For Job Seekers

Forget The Sizzle, Sell The Steak

I made an interesting acquaintance today, a co-author on Careerhub. He called after reading my recent diatribe on personal branding.

Mark Hovind is author of JobBait.com, and he's a seasoned veteran at helping senior executives manage their careers and job hunts. And as I learned today, he's gotten pretty disgusted at the hype surrounding "personal branding."

Readers of my blog know that I'm actually a fan of the principles of personal branding — snaps to Wendy Terwelp, my favorite expert in the field. But I agree with Mark that some people have over-hyped personal branding. To quote Mark, "Branding is dripping with 'get rich quick' hype." Reminding us that brand is a noun and not a verb, Fast Company Magazine said, "In a brilliant twist, the experts have bottled an end and sold it as a means."

At the pinnacle of personal branding, IMHO, is Brandego.com. Depending on where you stand on the "personal branding: hype or powerful juju?" spectrum, Brandego is either the ultimate tool or absolut overkill. (Absolut ... haha ... get it?) To be sure, Brandego can pimp you like nobody else ... but is that really a good thing?

Don't get me wrong, I firmly agree with all the principles of personal branding, and so does Mark. But the hype has exceeded the substance. I like Mark's take on things — back to basics, back to value — and I look forward to hearing more from him.

Forget The Mirror: The Power Of Unreasonable Personal Branding

There are a lot of people who know a lot more about personal branding than I do, so take this posting with a grain of salt. The general wisdom is that effective personal branding starts with a rigorous survey of how others (peers, coworkers, friends, family) see you.

I don't agree. This approach reminds me of a great metaphorical description I once heard, about someone looking into a mirror and thinking it's a window.

Here's why I don't think you should base your personal branding efforts on "the mirror" I'm referring to — on the perceptions of other people. First, unless you are pretty thick skinned, any remotely-negative feedback will hurt. Most likely, it will shake you and undermine your confidence — the last thing that should mar your personal branding efforts.

Second, it's too easy to let this external feedback define your playing field. To paraphrase Robert Browning, "ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's personal branding for?"

Finally, negative feedback makes it way too easy to focus on your "areas for improvement," when your real focus should be on leveraging your strengths.

If you have a reasonably accurate grasp of your strengths, and a good instinct for which ones you need to leverage, I believe you are much better off entirely devoting your energy to cultivating and reinforcing your brand. To being proactive rather than reactive.

From a traditional marketing perspective, cultivating your brand without analyzing your market is unreasonable. Well, to paraphrase another great cliché ...

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world around him. The unreasonable man bends the world to his will. Therefore, the most powerful personal branding is practiced by the unreasonable man!

Be a Sponsored Listing On Google... For Free!

In terms of simple, straightforward, free things you can do to start to take control of your online identity (a critical aspect of your personal brand!), this is one of cooler ones I've learned about recently... Naymz

Win Big With Personal Branding

To adapt an old phrase, "personal branding is it's own reward." But, it's nice to know there can be other perks -- immediate ones. In this case, a free three month extension on a premium account on JibberJobber! (Not to mention a link from the JibberJobber blog -- what's personal branding without promotion?) As you may recall, I've praised JibberJobber as as invaluable tool for job seeker's previously. To adapt another old phrase, "tune in, turn on and brand yourself!"