Career Success Day 5: Magnify Your Personal Brand

One. Two. Three. Four. Five and we are chugging along. When I look back over my own career success, the highs and lows and all the changes that led me to this point, I wish I had the support of a career coach.

Now, I am not plugging my services, there were so many stops and starts along my own journey, I could have benefitted from objective advice and direction. It’s one of the main reasons I enjoy what I do today. The journey was definitely worth it!

Are you shedding damaging mindsets and steadily moving towards your breakthrough? Your new career will thank you for it.

So, let do the fifth step – on the fifth day of the holidays, my career coach said to me:

Identify and promote your personal brand

Don’t be the world’s best kept secret…if you have a lot to offer employers (which you should know if you did Day 4’s exercise), you need to build a strong compelling message that get broadcasted through on and offline communication strategies.

But what does all this mean for you in reality? How can you break this personal branding concept into bite-size steps that would work for you?

• Define your target market and focus on ideal industries or professions that would lead to new employment or support your career growth goals
• Talk to industry experts, attend forums and read everything you can to learn more about typical business challenges your target employer faces
• Zero in on three top career achievements that relate to the above business challenges – you can discuss these successes in interviews and highlight them on your resume
• Pay close attention to how your colleagues, peers and boss describe you in professional settings; take notes on the phrases and adjectives that frequently come up.

If you take the time to really reflect, you will find very revealing information about yourself and your strengths that you may have overlooked. When you had done that, take the next steps to keep the fire burning

• Create and keep an updated LinkedIn profile and make sure it includes recommendations from previous employers and colleagues.
• Compile a brief Google profile so that you are easily found when interested employers and recruiters want to learn more about you.
• Establish yourself as thought leader by actively participating in company blogs, industry forum and professional online discussions.