job seeker’s guide to defining and building a personal brand · job seeker’s guide to defining...

Job Seeker’s Guide to Defining and Building a Personal Brand

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Courtesy of Distinctive Career Services, LLC | (800) 644-9694 | Page 1

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JOBSEEKER’S GUIDE TO DEFINING & BUILDING A PERSONAL BRAND

WHAT IS A “PERSONAL BRAND” AND WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO CAREER SUCCESS?

Businesses know that branding companies, products, and services produces superb benefits. This develops loyal customer relationships, market positioning and valuation, competitive differentiation, and the ability to thrive economically.

Today, personal branding in the form of clarifying and communicating what makes you and your unique value proposition different and special in the workplace is becoming increasingly essential to achieve professional success. Here are just three of the major benefits of personal branding:

1. An effective personal brand conveys a positive and memorable image of your value in the workplace, communicating the intersection of your passion, skills, personality, and your positioning in a succinct way.

2. Branding allows you to make a name for yourself. It differentiates you from your peers and helps to position you as a leader in your field—as a specialist and an authority who knows how to do a job and fill a particular niche in the workplace better than anyone else.

3. In relation to your job search, a strong personal brand image piques interest and impels people to want to learn more about you—and, more important, to hire, promote, and endorse you to others.

USING PERSONAL BRANDING IN THE JOB SEARCH

Branding yourself—establishing yourself as a valuable commodity in the workplace—is the cornerstone and foundation of a truly successful job search.

Your personal branding becomes a focal point and the criteria on which to base all of your career activities and decisions.




No matter what stage you’re at in your career—whether you’re a new college graduate looking for your first job, a career changer, an experienced professional, or a top-level executive—personal branding can have an immense positive impact on your job search, often with dramatic results.

Your personal brand will help guide your job search and help you structure and organize your search for maximum results. Really understanding and internalizing your brand, along with the job target that you established in Step 1, will help you make decisions about which ads to answer, which companies to target, and with whom to network.

On a more concrete level, you should intentionally interject your Personal Brand Statement (which we’ll get to later) and the messaging inherent in that statement throughout all of your job-search documents: your résumé, your LinkedIn profile, your letters and other correspondence, your biography if you use one, and your networking meeting handouts. Plus, to be consistent and promote your brand, you should incorporate its messages throughout the answers you prepare for interview questions, in your emails, discussion board signature file, in your blog if you have one, in your online profiles or career portfolio, and even in your telephone answering machine message if it seems appropriate.

Remember, a strong personal brand piques interest and impels people to want to learn more about you—and, more important, to hire, promote, and endorse you to others. Take the time to establish and interject your personal brand throughout your job search! This will position you above your peers and competitors in the job market, open doors that were previously shut tight, help you win the most lucrative and rewarding jobs, help you achieve promotions on an accelerated track, and help you to command higher levels of compensation that are more in line with the value you provide to employers.

THREE KEY COMPONENTS OF STRONG PERSONAL BRAND STATEMENTS

⇒ The basic benefits the brand promises to deliver. ⇒ The characteristics that deliver this promise. ⇒ The character or personality of the brand.

Three areas of clarity are necessary to create a strong personal brand:

1. The unique skills and qualifications you offer.

2. Your personality and what you’re truly passionate about.

~ TIP ~ Your Personal Brand Statement = the

unique skills and qualifications that you offer + your personality and what you

are truly passionate about + the needs, expectations, and requirements of the position or industry you are targeting.




3. The needs, expectations, and requirements of the position or industry you’re targeting.

These three areas, added together and stated in a concise way, become your Personal Brand Statement. Don’t worry if you don’t have an immediate answer to these points. Very few people do! I’ve included some exercises that will help you to create your own Personal Brand Statement.

If you still feel like you need help after going through these exercises, it’s important for you to know that help is available. If you get stuck and need help, call Distinctive Career Services, LLC at 800-644-9694. Helping our clients define a strong, compelling personal brand is inherent in the work we do as professional résumé writers.

CREATE YOUR PERSONAL BRAND STATEMENT

STEP A – UNDERSTAND YOUR TARGET MARKET

Being as specific as possible about the job function and level, the company type and size, and other relevant criteria, write your Job Target (the ideal job you will target as the next step in your career) here: _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For the second part of this step, you will need to complete some research. Using your Job Target as a guide, access and search your favorite job listing sites. Some good ones are LinkedIn and indeed.com, but feel free to use whatever site(s) you want. Your objective is to find six job postings that are a match for your Job Target or as close of a match as possible. We are looking for job requirements and position descriptions, so for the purposes of this exercise, the more descriptive these postings are the better. When you have found them, either print them or copy the text to a document on your computer.

Now, in the space below, I want you to begin a list of the qualifications and requirements mentioned in each of the position descriptions. For example, if your Job Target is Software Sales Representative, you may see as a requirement, “experience selling enterprise-level application software” and “experience calling on IT

~ TIP ~ If you’re tired of hunting for jobs, effective

personal branding can solve this.

Personal branding ensures that you become hunted rather than being the hunter.




decision-makers.” Write these on your list. You may also see desired traits like “strong communication skills” and “enthusiastic attitude.” Write these down too.

Go through the first posting thoroughly and then move onto the second, the third, and so on.

Every time you find a qualification or requirement that is a repeat of an earlier one, put a check mark beside it on your list.

When this exercise is complete, you will have a strong composite job description listing that will help you to understand the qualifications and the priority of those qualifications that hiring authorities are looking for in relation to your Job Target. The qualifications and traits that are checked the most times are those that are likely to resonate the most strongly with your target audience (hiring decision-makers) and that (assuming they are true of you) you may want to consider incorporating into your Personal Brand Statement.




STEP B – TARGET AUDIENCE ANALYSIS AND SELF-INTROSPECTION

Begin developing and defining your personal brand. Answer these questions in as much detail as you can.

1. Who is your target audience in your job search? Who will be the primary person calling the shots and making the decisions about whether to hire you? Describe your target audience in as much detail as possible. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________

2. Now, put yourself into the shoes of your target audience, consider what you learned in Step A of this exercise, and write, in as much detail as possible, about what is important to them, the problems that they face that a person in your position may be able to solve, and their priorities in relation to your position. The ultimate objective of most jobs is to somehow save a company money, make them money, or save them time. How do these play a role in the priorities of your target audience? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

3. In relation to the needs and priorities that you identified in question 2, what are the skills that you bring to the table that your target audience should know about? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. Now, again considering what you learned in Part A and considering your answers to question 2, list in as much detail as possible, your best personality traits that are relevant to your profession. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

5. Next, thinking about your Job Target, consider the ways you are the SAME as your competition in the job market and the ways in which you are DIFFERENT. Please note these below:

SAME (What are the qualifications, traits, skills, education, and experiences you offer that are EXPECTED in your industry/profession and that are the SAME as the majority of your peers and competition in the job market?)

DIFFERENT (What are the qualifications, traits, skills, education, and experiences you offer that are EXTRAORDINARY and that make you DIFFERENT—in a good way—than your peers and competition in the job market?)




6. What are your true areas of “expertise?” ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

7. What are you “known” for? What problems do you help your colleagues or employers solve? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

8. Now, looking at your answers to all of the above questions, do you see any ways that you can

help out, solve problems, meet needs, add value, and differentiate yourself in your profession that are different or better than what is offered by your peers? ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________




Is your personal brand becoming clear?

Remember the formula:

the differentiating skills and qualifications that you offer + your personality and what you are truly passionate about + the needs, expectations, and requirements of the position or industry you are targeting = your Personal Brand Statement.

Jot your ideas about it here and then continue to edit and refine it until you are absolutely happy with your Personal Brand Statement.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER: YOUR BRANDED RÉSUMÉ AND LINKEDIN PROFILE

What is a branded résumé? Simply put, a branded résumé conveys and promotes your personal brand.

To review, at the most basic level, a personal brand is comprised of the factors that differentiate you and make you unique. Just like with companies and products, branding is what sets you apart from everyone else (and what sets the companies and products apart from all the other companies and products).

Taken a step further, from the perspective of the workplace, your brand is not just what sets you apart, but what makes your contributions different, special, and valuable. For example, if you are a marketing professional you probably have the same or similar qualifications and abilities as other marketing professionals.

But perhaps you also have a special talent for resourcefulness and creativity that has allowed you to deliver to your employers extraordinarily strong results on a shoestring budget, maximizing every marketing dollar spent. A truly powerful personal brand and branded résumé could be created around these differentiating factors.




Anne’s personal brand is clearly called out and communicated in the summary section of her résumé.

This manager’s personal brand, which is clearly stated in the subheading of this résumé profile, is further reinforced by the inclusion of a personal statement from the candidate, called out with a text box.




Your personal brand should be immediately discernible from your résumé, beginning with a power-packed summary of qualifications or profile section. You should then carry that brand throughout the entire résumé, providing stories of success that illustrate how your brand has been a theme throughout your professional career and how you have applied it to deliver value and benefits to past employers.

This systems analyst’s personal brand was all about improving processes and implementing solutions that create new efficiencies across an organization. This branding was reinforced through the stories of her past accomplishments in the body of the résumé.

This sales and account manager’s brand is reinforced through “social proof.” Including written testimonials from bosses or colleagues can be a powerful brand reinforcer.




The overall “look and feel” of your résumé should also support your brand, with design elements that convey an image that is consistent with your brand.

Things have really changed in the job market. Employers used to ask, “Why should I hire you?” Today they ask, “Why should I hire you instead of one of these other professionals among the hordes of qualified applicants?” Branding your résumé provides them not only with the answer to that question, but with compelling evidence of exactly how you will add value and produce benefits once they do. Branding your résumé is the most effective way to get your résumé noticed among stacks of other résumés and ensure that you get a call for an interview, many times already pre-qualified as a top-priority candidate.

Even new graduates benefit from personal branding.




Of course, your brand messaging should be consistent and carried over into all your other career marketing communications. The following three snippets are from the same individual’s résumé, LinkedIn profile, and a cover letter. His brand is clearly and consistently communicated in all.




Once you do get that interview, your branded résumé can continue to help you by keeping you on track with a strong, coherent, consistent message of value offered. Being clear on your personal brand will help you with such common questions as “Tell me about yourself?” or “What are your greatest strengths?”

Additionally, the brand-supporting success stories that you’ve included in your résumé will be of immense value in answering almost any interview questions. Stories make your answers more credible and will make you as a candidate more memorable.

If you are just beginning your job search, or if you have been conducting a job search but are having a hard time gaining any traction in the over-crowded employment market, you should look seriously at defining your personal brand and creating branded career marketing documents.

This is, of course, our specialty at Distinctive Career Services. All of the examples in this document are from real clients that we have worked with. We would love to help you too. For more information, call us at 800-644-9694. You may also visit www.distinctiveweb.com or www.executiveresumewriting.services


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job seeker’s guide to defining and building a personal brand · job seeker’s guide to defining...

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