How and Why Personal Branding Works

You may think you have a good handle on how and why personal branding works.

Maybe you’ve read and completed my 10-Step Executive Personal Branding Worksheet (more about this below). And you’ve worked on building your brand and using it to land a great-fit new job.

But there are many aspects to branding that you may not have considered, as you use it while navigating your job search.

Here’s a roundup of several posts I’ve written that dig deeper into the nuances of personal branding, and will give you an expanded and fresh perspective:

Resources To Help You Understand How and Why Personal Branding Works

Dig deep and define your unique, authentic personal brand.

These days, more and more savvy job seekers have some understanding of the value of personal branding. Therefore, they are more willing than ever to do the necessary work.

They understand that, in today’s job search environment, many of their competitors have done the branding work. So they also have to leverage this strategy, just to keep pace with them.

I’m offering the personal branding worksheet I use with my clients, to help them land jobs they covet and deserve.

Get my Personal Branding Worksheet here.

The big picture on how and why personal branding works.

I’ve written a 4-part series, The Personal Branding Manifesto, which breaks down like this:

What Personal Branding Is and Is NOT, and How Personal Branding Makes You Stand Out
How to Define Your Unique Personal Brand and Make It Memorable
Mind Your Online Reputation: The Personal Branding Social Proof Paradigm
Little-Used Strategies to Build Social Proof

Start with Part 1 of The Personal Branding Manifesto here.

Are you sabotaging your personal brand and job search without knowing it?

Sometimes in job search you’ll inadvertently do something that will contaminate your personal brand. You do one unfortunate thing or get into bad habits and BOOM!, you’ve blown a hole in your brand.

Other times, things beyond your control intervene to tarnish the good work you’ve done building your personal brand.

And still other times, your lack of understanding of the new world of job search in the digital age can wreak havoc.

In this post, you’ll find some things you may be doing that can sabotage your job search, before you even get a foot in the door.

Read my post, 7 Ways To Contaminate Your Personal Brand and Doom Your Executive Job Search

How to build your personal brand with the best LinkedIn profile.

If you’re job-hunting, you need to have a robust LinkedIn profile personal brand building strategy. This is especially true if you’re an executive job seeker.

People who can help you meet your career goals are using LinkedIn to find and assess candidates like you. I mean people like executive recruiters and other hiring professionals.

LinkedIn is an extremely important social networking site for career, executive job search, and business-building.

Those who take the time to learn how to use LinkedIn wisely find that it works for them. And they have the competitive advantage over those who have an anemic profile and don’t do much of anything on LinkedIn.

Get the details in my post, 5 LinkedIn Profile Personal Brand Building Essentials

Video helps you communicate your personal brand.

You may be turned off to video because you don’t want to be on camera . . . or you don’t think you have the skill to produce a video . . . or they cost too much and take too much time to create.

The small percentage of job seekers who use video at all, use video resumes. In these videos, the candidate appears and speaks on camera. Some people do okay with them, but they’re not ideal.

Videos that do NOT feature you on camera typically work better.

Kinetic animation videos will powerfully showcase your personal brand and the unique value you offer your target employers. And they do this in a way that’s not likely to “out” the fact that you’re job hunting . . . a necessity for most job seekers.

Read more about how to use the right kind of video for personal branding in your job search.

Take time at the beginning of the year to refresh your brand.

For many of us, the New Year is a time to reflect back, while planning forward.

It’s the perfect time to take stock of your personal brand . . . while you’re working on those New Year’s resolutions you’re determined to keep this year.

For career health and fulfillment it’s wise to revisit your personal brand each year, whether or not an executive job search is looming in front of you this year.

And, if the value you offer has changed or grown significantly, you probably need to refresh your personal brand.

You never know when a new job opportunity (internally or externally) may come your way. Or your job may be pulled out from under you.

And there you’ll be, scrambling to pull everything together.

Read the article here: New Year. Time to Revisit and Refresh Your Personal Brand