Personal branding, personal branding, personal branding
Personal branding for finding work Personal Branding? Personal Branding!
Nowadays there is a so much talk about personal branding, as if it has become the panacea for all ills, particularly in the labour market (lack of jobs, difficulty in searching for and finding jobs).
Unfortunately, as is often the case, when a word or instrument becomes fashionable these are often used in different contexts (which could even be positive) and abused, i.e. used incorrectly.
There is an abundance of literature concerning personal branding and some has been written by people who plainly have little knowledge of the subject or have not thought about it enough.
What I don’t like is when people speak superficially about a matter that has created a great deal of expectation in people who actually need guidance.
I recently let read an article in English about Personal Branding that I would like to draw your attention to for two reasons:
- it tells you how it’s done AND
- provides examples that come from real life (not just from a professional sphere).
Years ago someone suggested that I try to think of some personal success stories in order to help me face a specific situation.
In the various methods beneath the banner of a skills assessment there’s always a part relating to: success stories, things you are proud of, projects you have completed, achievements, negotiations, awards, etc.
Since work is not a woman’s only interest, I started describing some “achievements” using a format provided by a friend who works in the outplacement sector, and was focusing on my professional life.
At a certain point I thought that I might as well assesses whether I was happy with my life in general without only focusing on professional aspects.
To keep things short – instead of writing pages and pages – I prepared an Excel spread sheet with the sheet for each aspect of my life: schools, jobs, men, leisure activities, places I’d travelled to, etc (no kids because I don’t have any). I did this in detail, with assessments for each entry and a general entry for each subject.
I hadn’t told many people about this exercise of mine but nowadays this type of process has become quite fashionable. You could say this was a form of personal branding that was ahead of its time, since I’m no spring chicken!
There are multiple advantages in looking at various aspects of one’s life: firstly, we all only have one life and energy from one area can be applied to another. The same goes for relationships and skills and, let’s face it, you’ll be much much more motivated in performing an exercise that is like a game! It’s more likely that something you perform with an open mind will yield much more interesting results than a job you simply “have to do”!
The result? By looking for satisfaction at a broader level you can also derive benefits professionally, conscious of your personal brand and not only of your "professional" one.
