt that message is positively received and then acted upon by their audience.

I also see a lot of people trying to be overly creative and cheeky, and simply approaching branding all wrong.

I see job seekers presenting professional copywriting portfolios chock full of work sprinkled with curse words in an attempt to be “edgy”. I see consultants projecting their website and marketing copy in the same tone and manner to which they probably speak to their friends after 2 or 3 cocktails, in an attempt to sound more “personable, and cheeky”. And just as bad are those whose personal and business brands lack any creativity or distinction at all. These are the small businesses who focus on pricing and features more than personal benefits, or the job seekers who treat their resume as little more than a chronological listing of events. That’s not a professional branding tool, that’s a TV Guide. And even that’s antiquated at this point.

So whether you’re a small business, an independent freelancer, or a jobseeker, allow me to share 4 steps you can, and should, take in your marketing approach to ensure that you not only stand out above the crowd, but making a positive and lasting impression.

Stand Out Above the Rest: Create a Killer Brand with a Big Voice
It’s not enough to simply create your “personal brand” – who you are, what you do, what you’re looking for, what your skills are, etc.. You can have a stellar brand that puts any and every professional in your field to shame, but it won’t do jack for you if the messaging behind that brand isn’t coming through in your communication. That goes for your resume, your website, your marketing materials, and anything else that has to do with marketing you or your business on a professional level.

Whenever I’ve worked with a client on their resume for instance, I wrap up our consultation with what I think is one of the most important questions they can answer: “What do you want prospective employers to know about you as a candidate?” And this is really where your brand takes shape. If someone attempts to answer this question with some hum-drum response along the lines of “I want them to know I’m a hard worker, I get things done…” I quickly reroute them back to an understanding of what creating a brand is all about: the unique qualities that differentiate you from others in your field with similar backgrounds or service offerings. Let’s try this again:

“What would you like prospective employers to know about you?”
“I’d like them to know that while my hands-on experience is on the production end, I’m constantly pulling from my experience as a fine artist, bringing creative ideas and concepts to the table, which helps me establish a great dynamic with any creative team I work with.”

“What would you like prospective customers to know about you?”
“Customer service and retention is of utmost importance to me. I value my customers above all else, and will always work with them to ensure that their shopping experience with me is positive and rewarding, and that they’re receiving value and quality every time.”

BAM! Sign me up to your newsletter, STAT!

Stand Out Above the Rest: Avoid Trying to Be Overly Creative
While constructing an avant grade resume chock full of flashy imagery, puns and oh yea, it’s written on post-it notes, might seem like a good way to get yourself noticed, it’s not necessarily a good way to get a job. “Creative” does not translate to “better”, and not everyone will appreciate your alternative approach, especially the HR folks who want to know in plain writing what you’ve done in your career to justify them passing your resume along to the head honcho for review.

Businesses have a little bit more flexibility when it comes to being creative with your branding, but it’s still important to keep the creative efforts in line with your brand’s image and personality. If you sell software solutions to Fortune 500s, don’t take your design cues from your favorite indie band’s branding. And when it comes to job searching or seeking out contract work, use your creativity sparingly and appropriately. No matter what industry you’re in, some of the standards of professional job searching still apply. If you’re going to create an interesting personal branding package to help you stand out from the crowd, balance out the essentials (resume, portfolio, cover letter) with pieces that your target audience will actually find relevant and interesting (a white paper you wrote, links to guest blogs you wrote on industry topics, press mentions, etc.). Try to learn as much as you can about the culture of the organization, and then appeal to that in your marketing approach.

Stand Out Above the Rest: Provide Value Above All Else
Let me attack this one from the small business angle first. As I mentioned, I see far too many consultants, coaches and other types trying to communicate to their target customers in an overly impersonal, cheeky and TMI type of way. While it IS important to demonstrate how your brand, whether it’s you as an individual or a 100-person company, understands and relates to your target customer on a personal level, you’re trying to gain clients, not friends. Give them insight into who you are without undermining your value and credibility. Prospective customers don’t care about what your dog did that day, the antics you and your friends were up to last weekend, or anything else that blurs the line between being personable yet credible, and just overly personal. Share information that your potential customers care about – how you’ve made a career transition yourself, what that was like for you, how you managed starting up a business alongside a full time job, how you struggled initially with pricing out your work without feeling guilty, what prompted you to start your shop. Those are the things your customers are really interested in, and while they’re far more business focused, they’re still completely relevant to them on a personal level, and they’ll appreciate working with someone who understands the experience of being in their shoes.

Providing value to your target audience is just as important as a job seeker. You have a product, service or skill that you are trying to market, and to a specific audience, be that human resources, the Creative Director or your next freelance client. Don’t hand Johnny Hiring Manager a resume full of one-line bullet points that lacks a summary statement, and just gives a static overview of past jobs that you’ve held. The way to bring value as a job seeker is by instilling confidence in your prospective employer that they’re going to receive a return on their investment of hiring you. This means it will be an easy transition bringing you on board, not having to hold your hand and essentially teach you how to do your job. It also means feeling confident that you truly value the role and the organization and won’t jump ship in 6 months for something that pays better, putting them back into candidate search mode. And it means clearly demonstrating to them where you’ve used your top skills to bring tangible results to other organizations in the past, so that they understand fully what you’re bringing to the table for them. “What’s in it for us by hiring you?” That’s what they want to know, and how you convey your value.

And don’t think for a second that underpricing yourself translates to value either, for exactly the same reasons you wouldn’t necessarily jump to invest in the cheapest laptop. Be the MacBook of the bunch, perhaps the more expensive option, but no secrets around what you’re capable of providing. Value is just as much about charging what you’re worth, as your’e being paid not just for the hours you work, but for the years of experience and expertise that you’re bringing to the table.

Stand Out Above the Rest: Knock ‘Em Over the Head With Great Customer Service
You would be surprised how many businesses have no systems in place for ensuring top-quality customer service. This includes everything from having standard procedures for dealing with customer dissatisfaction, providing refunds and guarantees, and even programs or perks for recognizing your top customers. I live in New York City, and while we put a high expectation out there on quality based on the cost of living and purchasing here, we surprisingly put less expectation around customer service. And it’s not because we’re rude (we are). But we’ve created an “every person for themselves” type of culture where we’ve slowly diminished the value of interpersonal relationships, put a stigma on small talk among strangers, and trained ourselves not to look one another in the eye, less we want to be considered an oddball with obviously bad intentions. And it’s not just New York City!

But that’s good news, because when we don’t expect great customer service and then we receive it, we’re positively surprised, and propelled to do business with that organization or merchant again. It creates a positive customer experience that we want to replicate. I go to plenty of places in Brooklyn that are far more expensive than some of the bigger chain stores or restaurants, but I continue to patronize them loyally because I appreciate their small business mentality, and the fact that I receive excellent customer service. I would rather pay more money to recreate that positive customer experience than risk giving my money to someone who doesn’t appreciate my patronage. Excellent customer service is key, it’s what my entire business foundation is built upon, one of the top reasons I’ve been successful in previous career paths like recruiting, and something you must pay attention to both as a business and an individual.

Same goes for job seekers- there is a very clear level of tact, or “customer service”, that you must adhere to as a job seeker. If you have a great interview and the person tells you to follow up with them early next week, don’t eagerly call or email the following morning, other than to send a thank you note. And always send a thank you note after an interview, or even a networking lunch or meeting. Letting someone know you appreciate their time and acknowledge the effort they put in to help you will prompt them to want to continue building a relationship with you.

Another tip to keep in mind is to adhere as closely as possible to the job description when submitting your resume and cover letter. Nothing irritates a recruiter or HR professional more than when a candidate submits an application denoting that they “have all the necessary qualifications for the job,” only to find out they have very few. Or even worse – they have many, but didn’t make much effort to tailor their resume over cover letter to the job. Always reference the job title to which you’re applying (companies have multiple openings), and introduce yourself with a brief highlights of your background that compel your reader to want to continue on and read your resume. Never submit a blank email with an attachment, or a one-line introduction that simply states that you’re applying for their opening. Newsflash: they already know that!

I love talking about the idea of personal branding because the most important principles are the same whether you’re an individual job seeker, an independent contractor or freelancer, or a budding small business. Your brand is essentially your product in a way, the entity that you’re marketing to your target audience, whether that’s prospective employers, buyers, or clients. Remember that it’s about communicating what makes you unique in your craft, what differentiates you from others in your same field or area of expertise who have similar backgrounds, comparable pricing, or identical products and services. Think about what your brand represents to your target market, how you can communicate that most effectively, whether the information you put out there is providing real value to your audience, and finally, how to do it tactfully and respectfully so that they’re not only pleasantly surprised, but curious about the experience they’ll have working with you.

This post originally appeared in the January blog edition of Tangerine-Watson’s THRIVE newsletter.

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One of the challenges of being a creative, whether it’s by trade or by interest, is striking a balance that both satisfies the needs of your career, and satiates your creative appetite.

I admire anyone whose day-to-day career responsibilities cross into creative territory- advertising, marketing, design, technology to name a few. Yet having worked with creatives and ad folks for nearly ten years, I understand the challenges that often come with doing work that focuses around someone else’s creative vision. It’s not exactly what every decorated art school grad had in mind.

Even as a designer, illustrator, art director or anyone else who potentially spends their day creating, designing, writing or strategizing, there still often exists that need to balance the work you do for your client or organization with the need to express your own creativity through satisfying channels.

And many creative professionals do balance this successfully, running freelance ventures that allow them to choose the clients they work with and the projects they take on, or perhaps working for firms whose portfolio of work and clientele they truly admire and identify with. But you don’t have to be a career creative to seek out and put value on creative expression. In the modern careerscape of 2012, the truth is that everyone struggles to carve out a creative niche, both in their work and personal endeavors.

It’s certainly a challenge I’ve waded through as an entrepreneur, and counsel my
budding entrepreneurial clients on. Nothing teaches you to prioritize your time, energy and output quite like working for yourself. In the beginning, whether you’re a consultant, a freelancer, or striving to be the next big tech startup, it’s easy to dive head-first into your work and toss all of your other previously important interests to the side in the name of potential success. “They’ll still be there later,” we tell ourselves.

This is where we entrepreneurs fall guilty of the 80-hour workweek cliche – your business is your baby and if you truly believe in your idea, you will go to extraordinary lengths to assure its healthy development and success. You justify work as your new creative outlet, whether that’s true or not, and suddenly your brushes, journal or Wacom tablet are off collecting dust.

And make no mistake that overworked professionals of any industry are just as guilty of such habits as are the tireless entrepreneurs. The problem with this scenario is that anyone who values creativity at the core thrives on the ability to express themselves, to create good work and to feel challenged, and practices that ignore those needs are simply not sustainable. Because when we ignore our values in any form, whether it’s by taking a job that doesn’t resonate with who we are, doing work we’re not proud of, or letting our passions fall by the wayside, we are placing ourselves in an unsustainable situation. Sustainability by definition is the ability to endure, in a career, in an environment, in business or in life, and in any of those areas where we lack sustainability, potential for burnout is abundant.

As an artist and entrepreneur, I have learned that you simply have to prioritize creativity in the same way that you prioritize anything else in your life – making money, paying bills, fostering your relationships and your career. I’m lucky in that I’ve learned to make creativity a part of my business, in the form of designing new products and services, coming up with fresh marketing ideas, and managing my visual identity and web presence. My New Year’s resolution is to carve out more time to take on freelance illustration projects. While I can be creative in my business, there’s still a large void when I don’t make it a point to honor my inner fine artist, a character that’s defined me for nearly 30 years.

The role that creativity plays in each of our lives and in our work will certainly be
different for everyone, and as a result the niche that we carve out to satisfy that creative drive will take on its own unique look.

With that in mind, it’s not just about what we do creatively outside of the job. If you are someone who places creativity as a core value, it’s important to consider how those values are also being honored as you’re moving through your career. You don’t have to be a designer or writer to satisfy your creative appetite on the job. But do think about the opportunities and aspects of your work that might allow you to really flex your right brain, to problem solve, to come up with innovative solutions and generate fresh ideas. It’s no surprise that creativity is billed as one of the top in-demand business skills that companies value in candidates and employees.

Studies suggest that when we feel creatively engaged at work, our overall job satisfaction often higher.  At the end of the day, who wouldn’t want someone with that kind of work ethic and pride on their team, and who wouldn’t want to work for a team that encourages that kind of healthy and fulfilling environment?

I got a little chuckle out of this Facebook gem, so I decided to share.

What’s particularly cool about this is that, not only do I love Parsons (art school geek I am, of course), but we will have the opportunity to chat openly with an uber-talented bunch of Parsons students, alumni and Social Media Week goers. Bring it!

You can learn more about the event, and the big ol’ roster of NY Social Media Week happenings here.

GOING FROM EMPLOYEE TO ENTREPRENEUR:  Breaking Free of the 9 to 5

Hey there aspiring entrepreneurs and creative freelancers!  Thinking about flying solo, i.e. leaving the 9 to 5 and starting up your own business?  Good news!  The last small biz webinar in the Fall was a HUGE hit, and we’re back for more.  Tune in on 2/22 as we talk about the ins & outs, down & dirty, good & bad of flying solo and working for yourself!

• Why now is actually a great time to start your business.
• How to start a business with little investment & risk, and big potential.
• How working for yourself can actually provide more career and financial stability than a full time job.
• The biggest mistakes entrepreneurial newbies make that ultimately set them up for failure.
• Creating an exit strategy to transition from your current career to part or full time business owner.
• Tips for starting up a side gig while you’re still working full time.
• Much, much more!

WHEN:  Wednesday, February 22 @ 2pm ET 
WHERE:  Virtual Webinar. (No pants required.)
HOW MUCH:  Free (Of Course)

REGISTER NOW TO CLAIM YOUR SPOT! 

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A recent study conducted by the folks at Under30CEO revealed that when it comes to the financial upstart of many small businesses, the majority of young entrepreneurs are self-funding their startups. 61% are jumping on the bootstrapping wagon, while less than 15% cited major outside funding sources like venture capitalists, angel investors or winnings from small business pitch competitions. What does this mean? We’re a generation of resourceful thinkers and financially-savvy change makers, finding ways to make our entrepreneurial dreams happen, and on our own terms and budgets.

Sounds so romantic, doesn’t it? While being an entrepreneur can be exhilarating and exciting, don’t be fooled by the glamorous overtone. It’s a true test of your creative, intellectual and personal limits. Yet many are dubbing 2012 the “Year of the Entrepreneur,” with more and more young professionals leaving the ranks of the 9-to-5 to start small business. And one thing that many of them have in common? For many it begins as a part-time side venture that we continue to nurture, build and refine while we pull in our full time salaries for months or even years, so that one day when we’re ready to take the leap, we can do so with complete confidence and a solid foundation for success.

The Reality of the Weekend Entrepreneur
Just how does one balance building a business with working your typical 40 to 60 hour workweek? I like to think it’s driven largely by passion, motivation, and perhaps an absolute refusal to settle for less than what we feel we’re capable of achieving on a personal and professional level. Welcome to the phenomena that plagues most of Gen Y, the consistent need to ask ourselves, “What else can I be doing instead?” We’re an incredibly ambitious and driven generation, boasting multiple members who by age 30 have changed the face of technology and culture as we know it. And for the rest of us who are satisfied creating something that simply allows us to make a fulfilling living doing the work we love, the real reward is in bringing that vision to fruition, whether we do it in 6 months or 6 years.

The first phase of starting my own business was saving up enough money to move onto phase 2, which was trading in my full time job in IT for a part-time administrative job at a small design agency in NYC. Certainly not my dream job to sift through resumes and balance the bookkeeping, but it was just enough supplementary income to cover the bills without depleting my savings, and it freed up a good 3 days per week to focus solely on building my business. But it was incredibly important that I looked at having that part-time job not as a diversion from my goal, but as a stepping stone bringing me closer toward it.

Even the business moguls of the world like Donald Trump and Robert Kiyosaki talk about the importance of keeping a part-time job, or some other supplemental income source during the startup process (I’ll let you read “Midas Touch” on your own). Smart entrepreneurs understand that starting and building a business is a process that can take several years to truly prosper into a profitable and sustainable venture. If you’re not willing or able to ride out the 12-36 month startup phase without a salary, it’s best to keep your income options open and diversified. What does that mean exactly?

Diversifying Your Income Streams is the Way to Go
Careers no longer have to be limited to one’s primary money-making occupation. We can use our talents to cater to different audiences and provide a variety of services and products to make a living. We can expand into new side opportunities to not only maximize our earning potential and build a career safety net, but continue to build new skills that may open up additional doors for future opportunities.

This is certainly a great strategy for jobseekers, and an even better strategy for budding entrepreneurs. Whether you take on a part-time job while working on your business, or you stay in your full time career for awhile, you’re essentially creating multiple income streams that can help support you through the startup phase. This not only serves as a great professional network-builder, a way to start tapping into your target market, but it also lessens the financial risk and stress of trying to attain immediate profitability so you can survive. Believe you me, there is enough stress involved with running a business, and the more you do to lessen the financial burden, the more you will be able to focus on actually growing your business to a sustainable point.

Starting Up Takes Awhile… And That’s Okay!
During my first year in business, I was lucky in that I had a consistently profitable first 9 months. But eventually my monthly revenues became erratic as I hit various seasonal points like summer vacations and the holidays. Those who had been in business for themselves much longer than I had, and who had more of a basis for comparison, reassured me that this was simply the way of most small business, and that you just have to ride it out. In many cases, no particular month is consistent year-over-year; there are no peak or off-peak seasons in my consulting industry, and as an entrepreneur you simply have to prepare yourself for a continual revenue roller coaster.

The good thing about taking time to establish your business on a part-time basis and not having to worry about your profits while doing so is that you can start to recognize trends in terms of what works, what doesn’t work, what seems to resonate best with your customers (they really love that holiday 40% off promotion!), and get a sense of what your annual salary could potentially look like once you make the full time leap. And having those projections handy as you continue to grow and evolve will make plotting out your marketing, financial and growth strategies much easier year-over-year.

I understand from experience the urge to make that full time leap, to feel like you’re finally reinventing yourself and escaping the restrictive chains of the cubicle world. But the smarter you are about starting your business in the beginning, the better the chance that it will be successful and sustainable in the long-run. Much like a building, it’s a gradual construction process, with one of the most critical parts being the solid foundation that holds it up. Whatever brand-building timeline equates to a solid financial and strategic foundation for your business is the right strategy for you, and that may be a slow and steady part-time start.

It’s far too easy to start looking around and comparing yourself to your entrepreneurial peers, trying to decipher their secret success recipe. But always remember that your business is unique, with its own unique challenges, characteristics, brand personality and potential. And while it takes time to build a well-rounded brand that uniquely positions your business within your target market, that’s what will ultimately make your business (and you) a thriving success!

[Featured image via kirakirahoshi]

But what continues to confuse me about the coaching industry, is the number of “professionals” who continue to jump on this bandwagon seemingly full of Benjamins (and yes, I just said that), completely uncredentialed, inexperienced, and not in a position to advise others on things they have never been through themselves. I’m getting married in April, hence you don’t see “Dana Leavy – Divorce Coach” on my website header. These days, any novice who knows how to sign up for a Twitter account, create a WordPress site, and write a basic resume qualifies themselves as a career coach. Anyone who’s had a difficult breakup in their lives has “reinvented themselves” and thus qualifies themselves as an expert on interpersonal relationships. And now anyone who’s decided to start a side business is automatically a expert on entrepreneurship, freelancing and small business.

I’m not a complete jerk, just an annoyed realist who’s tired of fighting for the integrity of my industry, my generation and the blatant exploitation of creativity.

I started out as a career coach on this entrepreneurial journey, and my “street cred” comes from nearly a decade of working strictly with professionals in advertising, marketing, design and tech on how to find jobs, build sustainable careers, and be freelancers without filing for bankruptcy.  Don’t talk to me about “creatives”, or “starving artists”.  Every time someone farted in the 90s, I was winning an art show.  And my business experience comes from actually running one, at 23 years old, one that brought in over a million dollars a year. Not to mention, put hundreds of creative freelancers to work over the course of the 5 or so years I ran it, before moving to New York to start my own business. I knew every cent that went in and out of that branch, how every gross margin percentage point affected our monthly revenue, and ultimately my own paycheck, managed a fantastic team that kept operations flowing at top quality, and had built solid relationships with every top advertising agency in the New England area that all of my money-grubbing, corner-cutting competition salivated over. Does it qualify me as the world’s greatest businesswoman? No. It qualifies me as one.

But this isn’t about me. Or is it? I’m 29 years old, 30 this August. Technically that qualifies me on the very corner edge of Gen Y.

And I’m doing just fine, thank you very much.

I’m setting the record straight for all of the young entrepreneurs and career changers out there who feel overwhelmed by the constant and unrelenting plethora of career and business advice that we’re constantly spoon-fed by folks that, while maybe they have seen success in their own lives, have no idea what it’s like to try to create a career, a business and a life for yourself in a modern economy where there is no such thing as company loyalty, corporate ladder climbing, or job security. You’re an expert on my generation? Try that on for size, and then tell us how it feels to live at home at 28, with no job prospects, a masters degree (or more), and second-guessing what it is you really want to do with your life. That’s not necessarily me right now, but it has been, and it’s a lot of people I know on a very close level, and whom I work with every single day.

Any generation who has lived on this earth has faced their own unique challenges, pointed the finger at generations before them for setting them up with a faulty foundation, and not teaching them any better. We’re all responsible at the end of the day. And if that’s the case, then let us be responsible. Quit telling us that we’re doing everything wrong, that THIS is the way to represent ourselves on paper to a cutting edge creative agency that doesn’t even work in print as a medium, or that THIS is the way to manage, grow and nurture our online presence when you’re speaking to the generation that invented the Facebook relationship, the Tweet and the MP3.

What you think you started during your downtime in the midst of your own boredom with 1980s and 90s corporate America, we started in our dorm rooms, our bedrooms, and our study halls.

Please do NOT misconstrue my message as simply bashing other generations of career and business experts. That would be ignorant, naive and unfair of me.  I have many professional mentors, friends, bosses and predecessors who are of generations above me, and whom I admire deeply.  Everyone has value to add to this community, some just use it better than others to help the greater good.  Not everyone is walking around trying to capitalize on the struggles of Gen Y behind the facade of wanting to “help them”.  So with that in mind, what I am saying to those who fit that category is to stop trying to capitalize on the fact that you have failed Gen Y, as parents, as employers, as cultural leaders and professional mentors. And it’s not just you – we will wholeheartedly take accountability for creating lives that we want to create. I’m just saying that no one is innocent here, and as a result, we should all stop acting entitled and running toward the big pile of money that Gen Y (and their parents) is tossing toward anyone who will tell them what to do for a living, and how to pay the rent.

At the end of the day, we all still have things to learn.  I know a lot about business, illustration, art and career development.  But I’ve hopefully got another 60 or so years on this planet, and I plan on learning, and teaching, a bit more while I’m here.  I want to continue meeting inspirational people who push me to cultivate new ideas, reach further, teach me new things, challenge myself, and make me a better professional and individual.  I’m not looking for a magic bullet, because there isn’t one.  No matter how much money I have, and ultimately offer to pay someone.

Everybody struggles these days to make a living, and those who don’t, maybe  struggle to pay their millions of dollars in taxes.  Whomever you are, you are unique, and so is the path you are meant to create, via your own mistakes, successes, and the selective inspiration and influence of others in your life.  You’re not on this earth to seek out the right person or persons who can tell you how to adequately live it.  Because by the time you find them, you’re dead.  Stop listening to and comparing yourselves to everyone else.  That includes me.

As far as Gen Y goes, we are artists, entrepreneurs, creatives, pioneers of technology - we have done more as a generation in 10 years for technology than any generation before us. So let me ask you this – who is the real expert on Gen Y, the real experts on technology, design and innovation, and the real experts on how to cling wholeheartedly to a creative calling… and see it through?

If you want to partner with someone as a resource to grow your business or further your career, do your research, and make sure they’re in it to be that – your partner. You’re paying them to impart their knowledge, ideas and ass-kicking on you – not to be your friend, or sympathize with the sour economic circumstances to which you were born into. Come on – you already know that, and it hasn’t stopped you thus far in life.

Best of all?  Enrollment is only 39 bucks!  Check out the video for more!

Watch this video on YouTube.

I truly wish passion, romanticism, and straight-up good work ethic made the road to career satisfaction that much easier, but unfortunately it doesn’t. It’s a game of strategy, positioning, confidence and ultimately defeating your opponent (though leave the nunchucks and superpowers at home).

Career change can especially be tricky water when it comes to building a resume that efficiently markets your best transferrable skills, often in an area where you lack hand-on experience. Here are a few tips to help you get started on preparing a stellar resume as a career changer:

1. Start your resume with one heck of a branding BANG! The first sections on your resume, aside from your name & contact, should include a well-written Career Summary Statement, and a Skills/Core Competencies section. In a situation like this where you may lack relevant experience, you want to start off with your strongest branding information that tells your audience what you’re qualified to do and what you can bring to the table.

2. Don’t list every position. While it’s best to avoid huge gaps in your resume, ideally you want to list the roles that demonstrate those skills which will be directly transferrable to the new type of role or career you’re going after. Employers want to know that hiring you will be an easy transition, and they more relevant skills you can show them, the more they’ll be convinced.

3. Education, internships and volunteer work will weigh much more heavily in this situation. If your professional experience isn’t really relative, but you’ve been volunteering, taking training or additional education to segue into another career, this should also be highlighted up top, along with your summary and skills. Remember: list the most relevant information first, from top to bottom.

4. Your cover letter will be more important than ever. Even if you have transferrable skills, you will be up against candidates with transferrable skills AND relevant work experience. While the resume tells them you can do the job based on the basic skill qualifications, your cover letter is where you now need to make the connection between your professional abilities & skills, and why you really want to work for THAT particular company or industry. Culture fit is important, so tell them why you really identify with and admire the work they’re doing.

Take a deep breath, my friends. Successful career transition can be tough to navigate (and I understand – I’ve done it several times myself!) Let me take some of the weight off your shoulders, give you a helping hand, and invite you to take advantage of my expert, affordable and stellar resume chops, known famously around the world (seriously, I have clients in Canada) to help you re-create a resume and online presence specifically designed around changing careers. I’ve done it many times before, and you can ask my fans how it’s worked out for them.

2012 is going to be a fabulous year for career opportunity, entrepreneurship, and making professional aspirations a fruitful reality. With the right tools, a stellar strategy, a clear vision of what you want, and big heaping doses of motivation and determination, that dream career is yours for the taking.