When I talk about personal branding, I’m talking about treating yourself and your career as a brand. Personal branding is defined as the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. This is a new concept, because previous self-help management techniques were about self-improvement, while the personal-branding concept suggests that success comes from self-packaging. Brand yourself for success through your clothing, your resume, your career, and your online presence. I know it sounds confusing, but it’s not as hard as you think. But how do you brand yourself for success? Keep reading to find out!
Make sure your clothing is “on brand”.
This doesn’t mean that you need to stick to a specific brand of clothing, but this means that you need to dress in a way that represents you and gives off the right perception.
Think about how a brand is cohesive in every aspect of marketing and aesthetics. Decide how you want other people to see you and the brand you represent, and dress accordingly. If you want to be seen as a professional, wear professional clothing. It won’t only affect how people see you, but there’s something empowering about dressing “up.” It changes your demeanor and studies have shown that it influences the way we think.
In Jennifer J. Baumgartner’s book, You are what You Wear: What Your Clothes Reveal about You, she explains that, “Our closets are windows into our internal selves. Every one of us attempts to say or hide something in the way we wear our clothes.” Use your clothing to positively affect how you communicate by taking the opportunity to show people who you are and what kind of person you want to be. For instance, if you want to brand yourself for success in the corporate world, dress professionally in blazers and business attire. Coming to work in jeans and a t shirt would not give off the right impression that you work in or want to work in a corporate job.
You will be judged on your appearance, so take advantage of it.
Whether or not it’s right, it’s human nature to judge others based on their clothing and appearance. Since this is a known fact, (people with straight teeth are considered more successful) take advantage of what you can and dress to impress. This doesn’t mean that you need to spend a lot of money on designer clothing, however you should be dressing in clothing that is flattering and appropriate. If you’re going to a meeting, opt for a pair of fitted slacks instead of jeans. It’s a simple switch that will immediately make you appear more professional and more authoritative. Similarly, by switching out a sweater for a blazer, you will make your look more polished and command more respect.
Make sure that your documents fit your brand.
I’ve talked about branding yourself aesthetically through clothing, but the other part of it is branding yourself in your career. Make sure that your resume and cover letter are cohesive with you as a brand, and reflect your personality and goal. These documents should be clean, clear, concise, and reader friendly. If you’re in tech, make sure that you convey your technical knowledge in your resume and cover letter. If you’re in business development, make sure you note your business development accomplishments.
Another thing that is extremely important is consistency throughout your documents. For example, if you’re using your middle initial in the header of your resume (i.e. Joe M. Schmoe) use that same written presentation on all of your documents and professional profiles. Don’t switch between “Joe Schmoe” and “Joe M. Schmoe” because the inconsistency may get confusing.
Your resume, cover letter, LinkedIn, personal business card, and appearance should all give off the same impression. For an example, look at writestylesonline.com and compare it to the Instagram @writestyles and Facebook page /writestylesonline. When looking at all 3 platforms, it is clear that it’s the same brand, and that carries over to my business card, resume, and style as well. You want everything to be uniform. If you work with certain colors, stick with those. For me that’s mainly black and white with an accent color of lime green.
Create a professional online footprint.
If you have inappropriate pictures on your facebook or Instagram, take them off. While your accounts may be private, if you wouldn’t want a future boss or coworker to see it, it should not be online. Go through and make sure everything is clean and gives off a good image. Similarly, make sure that your LinkedIn properly reflects your career and abilities.
Make sure you have an appropriate LinkedIn profile picture, and ensure that you are part of the right groups. You want to leverage your connections, so introduce yourself and post content to ensure that people see that you’re active on the platform. Being active, such as posting articles that you’ve written and sharing articles from others shows that you are knowledgeable on industry and market trends, and shows others that you know what you’re doing.
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Personal branding is essential to market yourself correctly in your career. By packaging and marketing yourself correctly, you will be able to manipulate how people view you, enabling you to secure the career of your dreams. If you’re able to show people that you can do it and that your work will benefit them, you’ll be able to reach all of your professional goals and aspirations.