Have you ever heard of Zara? If not that, ever heard of Puma? No, you are boring, I bet you must have heard about Rolex for sure now. What are these names, are these names of some people, items, or pets, not at all, these are hype, these are brands. And such is the popularity of these brand names, that even a small leaping panther (brand image of Puma), when placed on a useless stone, could make it worth a hundred dollars. We employees could learn some lessons from it. Indeed, we don’t manufacture goods and sell them, but we do sell our services. Hence, in this modern world, if you want to work for some established brand names, Prepmycareer recommends, you establish a personal brand.
First Let’s UnderstandThe Importance Of A Brand Name
The importance attached to a brand name is hidden in the very fact that, Why Do Business Organizations Establish A Brand At First Place? The answer is, to stand out from the competition and enable the customers or users to perceive the product affixed with a brand symbol, to be of high quality and value. The brand name gives mental satisfaction to its users that they are using a high-quality product that not only meets their requirements but also gives them pleasure and happiness due to the value derived through it.
What Is A Personal Brand?
Getting inspired by the concept, job seekers can also involve themselves in this act and establish a personal brand for themselves. Like a physical product-related brand, personal brands will also enable the business organizations to consider or give priority to your skills, talent, and abilities, more than your peers or other candidates. They will tend to relate more to your resume and give more importance to you, which will compel them to hire you at a lucrative salary. In this era of tough competition and limited job opportunities, it is necessary to establish a personal brand.
Step By Step Guide To Establish Your Personal Brand
You are certainly not a product, but you do are an employee, who is out there in the middle of the battlefield facing the heat of competition. Thus, by branding yourself, you can certainly improve your chances of selection considerably. Below is a five-step guide using which you can establish your personal brand and cash it out so as to get some beneficial job opportunities:
Step I: Identify Your True Self
Who are you? This is your first step towards branding yourself. The personal brand that you are about to create is nothing but a true reflection of yourself, thus, you have to be very clear about your strengths, weaknesses, and other personality evaluating questions, such as:
- What Motivates You To Work? – Everybody in this world is motivated by a few personal factors which motivates them or prompts them to achieve their goals and objectives in a time bound manner. These factors are highly personal and depends largely upon the financial conditions, personal desires and circumstances of a person.
- What Are Your Strong Areas? – We all belong to different professions, some are accountants and are good in mathematics, on the other hand, some are good in developing software and are expert in coding. Whatever it is, just identify these areas.
- How Do You Handle Failure? – No person can always be successful and no one can always fail. However, it is the former which is the most desirable. A job seeker must ask from himself that how does he react upon facing a failure. Does he just breaks down, or become better then ever before. Ask these questions to yourself and note down the results.
Step II: Hunt Down Your Industry or Sector Precisely
After having been asked some deep questions from yourself, now is the time to look out for the industries that are most relevant and specific to you. If you are an accountant, the finance industry belongs to you, or if you are a graphic designer, digital marketing is the preferred industry for you. Based on your profession, skills, and interest, just earmark the most relevant industry. This industry would later serve as your audience, which will recognize your brand and would accolade you with some lucrative job opportunities.
Step III: Refer Some Information Interview
Finding the correct audience is of utmost importance for both personal as well as product-related brands. Thus, if you are not sure or are skeptical, just have some informational interviews. For the unknown, informational interviews are conducted by the job seekers to understand what their true ambitions, goals, and preferred industry or sector are. In an informational interview, a job seeker arranges and has a conversation with an industry expert who is a veteran and possesses wide knowledge as well as experience. To know about informational interviews in detail and to understand the techniques to ace it, just refer to our famous article, which will guide you completely.
Step IV: Prepare The Speech (Most Important)
Remember Hitler, yes the same person who is held responsible for the start of WWII. If not Hitler, do you remember, Martin Luther King Jr., I believe ofcourse, yes. Now, who are these? These were speakers, not ordinary speakers, but people who mastered the art of communication. Such was their control on the speech, that they even moved the masses upside down and dominated the world like none other.
I hope, you have now understood the power of speech. So now it’s high time that you prepared an elevator pitch for yourself. This would be 25 seconds to 40 seconds long speech, which would define you completely. It is recommended that you prepare this speech in a story form, which is engaging and an interviewer remains attached to it at all times. Your speech must focus on these elements:
- Your major strengths (identified in Step I)
- Your specific role and the industry you wish to work in (identified in Step II and Step III)
- Any of your true success story (not exaggerated) which enabled your employer organization to gain substantial benefits
Step V: Using Contacts or Networking
I wonder if any established business organization would get a new contract without effective networking. Everybody in this world, from lawyers to businessmen to politicians, everyone uses their contacts to get some priority and scale heights. The last step in establishing your personal brand is to use your contacts and gain some professional recognition. The better and far-reaching your professional circle would be, the more impact you can create with your new personal brand. This would enable you to not only gain some better recognition but also improve your chances of getting preference and high salaries. Hence, just initiate the conversation, do not be shy, and try establishing or cashing out your professional contacts.
Promotion Of The Personal Brand
In the above paragraphs, we taught you how you can establish your personal brand, now is the time to promote it. The best way to promote your personal brand is by taking the help of social media handles, which are:
- Youtube
- Twitter, etc.
In all the above-mentioned social media platforms, just make a video profile of yourself. Mention all your capabilities, strengths, achievements, and work experience. You must also mention all the success stories in the form of articles and blog posts, by reading which an employer can feel that you are really worthy of getting hired at a higher rate.
References
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/17404622.2020.1807579
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1473837621000095
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Sandeep Bhandari is the founder of PrepMyCareer.com website.
I am a full-time professional blogger, a digital marketer, and a trainer. I love anything related to the Web, and I try to learn new technologies every day.
All the team management, content creation, and monetization tasks are handled by me. Together with the team at PrepMyCareer, the aim is to provide useful and engaging content to our readers.