What makes a stronger impact on whether you are hired — top qualifications or skill in persuasion? Both are important, but persuasion can go a long way when you’re changing careers, doing a different job function or transitioning into another industry to gain a competitive advantage. The key is to differentiate yourself.

Successful advertising campaigns are built on the core marketing rule that few persons are capable of being convinced; the majority allows themselves to be persuaded. Not only is the end game for a career change to generate quality interviews but to persuade an employer to think favorably of you. One of the best and fastest ways to achieve this is through the use of a Web portfolio to distinguish you as a candidate, promote your brand and establish credibility.

Here are four reasons why job seekers should include a Web portfolio and its portable cousin, the hypercard (Web portfolio on a CD), in the job search toolkit:

• A well constructed and visually appealing Web portfolio is powerful and persuasive because it enhances information
recall.

• Web portfolios help focus an interviewer’s attention on accomplishments and value, therefore shortening the hiring process due to the content’s immediacy.

• Web portfolios easily prove cross-functionality, adaptability and relevant transferable skills.

• A Web portfolio allows “on-demand” access to one’s professional profile, accomplishment summary, core strengths, education, core values and résumé.

The art of persuasion appeals to emotion rather than intellect. A Web portfolio’s adaptability quickly establishes interest through personal credibility, unique benefit and an ability to effect change. As a result, you get hired faster.

What triggers an employer’s curiosity about a job candidate? Résumés and interviews that are developed from a marketing perspective rather than communicating a good history of job responsibilities and accomplishments do the job. This strategy is based on the marketing concept that consumers are pre-sold through advertising.

A consumer usually enters the point of purchase already desiring to buy the product. The more you target your assets to an employer’s exact needs in your résumé, the more likely you will be invited in for an opportunity.

The traditional résumé doesn’t emphasize your future contributions to the organization. Today’s marketplace requires focused marketing communication materials that pre-sell you. If you’re trying to change industries or your job title, or simply advance your career, you’ll need different communication strategies to generate quality interviews that give you a competitive edge.

There are many résumé varieties, including chronological, functional, combination, target, mini, letter (general, proposal and spot opportunity), federal, electronic, scannable, executive portfolio, networking and curriculum vitae. There are also strategies to execute cyber-marketing, including specialized profiles showcasing strengths in specific areas, such as a Web portfolio and HyperCards (Web portfolio on CD).

Create a highly effective résumé that is designed to reflect and communicate your branding based on your target. Present your most distinctive assets while minimizing liabilities. A résumé that’s written to be a marketing communications piece steers employer interest to you by instilling product confidence (you are the product) and proving competence (your unique value).

Now more than ever, companies need to make smart moves and hire good people. Use the correct tools and you’ll signal the hiring manager that you are a true professional.

Do you want to gain the upper hand in a job search? Use positioning and marketing to gain quality interviews and exposure.

Proper positioning expedites your employment hunt by going after an opportunity where your skills are best suited. This helps job seekers obtain interviews with recruiters and key decision makers with greater ease.

When positioning yourself as the personalized solution to a company’s need or challenge, you justify their investment in the time and energy required to find out more about you. Remember, it’s much easier if decision makers open the door for you.

Your preliminary verbal and written communications should create demand and position your “branding.” Review all the jobs you’ve had, and document your successes by stating the challenges encountered, actions taken and results achieved. Provide results in a measurable form such as percentages and dollar amounts. Use action words such as planned, directed, controlled and developed.

Change your focus from “what’s in it for me” to “what’s in it for them.” Gain an audience by recognizing opportunities.

Look for problems to solve, and find challenges by spotting company movement of any kind.

Focus on these compelling reasons why employers hire:

■ Saving money
■ Increasing revenue
■ Improving productivity
■ Streamlining operations
■ Enhancing client relations

Solution-based branding is a fresher approach to jobhunting because it ties or connects a personalized solution you’ve identified to an employer’s need. Your job search is then redefined from looking for employment openings to seeking more proactively a gateway to supply value and benefit as a solutions provider.

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To counter the country’s worst economic downturn in two generations, go underground for the best job opportunities. Get hired through what is called the “unadvertised job market.”

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics says:

• Since the start of the recession in December 2007, the number of unemployed persons increased by 2.7 million.

• Among the unemployed, the number of persons who lost their job and did not expect to be recalled to work increased by 2 million.

• The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more) was up by 822,000 during the past 12 months.

• The number of persons who worked part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time
workers) rose by 2.8 million during the past 12 months. This category includes persons who would like to work full-time but were working part time because their hours had been
cut back or because they were unable to find full-time jobs.

When confronted with statistics such as these, here’s where you’ll find your next job:

1. Small- and mediumsized firms are in a hiring frenzy to scoop up talented individuals who once worked for large firms.

Their need: growth farmer.

2. Well-funded organizations in an acquisition mode that are buying up financially-troubled companies for pennies on
the dollar.

Their need: staff and unit morale booster.

3. Businesses seeking bankruptcy protection or announcing mass lay-offs.

Their need: turnaround savior.

Be adaptive. Create a previously non-existent opportunity, or seek a role that fills a vacuum left from a severe corporate downsizing.

Get hired, differently.

Recent advances in job search technology, current economic conditions and keener competition in the Columbus job market all serve to undermine the traditional approach to a job search employed by many of today’s job seekers.

Traditionally, someone initiating a job search starts by preparing or updating his or her resumé. Next, he or she may look at job sites and industry bulletin boards on the Internet, as well as employment advertisements in newspapers and professional trade journals. As the search proceeds, the job seeker may activate his or her professional network and approach placement firms servicing the industry or profession within which he or she has been most recently employed.

Time pressures can be considerable, regardless of whether one is working or is unemployed. The resulting anxiety and frustration often leads to accepting the first good offer that comes along even when there are clear indications that it is not the opportunity one truly wants and deserves.

In contrast, a more proactive, professional approach first pinpoints for job seekers those areas of the job market where they are most marketable, and why. This “positioning” is then the basis for developing targeted communications, followed by quality interviews. The result can be better management of a career and of career opportunities.

New opportunities are uncovered by aligning the job seeker’s competencies with the needs of targeted employers, showing these employers how the job seeker can solve their business challenges.

This proactive approach can differentiate and elevate the job seeker in the eyes of an employer. Proper positioning opens doors to new opportunities, increased responsibilities and advancement, and even to restarting a career in a new industry or profession. This is the final frontier of a proactive approach: transitioning one’s job skills and experiences into a new career, instead of simply looking for a new job based on a job history resumé.

Crucial to achieving success with the proactive approach is gaining access to leads and openings, as well as engaging in deep-level market research in the advertised and unadvertised employment marketplace.

This positioning-targeted approach is particularly applicable to the Columbus job market now, since competition for positions continues to increase in many industries, including hospitality, education, manufacturing, distribution, transportation, information technology and legal services. It is especially appropriate for senior and mid-level management, operations management and for attorneys.