Following a recent conversation with a colleague and mentor (Director, of a national recruitment firm) about the challenges a good Account Managers faces when attaining new jobs and higher salaries, Emma Stone from Hulsbosch asked: “What makes you want to recruit them?”
My mentor commented that she was always on the look out for a ‘super suit’ with the confidence to highlight experienced based knowledge. Whatever the ‘twists and turns’ a career may have; it was the substantial collective of experiences that often made a candidate standout.
Simply being good is no longer enough and being great is what is truly required to now standout from the crowd.
For the ever-changing demands of the marketing and communications industry, having an alternative sector background can be a huge advantage to a successful career and a way to shape a unique personal brand in account services.
Glenn Llopis, a Forbes magazine contributor recently said: “To make your personal brand more valuable you must know what skill-sets, capabilities and aptitudes to invest in and which to not – throughout the course of your career”.
My early skills were mastered in the world of photography and included photo-shoots, negatives, transparencies, processing, drum scans, hand printing, split toning and spotting. The requirement for these skills went into the waste bin as quickly as my career would have if I didn’t evolve. Yet this experience has significantly contributed to the foundations of shaping my career.
Entering the print industry accelerated my production knowledge and I was able to leverage my existing ability to communicate with people on a one-to-one basis to ensure clients’ goals and outcomes were achieved to the highest quality, on budget and on time.
The advertising agency world then set a course for me joining the arena of account service. My varied experience bought substantial problem solving abilities and a vast knowledge base to resolve the most challenging of issues. These skills were valued by my clients and also elevated me within the team environment. It became quickly apparent I had sewn the seed for my emergence as a ‘super suit’.
I began to recognise that a varied career history wasn’t necessarily an unsteady attribute; it was the foundation of a distinctive personal brand.
Today I work at independent brand agency, Hulsbosch and manage the creation of ‘future fit’ identities and innovative branding solutions for clients, whether they are a leading Australian corporate brand or a worldwide consumer business investing in brand identity reinvention.
Having this pivotal hand in dealing with creative and corporate leaders is both enlightening and inspiring. They too, appreciate the importance of highly skilled account service professionals who can direct them on branding strategies, and can see the value it brings to effective business.
So when next faced with a career change, embrace the transformation, evolve your skills and open the possibilities to further work opportunities. Continue to promote your personal brand with top recruiters and employers who can see the benefits of bolstering teams with highly skilled and knowledgeable professionals from alternate creative industries.
Emma Stone is a senior account director at strategic brand and design company, Hulsbosch.
