Category: Finding A New Job

Following my article earlier I had a number of people ask me how to go about developing your Personal Brand. So in this article I will try to address some of the basics of building your Personal Branding for Job Search.

With the increase in the use of social media and social networking, people are using the internet to help them to create a personal brand. At the simplest level branding yourself is simply highlighting all of the features of a person that put them in the best position possible to secure a new job. While branding has been around for a while, marketing your identity on the internet is just a new twist. Here are some techniques to consider when developing your personal branding for job search.

Should Your Create Your Personal Brand?

Personal branding is all about how you want others to see you. While everyone already has their own unique identities, the idea of branding allows you to focus more on your strengths, showing potential employers your unique qualities that set you apart from the crowd. By marketing those unique qualities, you help to direct people to focus on areas that you want them to identify with.

If you have excellent people skills and are looking to work in the service industry, promoting your brand as a person everyone loves to be around can put you in a better position to get the job. Your personal branding for job search identity will communicate your resume in a way that highlights all the positive attributes you have. By having a much clearer understanding of who you are, you also gain more confidence at the job interview because you are simply focusing on the most positive features of your personality.

How Do I Build My Personal Branding for Job Search?

Personal branding allows you to simply focus on everything you feel makes you stand out from your competition. These attributes are a true reflection of who you are and could make the difference when the job interviewer is considering applicants.

To start working on your brand you have to focus on what you bring to the table, what values you have, and the goals you want to accomplish. This creates a memorable brand that will really connect with other people. They will be able to identify quickly if you bring what they are looking for in a new employee. Your personal brand should answer these questions:

1. What are my core values?
2. What is my reputation?
3. What am I truly passionate about?
4. How am I perceived by others?
5. What is the potential audience of my personal brand?

Social media has really transformed the ability to promote your personal branding online. You can easily create a brand on several different popular social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn and others. Many employers routinely use social media websites to check on potential employees to get an understanding of how they act when they are not in a business environment.

This is why it is so important that your branding be uniform across multiple channels because you never know which might be the one your potential employer is using to do research. When you create a profile on a platform like LinkedIn, you have to be consistent with your values and your passion, or you water down the value of your branding. Your actions online speak much more than simple words, and if you promote yourself as having particular values but consistently do and say the opposite on Twitter, no one is going to believe you.

When creating your brand, you have to realise that both your online and offline efforts need to be consistent. Branding is all about letting other people see you for who you really are. if your profiles are in conflict, you send mixed signals to potential employers and eliminate all that power in branding. Therefore having determined what your personal brand is you need to ensure that you keep it consistent across all those channels.

I have written quite a bit over the years about Personal Branding and I wanted to share my experience when I first realised that I needed to think about it in terms of my search for a new role.

But first, for those who may not be that familiar with the idea let’s remind ourselves what Personal Branding and your “Personal Brand” is all about. Essentially it’s you! The things that make up your personal brand are your values, the beliefs and attitudes that drive you, how you behave and of course your knowledge, skills and abilities. It’s your online and offline image. The tried and tested way of understanding what your personal brand is is to find out what your reputation amongst those you work with, those you engage and interact with is.

That last point was my starting point when I started to take a look at how I was perceived by others especially those I interact with online through Social Media sites, membership sites and the like. I asked people what words they would use to describe me, how they perceived that I come across and what they thought I did for work. Whilst I was flattered by the positive comments I received I was very surprised when it came to the question of what I did professionally!

Having spent many years working in Learning and Development it wasn’t something that people generally associated with me. That was really useful feedback and ensured that I started to focus a little more on talking about an area I am truly passionate about. Indeed it was the inspiration/push I needed to create my Learning & Development Insights blog where I write on the topic and my passion for making learning accessible to all.

Even though we may have done no conscious work on developing a personal brand we do already have one. Your personal brand is what people think of when they see or hear your name. How do they react? What knowledge, skills and abilities do they think you have, how do they think of you as an individual.

All of those things are what make up your personal brand. When people hear or see your name do they see you as a positive person to be around who always has something interesting to say or share? Or, do they see you as someone who is always negative and looking for the worst in things and others? It can be challenging when you have lost your job to appear positive and focused but the reality is that you need to think about how you are perceived by others.

We all know that potential employers now have much more access to information about us than our CVs give them. They can see how we interact with others and our general attitude. Whilst some will say that social media sites are a snapshot of who we are and don’t necessarily show the full extent of our personality they do have the potential to create an impression and we want that impression to be the right one don’t we? So my recommendation would be that you keep the negative, critical moments away from the online world and in the comfort of your own home and with your nearest and dearest.

If you were to ask those people you interact with online or offline how they would describe you would their views match with how you want to be seen?