Personal branding is hot right now in career development and it should be. In a competitive job market, it is more important than ever to craft yourself as a unique and desirable image and package. When recruiters and HR hiring managers look at your resume and listen to you in an interview, they should clearly be impressed with the self-reflective thoroughness that is expressed by your presence and delivery. What you want is for them to see you as a self-confident amalgamation of ambitious and competent characteristics prepared to sell yourself in the workforce marketplace.
Does branding sound dehumanizing to you, like you’re being treated similar to soap powder? Well, it shouldn’t. If you don’t toot your own horn, who will? Job hunting today isn’t just about randomly searching for openings and hoping that there is a fit between your past experiences and what management is looking for. You’ve got to be a lot more strategic than that.
There is an analogy between the way marketing experts brand products and how we should brand ourselves. Marketing is about communicating value to interested stakeholders. It is a systematic process of identifying markets, attractive product traits, and dissemination methods. This information results in the greatest number of people who want an effective problem-solving product getting it.
The best marketing people know how to best establish the link between what others want and what you have to offer. When job searching or career shifting, we should do the same. Each of us should engage in a systematic process of identifying those personal traits that best communicate our interest, aptitudes, past relevant experiences, and career values. We then determine the most effective way of presenting these attributes. In short, we should be able to answer the questions “Who really are you?” and “What value do you bring?”
This approach is completely consistent with our American and New Hampshire ethic of individualism. It’s rooted in a belief that all of us are one of a kind and that we all have something of value to offer. Furthermore, it suggests that who we honestly are as a person should drive the direction of our career development. To whatever extent possible, we should stop being square pegs trying to fit into round holes.
And I would recommend that when starting a personal branding process you don’t even think about what job openings are out there. To do so will only intrude to the point that you will stray from your true self to instead trying to be what you think others might want you to be. There will be time for trying to match your brand with available positions later. For now, be deliberatively self-analyzing. What will emerge will be a crystalized snapshot of yourself in this time. And I’m willing to bet that for the most part, you’ll like what you see. Sure, you may notice gaps between your current self and your fantasized-imagined-hoped-for self, but that’s okay. These gaps become arrows pointing you towards future self-improvement paths.
When we dive into the job search with a definite sense of self, we project an assurance that others will notice. The personal branding process will yield that poise and is the best place to start your job hunt or career makeover.
