Promote Yourself by Dan Schawbel Read Free Book Online Page A

people, if you know you’ve got some skills that they aren’t aware of, speak up! For example, John Gerzema, Executive Chairman of BrandAsset Consulting, who oversees strategy for Young & Rubicam Companies, told me a great story about an employee who took the initiative to let John know about some skills that were being underutilized. “Recently I had a young and promising analyst approach me about training. As the company I run specializes in brand strategy steeped in analytics, I assumed that he wanted more mentoring in quant and data. But as we sat down, he explained to me that in his off-hours he’s a photographer and documentary filmmaker, and he felt that this side of him wasn’t being used in the company. ‘We’re a branding company after all, so why wouldn’t we want to access these skills?’ he told me. Moreover, by working all day crunching numbers, he felt his creative side was beginning to atrophy.” Impressed by this young analyst’s passion, John did two things. First, he transferred the employee to Chicago (where the company’s film, photography, and graphic design offices are) so he could be closer to a creative community. Second, John restructured his job so he was using his filmmaking and photography skills. “But the main thing I took away from all this,” John added, “is that Millennials aren’t defined by their jobs. Their jobs are merely one part of a bigger mosaic. In Hollywood, the more hyphens you have, the more power. Someone who’s an Actor-Writer-Director-Producer, for instance, is going to get more walks down the red carpet than someone who wears only one hat. And that’s what my analyst was telling me: ‘There are more sides to me than you understand or can empathize with. And if you don’t see them, you might not be seeing me for long.’”
    What a powerful example of the need to make absolutely sure that your managers and coworkers know about your skills.
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    Acquiring Hard Skills
    As I mentioned earlier, the goal of developing hard skills is to become a subject matter expert and proficient at specific functions that relate to your job. The best way to identify the skill or skills to focus on first is to sit down with your manager and ask which are important for your profession and which you’ll need to have if you want to move up. (If you want to dig a little deeper, ask the same questions of an industry mentor or a colleague with more experience than you.) Make sure your manager helps you list them in order of importance. Then, select the skills that you want to develop and become an expert at. Ideally, you’ll start with one or two that in some way play to your strengths, the ones that will allow you to distinguish yourself relative to others in your company and your industry. When you’re doing something you’re already pretty good at, it’s natural to want to spend more time doing it. As a result, you’ll get better even faster. If the top skills on your list don’t play to your strengths, go down the list until you reach one that does. This doesn’t mean that you should ignore all the skills that don’t utilize your strengths. Not at all. I’m just saying that it’s a lot easier to become an expert at one thing at a time. That said, there is often overlap between skills, so working on more than one at a time—as long as they complement each other—is fine. Ultimately, anything you do and any skill you develop will help you get ahead faster. It’s just a question of getting the most bang for your buck. If you try to do too much you’ll spread yourself too thin and might get distracted and not get anywhere.
    There are many different ways to acquire hard skills, but for the most part they all fall into one of two broad categories: skills you learn through your company and skills you learn on your own. Let’s look at each of these in