We’ve all been programmed to think that a tech education is the key to success. You’ll be a dinosaur in the near future if you don’t learn to code is how the thinking goes. Certainly, learning to code can be a route to success as the coding bootcamp phenomenon shows.

Well, I have good news for you if you’re not technically inclined to take up coding. Times are changing and that way of thinking isn’t necessarily so. You don’t have to throw your liberal arts diploma in the rubbish bin after all.

A reversal of fortune is taking place as tech companies, particularly fast-growth tech start-ups, are realizing that it’s not enough to be technically brilliant, you need brilliant business processes, too.

Some things can’t be programmed. Creativity can’t be programmed. Client relationships can’t be programmed. Business-to-business sales can’t be programmed. Tech leaders are realizing that the real value to their company’s success will come more and more from people who can sell and humanize technology not the hard-core technologists. That’s why tech companies are zooming in on liberal arts majors, people who use and embrace technology but aren’t technical. They are looking for liberal arts majors who have the business skills that technical people don’t have.

Lo and behold, big tech companies and startups alike are looking beyond STEM graduates and realizing that liberal arts majors make them stronger. People who study the humanities and social sciences are important as social alchemists who add the human touch to technology, a critical skill for any technology to take hold on a large scale. Die-hard techies have tried to create intuitive software, most of which functions poorly without non-techie partners who are adept at humanizing technology.

Liberal arts and business majors are critical for sales, business development and marketing. Their value lies in their nontechnical ability to connect with people (not end users as techies tend to call customers).

What a relief. Not all of us have the quant skills or even the desire to be engineers or computer programmers. It’s estimated that about 70 percent of the jobs in tech companies don’t involve sitting in front of a computer screen and programming all day long. Like any business, tech companies need talent in organic, people-oriented roles like sales people, business managers, marketers, lawyers, finance people, HR professionals and the like.

Branding for people is about finding your brand idea—your unique selling proposition (USP). You want to represent something special—your unique combination of talents and skills that sets you apart from others—the X Factor that makes you special and relevant.

Branding for people is also about “packaging” the brand that is you and using branding strategies and principles from the commercial world to enhance your identity and market Brand You successfully. You are the storyteller of your own life and you can create a compelling brand story that helps empower your success or not. Branding also means developing a marketing plan for reaching your goals, tactics to get from A to B (and through all the other letters of the alphabet, depending on your goals). And it means engaging your target audience without seeming self-promotional and obnoxious. This book will show you how.

Looking at yourself as a brand has enormous advantages. The truth is being good, by itself, doesn’t guarantee success. We all know talented people who are underemployed, underpaid, or even unemployed.

[Insert Callout]

                               Job candidate:   A person with a skill set that is interchangeable

                                with the skill sets of other people                                                                                         Brand You:        Standing for something that offers

                                                      a special promise of value that sets you apart.

Millenials are the best-educated generation, yet they also have higher unemployment rates than we’ve seen in recent decades. Millenials make up about forty percent of the unemployed in the U.S. Even when they find a job, the picture isn’t always pretty. Many new grads are in jobs that don’t require a college degree, others are in jobs not in their area of study.

It’s always been beneficial to distinguish yourself, but now it’s absolutely necessary. Personal branding rules in the new world of work, and you can rule, too. You need to be better prepared, savvier in marketing yourself and conduct a smarter job search. But you can do it. This book will show you how.

Even in a robust job market, you’ll need to brand and market yourself if you want to get a good job and not be furloughed into temp work or a sub-par job. Besides, futurists predict that we’ll be changing jobs every few years or so, so we’ll all have to be in permanent beta mode adapting and marketing ourselves.

Unless you’re summa com lucky, have the networking connections of a Rockefeller or are a top student majoring in engineering, computer science or finance at a top-tier school, chances are you will face periods of frustration, self-doubt and failure in the days, weeks and months after that happy day. It can be a long countdown to getting a real job and you can’t ease up until you do.

         Frustration on a large scale is what sets the millennial and upcoming generation Z apart because it’s hard to get a good job out there. Okay, we all know the transition from university to a career has often been rocky. Unemployment has generally been significanlty higher among people 20 – 24 than the overall unemployment rate. Finding your first job has always been somewhat of a Catch 22. You need experience to get a job, and your need a job to get experience.

But today, what’s always been a dilemma, in the new economy has become a crisis.

It’s not that the new generation isn’t working hard to find a job, but maybe they’re not doing what’s needed for the reality of today’s job market. You’re competing with other new grads and more experienced job seekers willing to accept beginning-level salaries. And you can be squeezed out by financially strapped baby boomers who are retiring later.

After all, a young job seeker, even one who’s had some good internships, can’t compete that well with a candidate with years of experience and extensive contacts. No wonder so many college seniors and new grads feel anxious about their future.

What’s a newly minted B.A. to do?

New and Improved! Marketers are always looking for ways to improve their brand with updates and new features, and to communicate those brand benefits to customers.

You need to do the same. Often people focus on being promoted, but sometimes a lateral move is the best one because it adds to your skill set and experiences in a way that the next move up the ladder doesn’t provide.

Sometimes, it even makes sense to take a step backward, if it points you in a new direction whether there are fewer entrenched competitors and more potential for you to stand out and be a leader.

Remember: the best career move is the one that positions you for the future.

Almost half of U.S. jobs and one-third of jobs in the U.K. are at risk of being automated, according to a 2016 study by Oxford University.

So when choosing a career path, we must figure out either what jobs computers could never do or what roles we will absolutely insist be done by a human, even if computers could do them.

That’s a lot to think about.

It used to be about, “Can you do the job?”

Now it’s about “Can you make a better impression

than the other 200 people who can do the job?”

What’s truly different today is the quality of the competition, and the sheer volume of it. The fact is the economy in most countries is not growing fast enough to handle the number of entry-level employees (top STEM graduates excepted). Millennials, young adults now in their twenties, are the best-educated generation, yet they also have higher unemployment rates than we’ve seen in recent decades. They make up about 40 percent of the unemployed in the U.S. Even when they find a job, the picture isn’t always pretty. Many new grads are in jobs that don’t require a college degree, others settle for jobs outside their area of study.

It’s always been beneficial to distinguish yourself, but now it’s absolutely necessary. Personal branding rules in the new world of work, and you can rule, too. You must be better prepared, possess marketing savvy, and conduct a smarter job search. But you can do it.

Our facial expressions talk too, even when we’re not saying anything.

Studies show that women are more animated with more smiles, expressions, winks and nods than men on average. And that’s attractive!

Positive expressions like smiles are contagious and bring about pleasant responses in others (MRI tests of brain reactions demonstrate this.)

In researching my book, Women Who Brand, I spoke to a female executive who told me about a novel strategy she used a few times in her career when she was feeling stuck or burnt out. She made a vow to say “Yes” to everything that came her way for one month.

The first time she used her “Just say yes” strategy, someone asked her to join a volunteer group that would be entertaining female inmates at Riker’s Island over the Christmas holidays. Now, “Susan” didn’t want to spend the holidays in such a grim setting, but she had made her vow. So she said, “YES!” On the bus ride to the prison with other volunteers, Susan sat next to another executive who became instrumental in her career and life as a mentor, and who helped her get unstuck in her job.