Today, I stumbled on this video of David Placek, Founder & CEO of Lexicon Branding, a company designing names for other brands.
And yes, this matters for you, especially if you’re a French Engineer.
Let me explain.
First, have a look at this video
As you can see, this company take sounds seriously: they spent $2m in 19 countries to conduct cross-cultural research on ‘sound symbolism’, which tracks the associations evoked by specific letters.
What did they found?
That sounds matter. A lot.
Examples: the ‘v’ evokes energy and vitality (Viagra, Corvette) while the ‘t’ and ‘b’ recalled reliability (BlackBerry, T-Mobile)
You may ask:
How can I apply this to my job hunting?
No, you’re not going to learn neither try to apply sound symbolism. Your name is what it is and you can’t change it.
But you can reinforce one lesson from this:
Your words evocates emotions / feelings, no matter what.
Whatever you past accomplishment and responsibilities were, the way you express it will change it perceptions by potential recruiters / managers.
You probably already knew that before though.
But as many of you, and as an Engineer myself, I like to think:
My actions will speak louder than my words
Every French Engineer (almost)
This is NOT the case in a new country.
Because no one knows you in Australia. So you have to start it all over again.
Accept that your outside image will deeply impact your results.
And use it.
Companies are looking for applicants that are the lowest risk possible. They don’t want to fail their hiring, otherwise they lose money and time in training before doing it all over again.
Hence, your story should evocate stability, reliability and consistency.
How to Use This Lesson To Get an Engineering Job?
1) First impression counts. In networking events, wear a shirt (guys) or professional clothes (for everyone). That’s the minimum. I’m looking at you, genius IT Engineer: make the effort and wear at least a casual shirt.
2) Have a compelling story. If you want clarifications on that, contact me here for an early access to the Beta of a new video training.
3) Make sure you CV is an Australian CV. You want it to resonate with the readers.
Check your CV here.
Thomas l'Ingénieur 