Dare to Express Your True Personal Brand

“Why fit in when you were born to stand out?” — Dr. Seuss

My clients − c-suite and senior-level executive job seekers − work hard with me through my personal branding and job search readiness process.

They’re eager to open up and dig deep so that I can differentiate their unique ROI in their LinkedIn profiles, resumes, biographies, etc., and position them as a great fit for the employers they’re targeting.

Most of my clients embrace their true personal brand.

They see the value of the process and know all their hard work completing the Personal Branding worksheet and others was worth it.

They’re thrilled with their LinkedIn profile, resume and other personal marketing materials. We’ve gotten to the meat of who they truly are. They stand out and above their competitors.

The vast majority of them understand that true personal branding is more than keywords and descriptions of hard skills.

They know they can’t overlook the “personal” in their personal brand.

To generate chemistry, they know it’s important to communicate their passions, values, personality and how they get things done.

But some are resistant to true personal branding.

Every once in a while, when reviewing the content I’ve written for them, a client regresses.

They suddenly fear that by giving a feel for their personality, they’ll come off as too different. They don’t give themselves permission to be authentically “them”.

This is especially true of clients who haven’t been in a job search for many years.

They still want a resume like the one they used in 1998 . . . an anemic, flat document with hard skills as the sole focus. “Sameness” was the goal.

They’re concerned that too much information in their LinkedIn profile will be overkill, and come across as boasting.

And they’re uncomfortable using storytelling in their LinkedIn profile content, which is the best way to make a connection with people assessing them through their profile.

They forget, or haven’t fully grasped, that sameness won’t sell them. Differentiation will.