I did a presentation a couple of weeks ago to the Canadian Hard of Hearing Association (CHHA), Hamilton branch. I talked about leveraging disability to enhance your career…….. or, you could say that the key points were related to how to optimally promote yourself to succeed in your career whether you’re looking to make a career change, find a new job or grow in your current job. Thinking back over my almost 10-year career, I have done a lot of work advising people on their careers, from resume-writing, networking, interviewing, career transition, career pathing and so forth. As I worked to put this presentation together for this wonderful group of people, I realized that it did not really matter what the extent of someone’s ability or disability was. I say this because regardless of what you do for work, you still have to do the same things in order to succeed in managing your careers….. you still have to have a killer resume and solid skills in networking, interviewing and negotiation. So, as I realized this, I asked myself this question… “what on earth can I possibly talk about that these intelligent people do not already know?” It dawned on me that successful people all have a “something” that people naturally gravitate towards. This “something” is a strong “personal brand”! A strong personal brand exists when people (can be anyone under the sun) perceive you to be original, highly competent, successful, leading-edge, different, invaluable and so forth. Everything you do in your life needs to support your personal brand because the idea is to tell everyone why you are so special and highly regarded. Personal branding is a way of telling people who you are, what you believe in, where you have been, what you want to do and how you differentiate from the rest.
The quest to create a personal brand for yourself is always a work-in-progress and changes depending on your individual situations. How you go about doing this is probably more important than actually getting to the end of the road where you can say you have achieved your desired personal brand —- guess what, I’m not convinced that you can achieve a perfect brand of YOU because people’s perceptions of you are constantly changing, and along with the rest of the world that is constantly in a state of change and flux, so is your personal brand.
The final point I would like to make is about the media in which you use to promote and communicate your personal brand. The web is global, easy to use and access and regarded as a “must do” in the business world today. You do not need to be an IT expert to create your own blog —- I am living proof of that….. all it takes is a little bit of time, patience and “playing around” to make yourself known to the world. In addition to a blog, I suggest you take a look at social media with the likes of Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and so on. I consider social media just another channel so to speak to promote your personal brand. Think of it as selling a product or service… how you go about selling this product should not be restricted to one channel. What I mean by this is, say you are selling cars… the traditional way of selling a car is to wait for customers to drive to your dealer and speak directly to a sales-person. The sales-person tries to learn of the needs of the customer and then presents the options of vehicles that the customer may be interested in. This tactic or method of selling cars is a channel. The more channels you have the more diversified your approach is and the larger your “reach” (i.e. publicity to different groups).
Personal branding is an interesting idea, and is absolutely a fundamental part of managing your career. If you can master the art of developing your personal brand, managing your personal brand and leveraging your personal brand to support your career growth, you will be wildly successful in everything you do….. simple as that!
I have heard about personal the concept of personal branding in various career articles. What I have not always understood is how to then leverage your personal brand in a most effective way. I recently came across an article entitled The Hidden Job Market. here is a link for it: http://bit.ly/15et6
I really like this article because it really shows how to take the next step from branding to marketing your brand.
Justin,
Thanks for your comment, appreciated! You raise an excellent question because as you probably know, it’s easy to talk about what you should and should not do, but it’s another to actually do it! I think the end goal of developing a personal brand and using effective channels to do so is to tap into the hidden job market given it represents such a large proportion of available work today. The great thing about using social media is that you’re able to better focus your efforts on groups of people that would be interested in what you have to offer and have the power to make hiring decisions. So, to answer your question about “how to do it”, I firmly believe that the most time-efficient, cost-effective and results effective way to do it is by using social media. Your reach is global yet you can tailor and focus who reads what you produce, and it’s a truly liberatingi experience to be able to share your ideas that are honest, true to you and ultimately is an extension of YOU. Great website referral you made!
Thanks for the article, Jeff. You mentioned very good points. I also think that Personal Branding becomes more and more important. Especially with the economic crises, it’s essential to be and stay interesting. Therefore, everyone should invest more time for his Personal Brand.
Hi Anya,
Thanks for your comment. I think working your personal brand during tough economic times is more difficult to do than during prosperous times. Personal branding should be a daily activity, one that is built into your schedule. It’s so important that not doing this is risky. There are some great resources out there, and in particular, http://www.thepersonalbrandingblog.com. The creator of this blog was William Arruda, who is also the Founder and President of Reach (www.reachpersonalbranding.com). I highly recommend to anyone to invest their time developing their personal branding using the support of this organization.