Job search is about trying to decipher and analyze what employers are looking for and then attempting to convince them we can fill it. You take your cues from advertisements for (sometimes alleged) job openings, company research on the blind without an ad, which is bold and creative, or hearsay through a grapevine connected to somebody out there. You repeatedly pour over advertisements and try to make your resume conform. You repeatedly redo cover letters to sound like you’d fit in so perfectly with the company’s personality, culture and be admitted into their crowd just like in your high school days.

We hear sages, spiritualists and shrinks alike, tell us that part of good mental health is to live in the moment. Like shopping for a suit or dress that fits right, the job-finding-and-getting process is totally consuming, engaging and often depleting. You really live in the moment when you look for a job. Science calls it survival of the fittest (notice, science doesn’t call it “best”) and an organism adapting to its environment. O, let us count the times we twisted ourselves inside out to some held-out standard, just for something we could do in exchange for money. O, just to be hired. O, just for the illusive Job.

Hopefully we haven’t sold our souls in the process of trying to be employed or becoming employed. But if we were to write our own advertisement of us as professionals, what would we say?

In reality, we all might be tempted to say, “I am a well-rounded so-and-so and hey, I met rich and famous people on my last job. I’m somebody, not a number. I’m a New Yorker and I just need a freakin’ job already!”

However, because it’s the business world and we don’t know who is judging us—or how—even though The Man or Woman Behind The Desk is just someone like us with the joys and pains of living and who just happens to have a job—we must keep our cool and keep a head about us.

Someone said job interviews are just like speed dating. You have only a few minutes to make a case for yourself. Be your own advertisement. Mastering a nutshell encapsulation of you in a business context can be very useful on interviews when they ask the central question from which all other questions spring: Tell me about yourself.

— For those of you who are actually looking for a speed dating event, why not check out this great dating site. They offer a range of information and advice on dating and finding that perfect mate. Who knows, this could be the perfect prologue to your next job interview. —

Tell me about yourself creates summary profile that opens your resume. This succinct branding of you can also be useful in social media like Twitter where people put one-line resumes and in the “elevator speech” you may have heard about. It’s the one where you rattle off your ID intelligibly to new networking contacts—in the time it takes to ascend an elevator several floors up in a building.

But perhaps writing an imaginary ad about you helps you take a good look at yourself and role-play as the One Who Hires with yourself. What would you say about yourself? What would the Man or Woman Behind the Desk think of what you say about yourself? Can he or she use what you are peddling? Do you exude a feeling of likeability?

Your advertisement might sound something like this: My name is…In the last five, ten years, I did….I grew startups and turnarounds…I was awarded… for….My skills include….Most recently, I….I am seeking a position in my field as…(or, I am transferring my skills to…after a successful career as a…). You fill in the blanks. It has to be brief and to the point but say the most important things you have in your career tool chest.

Would you hire you? Why? Just what’s so special about you?

Well, you’re trustworthy, reliable, dedicated, loyal and punctual? That’s nice. C’mon. Those are givens. Or they were. Who’s loyal today? People have to look out for themselves and, often, companies don’t give incentive or nurture and grow decent people—you know—the kind who stays with them forever. Years ago, you were labeled a job-hopper if you had several jobs in a few years. Now, it sometimes appears you lack energy and drive if you stay in one place too long. That’s today’s business climate—changing and sometimes—hypocritical. Those things like loyalty and staid qualities are no longer valid in terms of mere selling points. Sure, companies will tell you they want “those things” in an employee. O, but of course. They want you well rounded and to be able to make them money, save them time—and do the work of four or five people at once! They want e-ve-ry thing.

So, instead of just being this robotic and functioning worker bee, maybe you’ve studied or researched some element of the job that coincides with the business mission at hand. Maybe you’ve volunteered in a complementary non profit and learned the ropes that way. Maybe you speak a foreign language they need, fluently. Maybe you have some unusual talent they want. Or maybe you’ve accomplished something so valuable to their business in your former business. Whatever your selling point is, it must persuade them that you have such potential. This way, the why-they-should-hire-you is answered with added value in tangibles rather than intangibles. Hopefully you are well rounded enough to have cultivated people skills. (OK, OK, I know, enough already!)

Here’s your chance to practice creating an advertisement about YOU:

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Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a forum somewhere that attracted companies to take a serious look at you and where you could advertise in three to four lines without cost? Wouldn’t that be something to be able to advertise yourself a Situation Wanted section of an online group in print or other media and actually be hooked up to real employers, real jobs. Situation Wanted could open a door making it easier for employers and candidates alike. A platform for serious employers to look at what jobseekers have to say in a few lines and pique their interest might bring some humanness to a sterile, rote, cob-web procedure that often misses the mark like shooting darts into a dark room.

The future of job development will not only be about new career fields and building self esteem, but will also be matched by a concerted business and/or government effort to intensely match-make and bring candidates together with jobs. People in business transaction will have to go deeper and find new ways to be “professionally intimate”. The stale and flat Answer-the-Internet-Ad approach does not work. It’s a cyber black hole for most jobseekers most of the time.

Write your own ad and memorize it so it’s second nature and perfectly natural. Open your own doors. The stronger your ad, the stronger you will be. Make it your story and stick to it!

-The Job Enthusiast, who won’t rest until everyone has a job!

Read more from The Job Enthusiast here.