Personal Branding

What is Personal Branding? In defining the meaning for you, I am going to use a couple of quotes:

“What makes you unique, makes you successful”
William Arruda
and
“Building your personal brand online gets you noticed in the real world”
Kirsten Dixson.

The two authors that created those wonderful words wrote the book, “Career Distinction; Stand out by Building your Brand.” To get your arms around this, I want you to think about how unique each and every individual is on this planet. Everytime I spend some time thinking about this, I am amazed and awed spiritually.

Let’s say we have five students who have recently graduated with an associate of applied science degree in Medical Administrative Professional (one of our newer programs here at Western Technical College). Those five students all come into career services to get assistance with their resumes. Not one resume looked alike, not one. And why should they? Yes, each student graduated from the same program, but each student has different backgrounds and experience. Each student excelled in a different area while they were in the program learning.

Do you have a clear picture of your strengths? Of your weaknesses? Have you taken the time to get to know yourself? REALLY know who YOU are? Are you able to market your strengths on a resume? Have you noticed that you are better at doing certain tasks than others? You probably have noticed that some people out there seem to have skills and strengths that you don’t have…but have you taken the time to discover what special strengths you do have? Believe me, we all have them. THAT is what personal branding is all about.

Personal Branding is not a new idea. You have probably at least heard of the term. In finding a media clip to add to this post, I googled personal branding. I found the media clip that I attached to the top of this post which I hope you will study as it might answer questions that have popped into your head. Anyway, in finding that media clip I ran across a post by a Dorie Clark and Andy Molinsky who stress that personal branding is self-promotion and self-promotion is not always considered a positive value in all cultures. Some people are turned off by what they see as bragging. There is no need to brag, your work should speak for itself. They state that authenticity matters. Giving some thoughtful, honest thought to self-assessment is well accepted. Career Services staff can guide you through a self assessment that is pretty powerful. Let us know if we can help you discover your strengths.

As you can imagine there is a lot of information out on the internet about personal branding. Check it out for a few minutes. I also ran across a comment posted by RD who states that “anyone interested in personal branding should get: Personal Brand Planning for Life.” Available on Amazon. There are probably a few dozen choices of books on the topic as well. Happy exploring!