Author: Dorie Clark

Overcoming people’s past perceptions of you isn’t easy. When I launched my consulting business seven years ago, I was astonished to find — years later — that acquaintances and even friends hadn’t kept up with my career transition. They’d ask about my past work in politics or nonprofit advocacy, oblivious to the changes that had been consuming my life. It wasn’t their fault, however. These days, we all have thousands of Facebook friends or LinkedIn connections; it’s just not realistic to keep up with everyone’s latest developments. But the fact that they weren’t aware of my new business meant I was losing out on referrals and potential clients. I realized I had to ensure they took notice.

Of course, you can’t just prop someone’s eyelids open, A Clockwork Orange-style, and force them to read your white papers or watch your webinars. So how do you get other people to realize, and remember, what you’re doing now — and grasp what you’re truly capable of?

Create content. As a knowledge worker, it can be hard to demonstrate your expertise to anyone besides your boss. But the Internet — and the ability for anyone to start publishing content — has given us a profound opportunity. Just as a graphic designer has a portfolio she can display of her best logos and brochures, you should be creating intellectual property (blog posts, podcasts, videocasts — even a savvy and professional Twitter feed can count) that demonstrates your expertise. If you’ve changed careers, or are trying to move up the ladder at your company, others may still think of the “old you.” Creating solid content reminds people of your new skills and knowledge (it’s hard to ignore it if they see links to your blog posts every day in their social media feed) and enables people to judge you based on the quality of the material you produce, not your past history or credentials.

Leverage social proof. It’s a term psychologists love to use — “social proof.” Basically, it means that people look to others around them to judge the value of something. (If a book has 1,000 five-star Amazon reviews, it must be good.) So how can you leverage this heuristic to help your career? If you’re going to bother getting involved with a professional organization, you should make it a point to take a leadership role, because the social proof of being seen as a leader will have exponential benefits. Alan Weiss, a consultant who was the president of the National Speakers Association’s New England chapter in the mid-1990s, thought his business would decline during those years because of the extra volunteer time commitment required. “But to my surprise,” he told me, “I did about $250,000 more business. The visibility naturally accrues to you, and even though you don’t seek it out, people come to you for interviews and advice. Your visibility grows and your brand grows.”

Find a wingman. It’s true: no one likes a braggart. But you can avoid the problem entirely, a powerhouse group of researchers led by Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford and Robert Cialdini of Arizona State discovered, by having someone else do the bragging for you. “People don’t like people who self-promote,” Pfeffer told me. “But ironically, even if you self-promote through the mouths of other people, somehow that stigma doesn’t get associated with you. It’s much better to have someone else toot your horn.” If you can afford one, you could certainly hire a publicist. But another option is to find a like-minded “wingman” and take turns promoting each other. At cocktail parties or conferences, you and your friend can make a point of mentioning each other’s accomplishments or bringing up conversational topics where your partner excels. It may sound artificial, but it doesn’t have to be. Just consider it a chance to help your friend shine — and let him reciprocate.

In a frenetic world where we’re all stretched far beyond Dunbar’s number (the famed idea that humans are optimized to handle about 150 social relationships), it can be exceedingly hard to get noticed by others — and especially to ensure they’re thinking about us in the ways we’d like. But we have to take action somehow, or risk missing out on professional opportunities simply because we’re not on others’ radars or they don’t recognize our skills. By creating robust and regular content, mobilizing social proof, and finding a wingman to help spread the word, we can begin to break through and take charge of our reputation in the world.

Graduation season is upon us — and that means approximately 700,000 U.S. students will be receiving master’s degrees and another 150,000 or so will be getting their doctorates. For some, the path forward is clear: the math experts will be snapped up by hedge funds, the software engineers will have their pick of start-ups, and elite investment banks and consultancies will duke it out for the top MBAs. But a significant number of those students will fling off their mortarboards only to find themselves bereft of job prospects.

Fourteen years ago, that was me. I was graduating with a master’s degree in theological studies; aiming for a career in academia, I had been utterly unconcerned about the practical applicability of my degree. But when I was turned down by every doctoral program I applied to, I suddenly needed a plan to earn a living. That led to a variety of professional adventures, ranging from journalism to documentary film-making to nonprofit management to serving as a presidential campaign spokesperson.

But one of the hardest parts of the journey was the initial step — entering the workforce after two years of rigorous graduate studies and explaining my degree (no, I wasn’t training to become a minister) and, even more critically, its value in the marketplace. If you’ve earned a graduate degree that puts you on a less-than-certain professional trajectory — one that naysayers may even declare “useless” — here are a few strategies that have worked for me.

The truth is, your subject matter knowledge may be irrelevant to anything going on in the business world today. Expert in ancient Roman politics? Biblical exegesis? South American literature? Anyone will want you at their dinner party — but maybe not working at their company. That’s why you need to emphasize your skills, not your content expertise. In college (studying philosophy) and in divinity school, I learned to read abstruse texts with careful comprehension, and fashion tight, logical arguments. That’s an applicable business skill, even if witty badinage about the writings of Thomas Aquinas is not.

Next, you’ll want to position yourself as a potential fount of innovation. How so? Check out the writings of thinkers like Frans Johansson, who argues in The Medici Effect that the best ideas arise from interdisciplinary intersections. You’re never going to win the argument that you’re better qualified than someone who has studied a relevant business discipline — or who has worked in the field for years. So don’t even try. You’re differently qualified, and your unique perspective may be just what the company needs to move to the next level.

You’ll also want to cite your work experience. Many graduate students serve as research assistants, teaching fellows, or writing-center tutors — and you may even have had internships in your field. Those provide valuable “real-world” credentials that will likely be more impressive to potential employers than your degree itself. Can you lead and inspire those in your charge (i.e., a classroom full of twenty skeptical undergrads)? Bridge cultural divides by enabling non-native English speakers to better express themselves? Solve difficult research challenges and unearth crucial facts? Those are abilities that any workplace would covet.

Finally, I’ve found that my theology degree serves another, unexpected purpose: it allows me to make meaningful connections with the people around me. Some could care less, of course. But others have a personal interest in religion or theology; when they find out about my studies, they’re eager to talk and share their own stories. I’ve seen personal sides of colleagues that never would have come out otherwise — their longing to find a calling, or their own faith journey. In a world where business is driven by personal connections, it’s been a powerful vehicle to engage deeply with others. Many people have strong feelings about, or interest in, religion. But even if it’s a shared interest in geography, or urban planning, or British literature, it can be a powerful way to cement a relationship.

In practical terms, my theology degree wasn’t relevant to my subsequent professional life (though I did finally make it into academia, teaching at business schools in addition to my work as a strategy consultant). But it was very relevant to my development as a human being. Grad school may or may not be worth it, depending on your individual goals and circumstances. But if you’ve taken the plunge and are now entering the work world, you owe it to yourself to make the best case possible in explaining its value to others.

I’m a consultant — an expensive, trust-based business. I’ve never even bothered to cold call potential clients, because what sort of lunatic would spend tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on advice from a stranger? I’ve harshly warned other aspiring consultants off the practice: no one likes to be cold-called (I rarely even pick up my phone anymore unless I’m expecting a call) and it reeks of desperation.

But in the course of researching my new book, Reinventing You, I gained a newfound understanding of its merits. Cold-calling doesn’t have to be about sleazy sales tactics or the quick hit; instead, it can simply be a way to connect with someone you might never otherwise have access to — even, it turns out, billionaires.

After stints running a graphic design firm and working for NASA, Elizabeth Amini found herself unsure about her professional direction. She was interested in several different fields, but lacked contacts she could tap for informational interviews. She realized she needed to get creative about cold calls.

Once you’ve identified who you’d like to meet, the first step is having some sort of imprimatur behind you so they’re more likely to pay attention. The CEO — the public face of the company — is bombarded with requests. That’s why Elizabeth started out one notch lower, with the office of the Chief Operating Officer, “because that secretary knows everybody,” she says. Her goal wasn’t actually to score an interview with the COO, which was probably unlikely. Instead, it was to get their imprimatur: “You can say, I know the COO is probably not the right person to talk to, but who is your best salesperson, or your rock star marketing person? And then you can say the COO’s office recommended them, and they’re not going to blow you off.”

Next, it’s important to understand their time constraints. Asking a complete stranger for 30 or 60 minutes of their time is almost a guaranteed no. Instead, she’d ask, “Is it possible to schedule a 10 minute phone call or, if you’re free, I’d be happy to take you to lunch? Most people will opt for the phone call, which seems easy in comparison to lunch, and now you have an appointment on the books.”

It’s important to show genuine interest: they might know nothing about you, but you need to have done extensive research on them. Says Elizabeth, “If they have a book, read it, because no one writes these people and says ‘I read your book.’” (It’s an understatement to say most CEOs’ tomes don’t get the same reception as Jack Welch’s.) Then, tell them, “I was impressed by XYZ, and I’d like to ask you some questions about how you became so successful.”

Finally, you have to be willing to seize opportunity. Elizabeth was used to persevering through blow-offs or rejections; one executive literally cancelled on her six times before she eventually met with him. “Until I get a ‘No, never call me again,’ this is in play,” she says. But she was less prepared for the moment when she succeeded beyond her wildest imagination. Browsing the Forbes 500, she read about a billionaire real estate mogul who lived in her city. She called after 5:30 p.m. (post-secretary hours), got him on the phone — “and, oddly, he agreed to lunch,” she recalls.

She was thrilled with the opportunity, but shortly after she got off the phone, she panicked. “I said ‘Pick your favorite place,’ but then I thought, Where do billionaires go for lunch? What if lunch is $1000?” She decided to proceed, despite the risks: I’ll put it on my credit card, she thought, and if it’s more than my rent, I’ll find a way to pay it off. The mogul took her to a local deli (his favorite spot) and lunch for two came to $17. He spent an incredible 90 minutes with her and “outlined exactly what it took to be him.”

Elizabeth’s cold call-driven informational interviews gave her insights that continue to resonate in her new career, running an online game startup based on cutting-edge brain research. “You end up with all these random lessons that are important, even if the person’s field is not relevant to you in the end,” she says.

Shifting careers is often hard to explain. Whether you’re moving from one department to another in your own company or starting over in an entirely different field, you’re likely to face a litany of rejoinders: Why would you want to do that? Isn’t that a little risky? Are you really qualified? Others won’t raise any outward objections, but privately, you can tell they’re skeptical.

The most important step in getting others onboard with your career transition is crafting a compelling narrative. It’s a tool often overlooked by “professional reinventers,” but it can be a critical determinant of success in winning others’ support for your professional goals and vision for the future.

When Toby Johnson graduated from West Point, her first job out of college was the furthest thing possible from entry-level paper-pushing: she became an Apache helicopter pilot, the only woman in a class of thirty trainees. Her performance won raves, but when she decided to leave the Army after seven years to attend business school, she knew she faced one big disadvantage compared to her classmates, many of whom entered with corporate experience: “The only big organization I’d ever worked for was the United States Army.” Her mission was to create a narrative that made the connections between her past and present obvious to others. She stressed the management experience she’d gained in the military (at 24 years old, she was in charge of eight $30 million Apache helicopters, plus the thirty people who managed them) and the rapid learning made possible by her early leadership experience. Now a fast-rising Fortune 500 executive, her effort succeeded.

It’s also important to identify the underlying themes that connect your professional experiences, because people generally prefer narrative continuity: a story is “better” and makes more sense to them if they see it as a logical extension of the past, rather than a rupture. When public radio executive John Davidow was appointed to head online operations at his station, it may have seemed like an unusual development for a 50-something veteran of traditional media. But he embraced the change eagerly — in part because of his sense that the new online world wasn’t a break with his media past but rather, a continuation of it. “My whole career, I’ve been a bit of a nonconformist,” he says. He began his career in TV news at the start of the satellite era and “we were in many ways defining what local television news was. There still weren’t really rules of the road.”

He sensed that same liminal potential in the online world. Even though the tools may be different (social media instead of satellite trucks), the basics of creating a powerful news experience are the same. So John isn’t a newbie digital executive with only a few years of experience. Instead, he argues he’s been doing the same thing for his entire career: telling stories and being a change agent.

Finally, it’s important to explain your trajectory in terms of the value you bring to others. Career transitions can sometimes be viewed as a sign of narcissism or a midlife crisis, and you don’t help that perception if you frame it as all about you. “Wanting to be fulfilled” is nice, but it’s not a valid reason for others to hand you a job or give you their business. Instead, you need to make it clear it’s not about you; it’s about the value you bring.

Libby Wagner, a poet and tenured community college professor, felt apprehensive sharing her background when she first transitioned into her new career as a management consultant. “I didn’t want anyone to know I was a poet,” she says. “I had a lot of tapes going in my head. The economists I had worked with had really talked down to me, and people in business certainly weren’t interested in what I did.” But she eventually came to realize her history wasn’t a liability, but a unique strength in her business. “The way I see the world is very language-driven,” she says. “I’m going to be listening for nuances and connections and patterns. That’s the way I look at the world and I take that to any interaction with the client, so I’ve learned to ask really good questions.” Today, Libby has consulted for Fortune 500 clients including Boeing and Nike — and she’s christened her monthly e-newsletter, The Boardroom Poet.

The first step in getting others to understand your career transition is being able to explain it to them in a compelling fashion. If you can connect the dots between your past, present, and future; identify the underlying themes in your career trajectory; and explain the unique value you can bring to your new endeavor, you’re on your way to winning their support.

Over the past decade, I’ve taught hundreds of executive education, MBA, and undergraduate students at half a dozen other top universities. To put it mildly, I’m a believer in the importance of higher education and graduate studies. But I’m also concerned that some executives view grad school as a panacea — a universally applicable fallback and a sure-fire ticket to promotion, the way teachers still get a union-mandated pay raise if they get their master’s degree.

In a world where the value of even a college education is coming under increased scrutiny (see Andrew McAfee’s recent HBR post, Michael Ellsberg’s book The Education of Millionaires, and entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s controversial fellowship that pays a cadre of teenage overachievers to skip college), it’s worth asking: what about grad school?

There are obvious cases where a graduate degree is mandatory; you’re not going to get very far as a doctor or lawyer if you haven’t done the requisite schooling. But what about everyone else? I often get inquiries from executives looking for advice about whether they should go back. Would an MBA, a JD, a doctorate in organizational psychology, or a journalism degree give them that extra edge? Often, the answer is no. There are a lot of things you could do with $100,000, and going to school because you aren’t sure what to do with yourself, or because of received wisdom that an extra degree is always helpful, could be a colossally misguided move.

If you’re taking the plunge, it’s essential to think through how the graduate experience will benefit you, and know in advance what you hope to get out of it. Joel Gagne, an executive I profile in my book, Reinventing You, completed all the courses for a master of arts in government. But in the midst of running a company, a couple of cross-country moves, and a new baby, completing his master’s thesis just didn’t make the priority list. “I don’t want to say those classes were worthless, because they weren’t,” he says. “There were one or two nuggets. But as far as directly affecting my professional life, graduate work has not had the type of impact necessary or given me the business skill set I need.” Instead, he’s found more success taking targeted classes, on subjects like business writing and goal-setting, that speak directly to his needs.

If you’re doing a graduate program just to get the degree on your wall, or if only a handful of classes excite you, it’s far better (and cheaper) to take adult ed or extension school classes. Here are a few other reasons why you shouldn’t go back:

Because you aren’t sure what you want to do with your life. Yes, it’s a better alternative than moping around if you’re unemployed. But it’s also expensive — and that means you need to treat it like an investment, which means you’ve done your research and really thought about how you can extract the most learning and value from it. If you’re not even sure what your ultimate goal is, you’re wasting your time and money. Go travel instead, or start a blog, or keep doing informational interviews until you get clarity.

Because your career is stalled. It’s the script we’ve all heard from our parents: education is the answer! But let’s be clear: you won’t be promoted because you have a graduate degree. You may get promoted because of what you learned in graduate school and how you apply it at work, which is very different — and unfortunately requires a lot more insight and effort.

Because you got in somewhere. There are great professors at many universities, and you can undoubtedly learn a tremendous amount from them. But the reality is that if you’re going to make a six-figure investment, you should demand even more value — and that comes in the form of a powerful alumni network. A while back, an ambitious young man named Scott contacted me for advice; he had been a junior staffer at an organization where I consulted. He’d applied to business school and now had a choice between a small state school where he could easily afford the tuition, or a “name brand” MBA program with a storied history, but an expensive price tag. What should he do? I’m no fan of debt, but the answer was obvious. If he was going purely for personal edification, he could probably get a wonderful education at the cheaper school. But if he was going so he could take his career to the next level, it was worth investing: a marquee name on your degree and connections to the nation’s powerbrokers are worth it.

The truth is, graduate school isn’t for everyone. It’s simply too expensive, and requires too much time and effort, to take a “why not?” attitude. It can be exactly the leverage you need if you’re an ambitious, thoughtful learner who knows what you want out of the experience. But if you’re thinking about going because you aren’t sure about your direction, or because your career isn’t advancing the way you’d like, it’s important to realize: a master’s degree isn’t a magic pill that will solve all problems. It’s more like a targeted therapy: it works hard (and gets results) when you do.

You may think you already know how others view you — as a skilled communicator, or an incisive numbers guy, or a manager who always brings out the best in her team. But then again, you might be surprised. One modest, self-deprecating executive was shocked to learn, after engaging an executive coach who examined his professional relationships, that his habit of interrupting people led his colleagues to perceive him as arrogant and haughty — almost the exactly opposite of the truth.

Particularly for high-ranking executives, it can be hard to recognize how you’re really viewed by others. For one thing, employees who don’t want to jeopardize their standing may conceal any negative perceptions and “put on a happy face”; for another, power has been shown to dramatically distort leaders’ self-awareness. “Studies of the effect of power on the power holder consistently find that power produces overconfidence and risk taking, insensitivity to others, stereotyping, and a tendency to see other people as a means to the power holder’s gratification,” Stanford Graduate School of Business professor Jeffrey Pfeffer writes in his book, Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don’t.

Yet when it comes to your personal brand — your professional reputation — it’s not about how you view yourself. What matters is how the world sees you. “If three people tell you you’re a horse, buy a saddle,” says angel investor Judy Robinett. In other words, listen to what the outside world is telling you, because they’re probably right. So how can professionals get that honest feedback, especially if you don’t have access to an executive coach?

Seek out patterns in your paper trail. If you have access to copies of past performance reviews or recommendations letters that others have written for you, you can scour the written record for patterns. Of course everyone will have a slightly different take. But if you see multiple mentions of a particular skill set (“Lisa is a brilliant public speaker”) or shortcoming (“Martin has a hard time accepting feedback”), you should take heed.

Examine your online presence. Next, search for yourself online. What comes up first? Is it what you expected? Is it what you’d like to convey to the world? What would a person who didn’t know you think? If there are any damaging or erroneous links, it’s better to find out now (so you can take action), rather than having a potential client or employer discover them.

Conduct your own “360 interviews.” This is the first step most executive coaches would take — and if you don’t have a coach, you can do it for yourself. Invite trusted colleagues, your boss, and your employees out for coffee, tell them you’re working to raise the bar professionally, and ask for their honest feedback: What do you do well? Where could you grow? What three words would they use to describe you? Their perspective is likely to be revealing.

Hold your own focus group. In my book Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future, I profile a woman named Mary Skelton Roberts who — searching for more clarity in her professional life — held a focus group with a mix of her friends and colleagues. Mary sat back and listened for several hours as the participants shared their thoughts about her strengths, abilities, and areas they’d like to see her explore (the session was moderated by a friend, and Mary wasn’t allowed to respond — only to ask clarifying questions). Other people “almost have a bird’s eye view, and they can see your life in ways you may not be able to, because you’re involved in day-to-day living,” she told me. The focus group “took me to the next level in terms of my professional development.”

We simply know too much about ourselves; we can’t separate the signal from the noise enough to grasp how the outside world really sees us. But by retracing the paper trail of what’s been written about us and asking our colleagues for their honest opinions, there’s a lot we can learn about how we’re viewed by others. And if what we discover doesn’t match up to how we’d like to be seen — like the executive whose habit of interrupting others was derailing his career — we can finally take action to fix it.

I recently got back from the New Media Expo in Las Vegas. Scheduled before the massive annual CES gathering, it’s a powwow for bloggers and other social media enthusiasts, early adopters who are quick to jump on board the next great thing. So imagine my surprise when I realized one of the undercurrents of the event, burbling repeatedly to the surface, was a desire to cut back on social media efforts.

That doesn’t mean doing less overall or abandoning new media. But it does speak to a desire to prune and focus on the platforms that have the most impact. It’s hard to say no to the crush of social media demands. During a panel I moderated with well-known blogger and tech expert Robert Scoble, he said there was no alternative to constant, ubiquitous engagement and held up a spare battery he carried for his smartphone, so he’d never run out of juice. No time to respond to tweets? Do it while you’re walking down the hallway, he said. Plenty of people agree with him. One consultant friend recently chided me for not being on Pinterest or Instagram — and like her, many worry they’ll fall behind if they’re not hard-core super users, or if they don’t get in on the ground floor. Clearly there is a first mover advantage in some cases: Chris Brogan developed a passionate following as an early blogger, and Guy Kawasaki jumped onboard Twitter and became a powerhouse there.

But as I advise my clients to do, I believe everyone needs to think about which platforms best speak to your strengths. At the New Media Expo, I also interviewed Nick Harris, head of digital marketing for Benjamin Moore. For such a visual product, literally differentiated by its color, Pinterest is a terrific platform. But for a consultant like me who traffics in ideas, blogging and tweeting make a lot more sense as investments.

In fact, we’re now reaching a point where having a scattered focus could truly be deleterious to your goals, because you’re only able to half-engage or create mediocre content. Marcy Massura of Weber Shandwick, who was on another panel with me, commented that “presence means nothing.” Indeed, if you have a Twitter profile with 35 followers, or a MySpace page that hasn’t been touched since 2007, it often looks worse than having nothing at all. (Personally, I just KO’d my Foursquare account.)

It’s become increasingly clear that with the proliferation of new platforms, no person or company can become the master of them all. Nor should they. The harder decision is figuring out which ones you should prioritize — or jettison. Establishing ROI has always been the holy grail of social media. We may still have a ways to go before we can quantify its objective, dollars-and-cents impact (if you read about something on Facebook, and then saw a tweet, and then went to the mall to buy it, does it count?). But even anecdotally, you probably have some good operating theories. For instance, if you target women, Pinterest is a great bet; if it’s males, Google+ is currently their stomping ground. And as I’ve written about here on HBR.org, blogging is the best way to demonstrate true content mastery and thought leadership.

The “best” platforms will be different for every person or brand. But in 2013, think hard about how you can cut back, so you can focus on what matters.