5 Easy Steps to Selling Yourself!

No, I'm not talking about prostitution and I'm not actually going to give you tips on how to sell yourself. I'm talking about the medium of networking, specifically for jobs. As business students, we are constantly told to sell ourselves to companies in order to get a job. We need to create an image of ourselves that will sell. The true person inside? Oh no! That won't do at all! They want to see what they expect and they need to hear what they want.  Basically...play by the employers' rules, kiss serious butt, and forgo your true self to get the job. 

"If you can't sell yourself, you might as well just give up"- this is the message we're bombarded with. So we put on our suits, paint a smile on our face and proceed to be fake. What happened to the days when skills mattered? Why are we managing personal images rather than company assets? How is it that we're putting our focus on people's perceptions rather than the actual job at hand? Why do rumors play as big of roles as they do in our professional lives? Most of us can answer these questions through superficial justifications because we've been trained to believe there is nothing wrong with holding back to gain more.

It's ALL about image control and how people perceive you as opposed to how skilled you actually are. Those who aren't social butterflies will definitely find it difficult to compete in the business world

Is it no wonder that our society is so focused on image when that was the most important thing for the business leaders of our nation?

Makeup your mind (face)

If we want to see the effects of the media on our society, we can just take a look at ourselves. Just by reflecting on our own consumption patterns, we will find it extraordinarily difficult to deny that we are greatly influenced by media. One of the main victims of media is appearance. The way you look; the way I do. We are constantly being bombarded with advertisements telling us that we need this lipstick, that cream, those shoes. The irony is that these weapons against our appearance have now become the medium through which we express ourselves.

For the sake of keeping this post short, let’s focus on one medium; makeup. Makeup is one of the highest grossing industries in the world. It emphasizes the “flaws” we all have and then introduces a solution for our flaws. Of course, we would have to buy this solution for this amount and use it this many times to see this much change. Many females (not exclusively) use makeup, myself included; use makeup as a way of expressing ourselves. Because of what we have been led to believe, we wear smoky eyes for those nights out, red lips for those elegant events, neutral shadows for those interviews, and endless other combinations.

Because media is a profit-driven institution, its sole intention is not to shape society in a way that positively affects all the participants. If you know someone’s main goal in life was to make money, would you not find it more difficult to trust them in critical situations? This should apply to the media in the very same way. We need to stop letting profit be the justification for allowing our own reflections to be victimized. 

The American Comic Book

When I began to learn English, I picked comic books as my medium of choice. Because I did not have a strong grasp on this new language, I relied on the images to help me understand what the words meant. Outside of school, television helped me speak English, but could not teach me how to read or write. For my parents, it was much better to see their daughter with a comic book than in front of the television. They believed in the idea of a “weak audience” and thought that television corrupted impressionable young minds.

My favorite comic books were the Archie comics that were famous way before I was born (founded in 1939). These comics were not funny in the modern sense (“stupid funny”), but were appealing because of its corny jokes, positive outlook, and representation of carefree teenage lives. What I read in the Archie comics shaped my view of American living and the stereotypical American family/friends.

The fact that I loved the artwork in most comic books and graphic novels made this medium even more appealing. Although comic books today are not as popular as they used to, most great comic books have turned into television series and/or movies. Whether or not that’s a good thing is up for debate.

Paper and Pen of the Modern World

In my last post, I talked about the progression of traditional paper books into revolutionary digital eBooks. Since the media through which we view ideas are changing, it stands to reason that the media through which we create ideas would change as well.

Today, let’s focus on the paper and pencil. These have been our staple mediums for inscribing messages and relaying information to one another for centuries throughout the world. For many years, we never believed we could really improve on these tools, but then came pens, markers, crayons, etc. 

However, they were all still pretty basic tools.

Let me introduce you to the paper and pencil of the modern world.  

This is a digital tablet. It comes with a stylus pen to write/draw with and the tip of the pen has pressure sensitivity so if you push down harder, the lines are thicker and darker. 

I originally bought this tablet for digital drawings on Photoshop, but have come to use it as my mouse too. It connects to my laptop through a USB cable and is very ergonomic in design.

Drawing have become much easier and writing handwritten notes in programs such as OneNote is a breeze. Not to mention, with all that paper I save, digital media is very eco-friendly.

Here is an example of a simple eye I drew with the tablet.

Let's turn back a page or two

With new advancements coming out in technology almost everyday, it's surprising that some people would complain about these revolutionary feats. This is the case for eBook readers. As companies try to make their e-readers lighter, sleeker, thinner, and overall more cutting-edge, consumers are complaining that the devices don't feel like real books, that the screens do not resemble paper, and that the e-readers are ruining their dating life.

One journalist points out that in the past, one could meet a stranger by making a comment about the book in the stranger's hand and now, the only comment one could make is about the device itself. This idea that "too much privacy" leads to antisocial behavior truly amuses me. While I agree that books are a great way to start up a conversation with the person you'll be sitting next to for a 6-hour flight, it definitely is not the main way people meet one another. Perhaps some people just want some things to remain as they are in a world where permanence is a fantasy at best.

It makes me wonder whether those who want a return to simpler times just dislike adapting to our new world or if it is something bigger. Perhaps those people are fearful of the reach that technology has on our society and how reliant we have all become on it. Media may be extensions of ourselves, but how much of it is an extension and how much has a life of its own?

2-page e-reader to resemble a real book.

Seeing if e-ink can compare to book ink in the sunlight.

A touchscreen e-reader.