Creating your Personal Brand
Posted 07/07/2010 1:50 PM
To understand the concept of your personal "brand," think of the example of Coke vs. Coke Zero. Both are in the cola industry and have essentially the same taste. Yet Coke Zero as a "brand" has great Coke test but zero calories. Having zero calories and all the flavor is what they do "better" than regular Coke, and it is thus the emphasis of their marketing campaign.
Your task as a job seeker is to determine what you do better than anyone else within your industry (e.g. Mechanical Engineering, Management, Healthcare, etc). What sets you apart from your peers when you're applying and interviewing against hundreds of other candidates. Being able to identify and convey those strengths consistently will help set you apart from the crowd.
Resumes and cover letters are tools for marketing your brand to potential employers. These tools need to be focused on the benefits you can provide to the consumer (employers), not simply on what you have done in the past.
Here are 3 steps for identifying and conveying your personal brand:
1) Research your Brand.
Do some market research to determine what other people perceive your strengths to be. Survey your family, friends, co-workers, professors, advisors, colleagues, supervisors, and anyone else with whom you have a good relationship to see what they think of you on a personal and professional level.
2) Define your Brand.
Take the feedback you got from step 1 and look for trends. What general examples and responses did you get? Look for things like project oriented, energetic, good listener, team player, mechanically inclined, determined, etc.
3) Market your Brand.
Take the trend you saw in step 2 and develop specific examples of things you have accomplished that illustrate or support the general traits. These specific examples are what you need to convey in an interview, but also in a resume. Employers need to see that you have the experience to back up your claims. Generic traits like "Hard working" do nothing for you on a resume, and do not help you stand out from the crowd. A resume that is coherently and consistently focused on your key strengths that relate to the position you're applying for will create the positive impression you're looking for.
Source Article:
http://newgradlife.blogspot.com/2009/11/personal-branding-for-college-graduates_21.html
Questions about creating your personal brand? Contact the Career Placement Office.
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| Erik Oswald | Mary Spencer | Cathlyn Ferraro |