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What is a personal brand?
A personal brand defines your characteristics, values, professional strengths, and your goals. It’s useful to think of your personal brand as your story, with a focus on your work life and career. Building a personal brand can help individuals to demonstrate value to the professional world, make connections, and increase the chance of landing a new role.
According to research from Entrepreneur, ‘Eighty-five percent of U.S. recruiters and HR professionals say that an employee’s online reputation influences their hiring decisions at least to some extent. Nearly half say that a strong online reputation influences their decisions to a great extent.’
Building a strong personal brand online can help individuals to stand out in a competitive job market. To create and develop your personal brand, try taking on board these ideas.
1. Define Your Brand
The first step is to define your personal brand, to make a start, write a list of your strengths and your skills. To determine your personal brand it can be useful to answer the following questions:
- Is there anything unique about my career journey so far? If so, what?
- What makes me stand out from the other candidates?
- How can I describe my professional story in an engaging way?
- What are my career goals for the future?
2. Determine Your Career Direction
Determining the direction you want to go in can help you to improve your personal brand. By doing so you can decide what your career goals are and how you plan to achieve them. Establishing your career direction can help you to decide who your online audience is. Decide who you would like to reach with your personal brand, whether it’s recruiters, employers, thought leaders in your industry, or like-minded professionals. Understanding your audience can help you to tell an appealing story.
3. Create A Website & Blog
To help you create your personal brand you should have a professional website and a
4. Work On Your Professional Profiles
When you improve the quality of your professionals, you’ll strengthen your online brand at the same time. When it comes to personal branding, LinkedIn is one of the most important professional profiles to have. There are many ways that you can improve your LinkedIn profile including:
- Recommendations: To enhance the credibility of your personal brand, try to get as many recommendations as you can. Ask your previous and current employers to write you short recommendations, to praise your talents.
- Improve Your Summary: The summary section of your profile is a fantastic opportunity to tell the story of your brand. Ensure that your summary highlights your experience, unique selling points, strengths, and your mission.
5. Keep Up With Industry Trends
Keeping up with trends in your industry can help you to demonstrate your credibility, inform your job search, and find new networking opportunities. Depending on your industry, there are different publications to focus on.
Drum magazines is a great resource for marketing professionals, while Wired is a top publication for those in the technology industry. For those who work in the trucking or logistics industry, Miguel Denga has some excellent insights on the latest trends.
From creating a great resume to researching industry topics, there are so many ways to stand out with a personal brand.
