Become a thought leader in seconds

Video Transcript:

Hi, we're kicking off our video Tip of the Week. This week I've just spent the day in London filming our marketing video for our new online course. So I thought what a great day to just keep on going.

So today I want to share with you a tip about how to break into the impact sector without having a lot of experience. You need to become a thought leader in just seconds and you're wondering, how on earth am I going to do that?

Well, sustainability professionals need strong communication skills, so there's no better way to show those off than to start writing some really useful content for your audience, your stakeholders or your colleagues, so you can build up a social media presence and also get some recognition in the market.

Recruiters are always going to be checking your social media channels, so the more quality content you can post, the better. And one way to do this is to reach out to your contacts that you would a either like to work with in the future, be that people you want to be when you grow up, or colleagues or clients you've worked with in the past, and ask them for 15 to 30 minutes of their time to do an interview for you. Ask them if you can interview them for a blog that you're writing.

So let's say they're in the solar energy space and you ask them, could I interview you for 30 minutes? I'm writing a blog on renewable energy regulations in Europe. So right away you've got 30 minutes of free content from an expert in the space that you can use as the basis for your blog. And then you might want to pull some bits and pieces from other articles that you've read that will actually add value to that blog as well. So it doesn't have to be any original content from you.

You can do the interviewing and you can pull content from other articles, but you start to put your stake in the ground around an issue that you're really passionate about. In this case, renewable energy. It could be waste water, human rights or any other issue related to the social and environmental sectors. But the point is that you're writing something fresh, something quality and something really interesting to your audience. You then post it everywhere you possibly can.

You see if it can get picked up on some news channels as well as posting it on your LinkedIn, on Facebook, on Twitter and asking all of your followers and your friends to repost it for you. And with that simple task, you're going to actually start to build up a really strong social media presence and become a thought leader in just seconds, making you all the more marketable to those hiring managers in the future.

Best of luck.