Who Do You Work For--The Affects of Branding

Who Do You Work For? The Affects of Branding.

We are all influenced by brands and I can prove it to you.

When you by detergent to do your laundry, I bet you don't read the list of chemicals from one brand, compare it with three others and say, "Hmm. The combination of these in this brand will probably be far superior to the combination in these other three." You never say that, do you?

Instead you assume they'll all do the same job and buy one as opposed to another because it's on sale, you have a coupon, or has no scent or maybe your wife, husband or mother specified what they wanted. You do anything other than figure out which will actually make your laundry cleaner.

When companies hire and when recruiters screen resumes, we're also influenced by brands. We see names we know like a large company or a "hot" company or a recognized leaders in our market area and we believe this person is better than someone at a company we've never heard of. Right or wrong, that's human nature.

What can you do if you work for a small company or a "no-name company?" What can you do to create a better impression?

The answer is to define it for the recipient.

For example, a person works for Jillie Jack Jay Consultants (I made that up), what do you write? You might write something like 32 person regional strategy and operations consulting firm focused on the hospitality industry.

If you work for Benoit Fashion (again made up. Any similarity between this name and a real one is accidental), you might say that they are a $50 million dollar swimwear firm. Get the idea?

Leaving a company that few have heard of to stand on its own does little to create a positive impression. Defining it gives people a better opportunity to understand it, understand your experience and be interested.