I asked my friends and former co-workers to help me with a branding exercise. I asked them to each give me one word to describe me.
Some gave more than one word. There were lots of words that were given by more than one person. Most of the common words were pretty generic--Intelligent, Devoted, Thorough, and Organized.
So I'm going to use some of the less common words for my branding for this job search.
Primary Brand:
Tenacious
Secondary Brands:
Efficient
Unflappable
I still need to think through how these brands affect my elevator pitches, resume, and the blog. But that is all on hold while I decide what I'm going to do about the whole Plan A / Plan B problem.
Click through the read link below to see how everyone answered the question and my analysis of the answers.
The long version:
I wrote a simple email and sent it to about 30 friends, family members, and former co-workers. If you are reading this then you probably got that email, but for anyone else reading this here is the subject and body of that message:
Subject:
Please tell me the one word that you would use to describe me to a stranger
Body:
__name__,
Don't spend more than 1 minute on this. Just turn to the empty space beside you and say out loud, "You don't know Randy. Oh, well he's _____."
Reply and let me know how you finished that sentence. Just one word.
You could count "homicidal maniac" as one word, for the purposes of this exercise. :-)
I think that this is the last favor I will ask, at least for a while. If you get a minute to check muy blog you will see that I am really wrestling with who I am and what I can uniquely contribute to society. I'm going to wrestle with this for a while before I spend any more energy trying to find a regular ole' job.
Thank you very much. Have a great day!
Randy Miller
I received 25 responses. I analyzed those responses to derive the branding statements above. This is how I did it.
A few of them were much longer than 1 word. I've tried to truncate those in the following table. I've also indicated each person's relationship to me.
| Brand | Who | Relationship |
| a bit lost | Jeremy | Personal |
| a wealth of information and a "really good problem solver" | Robyn | Work |
| an organized detailed perfectionist who loves color | Barbara | Work |
| caregiver. You have a soft, tender, caring, helpful, knowledgeable personality. You are a good supporter and encourager | Sharon | Personal |
| Christian | Janie | Personal |
| Committed | James | Work & Personal |
| Creative | Yongi | Work |
| Dedicated | Sommer | Work |
| Deep, Complex, Detail orented. Cerebral. Tenacious | Matt | Work & Personal |
| Dependable | Dayne | Personal |
| Detail Oriented, Organized | Brian | Work |
| dogged, thorough, tenacious | Meredith | Work |
| Efficient, Meticulous | Scott | Work |
| Fanatical (in a mostly good way), Devoted | Andrew | Work |
| Incisive, Perceptive | John P. | Work |
| Intellectual | Phil | Work |
| Intelligent, Creative. Honest. Diligent. Wise | Dan | Work |
| Planner | Rob | Work |
| Principled | Steve | Work |
| searching | Sarah | Personal |
| Thinker | Curt | Work |
| Thorough | Dylan | Work |
| Thorough | John M. | Work |
| Thoughtful | Christy | Personal |
| Unflappable | Jenny | Work |
I went through those and broke out the multiple responses into separate votes. Yes, I decided to let people vote more than once. If I had a sample size of 600 I might not have done it that way. But 25 votes just isn't very many. Allowing the multiple votes increased that to 42. With 42 I think we can get a better spread of results. That methodology does not stand up to pure scientific rigor, but I think it is close enough for this exercise.
| Brand | Who | Relationship |
| Caregiver | Sharon | Personal |
| Cerebral | Matt | Work & Personal |
| Christian | Janie | Personal |
| Committed | James | Work & Personal |
| Complex | Matt | Work & Personal |
| Creative | Dan | Work |
| Creative | Yongi | Work |
| Dedicated | Sommer | Work |
| Deep | Matt | Work & Personal |
| Dependable | Dayne | Personal |
| Detail Oriented | Barbara | Work |
| Detail Oriented | Brian | Work |
| Detail Oriented | Matt | Work & Personal |
| Detail Oriented | Scott | Work |
| Devoted | Andrew | Work |
| Diligent | Dan | Work |
| Efficient | Scott | Work |
| Encourager | Sharon | Personal |
| Helpful | Sharon | Personal |
| Honest | Dan | Work |
| Incisive | John P. | Work |
| Intelligent | Dan | Work |
| Intelligent | Phil | Work |
| Knowledgable | Robyn | Work |
| Knowledgable | Sharon | Personal |
| Organized | Barbara | Work |
| Organized | Brian | Work |
| Perceptive | John P. | Work |
| Perfectionist | Barbara | Work |
| Planner | Rob | Work |
| Principled | Steve | Work |
| Problem Solver | Robyn | Work |
| Searching | Jeremy | Personal |
| Searching | Sarah | Personal |
| Tenacious | Matt | Work & Personal |
| Tenacious | Meredith | Work |
| Thinker | Curt | Work |
| Thorough | Dylan | Work |
| Thorough | John M. | Work |
| Thoughtful | Christy | Personal |
| Unflappable | Jenny | Work |
| Wise | Dan | Work |
Lots of those words looked like synonyms to me. So I examined each vote and transalted like words into single synonyms. I tried to be aware of the people with multiple votes in here and tried not to take two of their votes and count them towards the same synonym. In those cases I usually left one of the words unchanged. Two of Matt's votes were so close that I just deleted one of them as pure synonyms.
| Brand | Synonym'd | Who | Relationship |
| Caregiver | Caregiver | Sharon | Personal |
| Christian | Christian | Janie | Personal |
| Creative | Creative | Dan | Work |
| Creative | Creative | Yongi | Work |
| Committed | Devoted | James | Work & Personal |
| Dedicated | Devoted | Sommer | Work |
| Dependable | Devoted | Dayne | Personal |
| Devoted | Devoted | Andrew | Work |
| Diligent | Devoted | Dan | Work |
| Unflappable | Devoted | Jenny | Work |
| Efficient | Efficient | Scott | Work |
| Encourager | Encourager | Sharon | Personal |
| Honest | Honest | Dan | Work |
| Incisive | Incisive | John P. | Work |
| Cerebral | Knowledgable | Matt | Work & Personal |
| Intelligent | Knowledgable | Dan | Work |
| Intelligent | Knowledgable | Phil | Work |
| Knowledgable | Knowledgable | Robyn | Work |
| Knowledgable | Knowledgable | Sharon | Personal |
| Perceptive | Knowledgable | John P. | Work |
| Thinker | Knowledgable | Curt | Work |
| Wise | Knowledgable | Dan | Work |
| Organized | Organized | Barbara | Work |
| Organized | Organized | Brian | Work |
| Planner | Organized | Rob | Work |
| Perfectionist | Perfectionist | Barbara | Work |
| Principled | Principled | Steve | Work |
| Problem Solver | Problem Solver | Robyn | Work |
| Searching | Searching | Jeremy | Personal |
| Searching | Searching | Sarah | Personal |
| Tenacious | Tenacious | Matt | Work & Personal |
| Tenacious | Tenacious | Meredith | Work |
| Detail Oriented | Thorough | Barbara | Work |
| Detail Oriented | Thorough | Brian | Work |
| Detail Oriented | Thorough | Matt | Work & Personal |
| Detail Oriented | Thorough | Scott | Work |
| Thorough | Thorough | Dylan | Work |
| Thorough | Thorough | John M. | Work |
| Helpful | Thoughtful | Sharon | Personal |
| Thoughtful | Thoughtful | Christy | Personal |
Then I totaled the votes for each of these synonyms.
| Total | Votes |
| Knowledgable | 8 |
| Devoted | 6 |
| Thorough | 6 |
| Organized | 3 |
| Creative | 2 |
| Searching | 2 |
| Tenacious | 2 |
| Thoughtful | 2 |
| Caregiver | 1 |
| Christian | 1 |
| Efficient | 1 |
| Encourager | 1 |
| Honest | 1 |
| Incisive | 1 |
| Perfectionist | 1 |
| Principled | 1 |
| Problem Solver | 1 |
I also broke out the personal and work votes, just to see if there was a marked difference in how those two communities viewed me. The totals for Personal and Work for each branding word do not match the totals above because Matt's and James's votes are counted in both categories, but not double-counted in the totals.
| Personal | Votes |
| Devoted | 2 |
| Knowledgable | 2 |
| Searching | 2 |
| Thoughtful | 2 |
| Caregiver | 1 |
| Christian | 1 |
| Encourager | 1 |
| Tenacious | 1 |
| Thorough | 1 |
| Work | Votes |
| Knowledgable | 7 |
| Thorough | 6 |
| Devoted | 5 |
| Organized | 3 |
| Creative | 2 |
| Tenacious | 2 |
| Efficient | 1 |
| Honest | 1 |
| Incisive | 1 |
| Perfectionist | 1 |
| Principled | 1 |
| Problem Solver | 1 |
Then I analyzed the data:
* Knowledgable, Devoted and Thorough, Organized. I certainly don't dispute any of those.
* It seems that my friends and coworkers really have quite different views of me. I guess that isn't too surprising. Maybe that is either evidence of or an explanation for my dissatisfaction at work--I couldn't really be myself there. Whether that disconnect is a cause or effect of my dissatisfaction at work, it feels very true that not being my true self at work is a problem that I need to solve. In the future I need to be more truly myself at work. So in terms of branding myself for future work, the personal votes should get more weight. Maybe.
* I played with actually weighting the personal votes more. That didn't change anything substantial.
* I also went back and just took everyone's first word (25 votes instead of 42), and re-did the analysis on that. That didn't change anything substantial. Organized fell out of 4th place to tie with all of the other branding words that got 1 vote.
* There just aren't enough data points to push this any further. From here I will have to move with my guts.
So, what are the results?
* Other people primarily see me as Knowledgable.
* And very close behind that they see me as Devoted and Thorough.
* Other people at work also see me as Creative, Organized, and Tenacious.
* Other people who know me outside of work also see me as Thoughtful, and Searching.
* And there are not enough data points to really distinguish those brands based solely on the data.
How do I feel about that?
* Knowledgable, Devoted, Thorough, and Organized are not bad things, but they are not very exciting or inspiring. As far as branding goes these are very weak words. Unless I go with an exciting synonym, people will respond with "of course, isn't everyone?" Maybe these are my secondary brands.
* Those 4 are all very consistent with being an INTJ, which comes as no surprise. The INTJ is normally called the "Rational Mastermind", which is more exciting but feels like a stretch. Informally, though, INTJ is referred to as the "Arrogant Bastard". All of my friends are too polite to have said that.
* It is frustrating to have so few data points. There are a few people who I emailed and didn't respond. There isn't enough of them to sway the voting. But the fact is that I am an introvert, and there just aren't that many people who know me. That isn't going to change.
* I think that the context of this exercise (job searching) and the name of the blog (The Search) might have influenced one or more of the votes for 'Searching'. I am searching right now. I'm not sure that I am twice as much Searching as I am Caregiver or Tenacious, normally.
* I don't feel like an Encourager. Maybe that is an indictment against the sad state of encouragement in our world. :-)
* There are a few words that I expected to get more (or even one) vote. Creative. Verbose (maybe that's what some people meant with Thorough.) Visionary. Courageous. Capable. Ethical.
* I'm really struggling with turning this from a self-analysis exercise to a marketing exercise. In trying to market Knowledgable, Devoted, Thorough, and Organized, I might choose words like Wise and Unflappable (both came from the raw votes.) I'm having trouble allowing myself to do that.
* There were a few words that only got one or two votes each that I really like. Incisive (Merriam-Webster:"impressively direct and decisive".) Tenacious. Efficient. Unflappable.
* I like Incisive, but I'm worried that few people will know what it means. Tenacious? Unflappable? What can I lead with?
(At this point I pinged James for advice, weighing Incisive versus Tenacious. Thanks James!)
How am I going to brand myself for the this job hunt?
Tenacious. Incisive. Efficient. Unflappable.
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