Personal Branding: What Is It and How Do I Do It?

To answer the first question, personal branding is the process of creating a unique public image that portrays your professional goals, values, skills, accomplishments, passions, and more and serves as a way to set you apart from other job seekers. In other works, if you do personal branding the right way, it’s basically an awesome reputation that will hopefully get you an equally awesome job!

So, you may be wondering, isn’t personal branding just a fancy word for bragging then? Good question, but no, personal branding is not. The process of personal branding involves marketing your skills and professional qualities in a way that educates employers about what talents you have and what value you could add to their company. It is a process of awareness.

Step One:

The first step involves creating your brand. Think about what you want to be known for within your field. What sorts of talents, skills, and accomplishments can you market that will make you stand out? This step will force you to, if you haven’t already, stop and identify your strengths and weaknesses. In addition to your expertise and field of interest, identify the style that you will consistently use in your personal branding. Do you want to come across as witty and sarcastic? Elegant and sophisticated? Blunt and honest? Thinking about all of these questions before you start personal branding is incredibly important so that you can create a consistent brand across all platforms.

Step Two:

Once you’ve identified and answered all of the questions in step one, you’re ready for branding time! Incorporate and spread the brand you’ve begun to cultivate in as many ways as you can:

• on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook
• in your resume and cover letter
• within your portfolio
• on your personal website or blog
• through personal business cards
• and even your e-mail address should reflect your personal brand!

Creating a video resume is perhaps one of the most significant ways in which you can engage in personal branding and really differentiate yourself among a crowd of job seekers. What you say allows you to communicate the skills, values, and goals that compose your brand. And the video aspect allows you to convey your style and personality—another aspect of your brand. Employers will appreciate having access to this comprehensive view of your brand.

So get a head start on your personal branding today! Create a free Jobma account, upload a video resume that reflects your personal brand, and share this video resume across your other social media platforms.  I bet you’ll be surprised by just how powerful personal branding and video resumes are as tools in the job searching process.