The JobSync Blog
Branding and Its Limits
December 12, 2011
One of the more common buzzwords heard today is “branding.” And for some, it’s not just a buzzword – it’s often accompanied by a warning. Namely, if you don’t brand yourself, someone else will brand yourself for you.
Essentially, branding is the process of establishing a unique professional identity that highlights your skills, expertise, and accomplishments in a bid to make you more attractive to employers. To put it crudely, some candidates are Cheerios, while others are steel cut oatmeal. So why the focus on branding now? Because in a challenging job market with large numbers of highly qualified individuals competing for the same positions that you are, it becomes critical to distinguish oneself from the pack.
Branding involves more than posting your impressive resume online. For many employment consultants, branding must necessarily involve positioning oneself as an expert in a certain job area. This is most easy to accomplish through regular blogging or cultivating an articulate and compelling presence on social media sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Such sites offer you a place to be seen and heard in forums on matters close to your professional expertise. The hope is that when a potential employer Googles your name, a set of results will pop up from various online sources that showcase what a superstar you are.
But is it really that easy? Yes and no.
While the Internet is a powerful medium for forging an appealing professional identity, at the end of the day, companies want to know what you will achieve for them, not what you will lecture them on. To avoid conveying a sense that you are predisposed to doing the latter, it is crucial that in the course of branding yourself, you emphasize your points through your work history. Also keep in mind that your brand can never depart from your reality, or you are setting yourself up for quick dismissal from any interview process.
So brand by example, and hopefully you will never find yourself on the bottom shelf of the cereal aisle of candidates.
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