sell oneself

1. Convince another of one's merits, present oneself in a favorable light, as in A job interview is an ideal opportunity to sell oneself to a prospective employer . Originally this idiom, dating from the second half of the 1700s, alluded to selling one's services for money, but it was being used more loosely by the mid-1800s.

2. Compromise one's principles for monetary gain. An early version was sell oneself (or one's soul) to the devil, which alluded to enlisting the devil's help in exchange for one's soul after death. It is embodied in the legend of Faust, first recorded in the late 1500s.

Example Sentences

“Considered from a feminist perspective, Monroe’s life is exemplary—a tragedy that might have been averted—even as it illuminates some of the paradoxes of the life of the actor: that one must sell oneself, or fail utterly.”

Read more on Time

It was an intimate diary, but designated to sell oneself!

Read more on New York Times

But he lacked an important trait: that certain self-motivating, self-aggrandizing quality to sell oneself as a full-time comic.

Read more on Chicago Tribune