Writing Homework Help

Personal Marketing Plan

This assignment consists of applying marketing strategy to yourself and your pursuit of a career. This individual project assignment is intended to accomplish two objectives:

1. To give you the opportunity to learn more about marketing plans and how they are constructed by developing a real plan to market a real product (yourself!)
2. To encourage you to begin to focus upon your career planning efforts.

This require research – not just your own interpretation of the field you’d like to enter. As withall business communication, grammar and formatting is critical. Use headers to separate your items and make them easy to read and easy to identify. Be professional, not conversational, in your writing. As this is a business assignment, please make sure to take pride in the appearance of your finished product.

Although it is for a business, Appendix B in your book is a great sample of a personal marketing plan.

You should following this outline:

1. Introduction – This section consists of brief introductory statements about what will follow in your report, its importance to you, and how it will be used to guide your career. It should also introduce you – who you are, what you do. The introduction serves to orient the reader regarding the importance you place on this exercise, and how the report is organized.
2. Situation Analysis – This section focuses on where you are at this point of your life, and helps you identify your distinctive competencies.Significant Life Events: Everyone’s life has had its ups and downs, that is, significant

events about which you have positive or negative feelings. Please briefly describe the threemost significant events of your life, and indicate how these events have shaped your goals, abilities, and attitudes toward your potential contribution(s) to society. For instance, you may have demonstrated persistence, worked hard, or used good human relations skills in overcoming a negative event. These traits may have given you some degree of confidence that hard work and persistence pays off in the long run.

Each of these should be in a separate paragraph with explanation as detailed above.

Accomplishments: Identify the three most significant accomplishments you have achieved during your college days. These can include academic, service, and sports

achievements. For each accomplishment, identify the area, your objective, the difficulties you overcame, the qualities and abilities you demonstrated to overcome the difficulties, and results. Naturally, the qualities and abilities you list here may duplicate some of the traits you identified in the previous section.

Each of these should be in a separate paragraph with explanation as detailed above.

Disappointments: Identify at least one failing during your college career, and describe what that situation taught you about the limits to your capabilities.

Interest Inventory: Identify the six interests that you care about most, and threeactivities that you care about least from the following list.

planning leading observing performing maintaining

SWOT Analysis

creating analyzing constructing speaking innovating

training counseling writing operating selling

organizing managing installing exploring finance

designing mediating problem solving administrating persuading

artistic activity

Strengths: As a result of the preceding exercises (significant life events, accomplishments, disappointments, and interest inventory), you should feel relatively comfortable that you know your key strengths and weaknesses. In this section, summarize (don’t simply list!) the key findings of the preceding analysis by identifying your ten most important strengths. These are the qualities upon which you will build a successful career.

Weaknesses: Summarize (don’t just list!) the limits to your interests and abilities. These are the areas (more than one!!) in which you will either want to take steps to improve your performance or avoid by selecting jobs that do not require skills in these areas.

Opportunities: In order to complete this next step, you will need to have a college major in mind. (If you are currently undecided, select any one of the majors you are currently considering.) Identify three trends that will positively affect the need for persons with college degrees in your major over the next five years. Specify the kinds of jobs, the industries, or the companies that will be increasing their hiring as a result. Cite your sources.

Threats: Identify at least one trend that will negatively affect the need for college graduates in your specialty over the next five years. Specify the kinds of entry-level jobs, the industries, or the companies that will be decreasing their hiring as a result.

Now write a summary paragraph about your SWOT analysis in which you summarize whatyou’ve done and reiterate the significance of what you’ve concluded.

1. Objective – In this section, take a long term perspective on your career. Describe the ideal job position for you ten years after graduation. Identify the ideal industry you would be working in, the region of the country (or world) where you will work, the name of the industry, the name of an ideal employer, your title, your job duties, and your annual income. Write a paragraph describing what accomplishments you would like to be known for in this ideal job. This is your long-term career objective.
2. Target Market – Now take a short term perspective, focusing upon the first job you will hold after completion of schooling. This job will be an entry-level opportunity in which you will establish a reputation for success and accomplishments. It will lead to future advancement, and ultimately to your career objective. Identify the top three industries in which you would like to work and explain why. Pick one of these industries, and name at least three employers in this industry (both name of company and address) with whom you would consider working. Provide a rationale for this selection – why did you choose each of the industries? Why did you pick the industry you chose to concentrate on? Why did you select the three employers you did?Now identify three possible entry-level positions that each of these employers have (each position must be present at all three employers) and in which you have an interest. Now, create a 3 X 3 market segmentation grid by listing employers vertically and positions horizontally. Rate each employer-position on criteria of your choosing – be sure to state what your criteria are and detail the range and what the numbers mean. An examplemight be “proximity” where 1-2 means over 150 miles away, 3-4 means 100 miles away, etc. Define these so that I know if closer is better, etc.Select the best employer-position to serve as your “target market.”

Example:

Staff Accountant BMW 10

Pitney Bowes 8

Bookkeeper Researcher

8 7

9 9

PWC 7 6 8

My criteria for ranking include taking a look at the level of contentment of current employees in that position (GlassDoor.com), starting salary, proximity to home and ability for promotion.

Which job did you choose and why? Now provide a complete description of the employer’sneeds for this position. Include in your description a list of the skills and interests they will

require (Career Services and the Library can help answer this question.) Compare these to the skills and interests you developed in the situation analysis section.

5. Positioning Statement – Now develop a positioning statement for yourself (the product) in the following form:

“To ____________________(company name), ____________________ (your name) is thecandidate for ____________________(position) who offers____________________, ____________________, and ____________________ (list up to five distinctive skills or competencies from your SWOT analysis.)

For each of the distinctive skills or competencies you list, write a short paragraph which provides descriptive support and demonstrates why you believe you possess that competency.

6. Marketing Mix – This section of your plan shows how you will use the 4 P’s to marketyourself for the ENTRY LEVEL POSITION.

PRODUCT: Use this section to identify what refinements or embellishments you will need tomake in the “product” (that’s you) so that you meet the needs of the target market. Include the skills you need to improve upon, and how you intend to do so (take a specific elective course, attend a Career Services seminar, go to grad school, assume a leadership position in a school organization, take a specific internship, get a supporting summer experience, improve your GPA, buy a suit, etc.).

PRICE: What are your expected salary and benefits? Look up current information on starting salaries for the job position you have targeted. Cite a reference for your information. Identify what you believe is a fair starting salary (for you) given your distinctive competencies and track record.

PLACE: Identify how you intend to make contact with the target employer (cold call, network contact, want ad reply, etc.). Identify the name, address, and phone number of the individual who will make the hiring decision. Identify the names and locations of other people who can provide you with insight about this individual and the specific needs of the job or company. Determine when, where, and how you will contact these people for advice.

PROMOTION: Include your resume and cover letter. It’s best to upload these as separatedocuments – you should be able to upload three docs inside the assignment. Your cover letter should be specific to the job you identified above. Use correct form (address blocks, etc.) for both the letter as well as the resume.

Also discuss how you will handle an interview, as well as other promotional and job search activities you will engage in.

1. Action Plan – Compile a list of all the actions you will need to do to implement your plan. Arrange them in chronological order and indicate when you will do them, including specific target dates. Include all the actions that you plan to do for developmental reasons, too.
2. References – This section should include all the information sources you used, including any interview(s) you conducted to gather information. You should use at least five references. References should be MLA or APA formatted.

This project will require effort, reflection, and creativity on your part and only you can develop that marketing plan that will help you be successful in your career. For example, I cannot tell you what company you should work for or how you should position yourself.

Students must submit their Personal Marketing Plan assignment through SafeAssign via Blackboard.