Personal branding and your job search

Am I using personal branding for competitive advantage?

Whether you realize it or not YOU are a brand and a range of aspects represent your brand and your job search. Your history, both personal and professional, should be leveraged to help tell your brand story. Consider how often job seekers attempt to match their experience, skills, and abilities with the requirements in a vacancy announcement. If you do this, do not think you are positioning yourself to stand out from the numerous cover letters and resumes received by recruiters. What makes you unique will most likely attract attention so it’s critical to be able to communicate through a variety of mediums your compelling value proposition.  Personal branding can positively impact your job search.

A) What about your history and professional performance make you unique?

B) What can you do to add value to an organization?

C) What aspects of your professional history attest to your being uniquely qualified to do what you claim? (Be prepared to prove it.)

D) Create a compelling value proposition to consistently communicate your message.

E) Develop career transition tools to make yourself known within various communities (Selectively use what is relevant to your career plans. Consider if the Internet can support your brand development).

Photo by Thomas Hawk, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license.