The Ultimate Guide to Personal Branding for Young Professionals
When I was at my wit’s end of trying to find an internship with no luck I discovered the term personal branding.
Through Skillshare, I found a class called “Do things tell people: The power of personal branding”. As a college student, I didn’t know squat about personal branding and how it was relevant to me but for some reason I was curious.
After that class, my mind was blown it made so much sense and yet I never thought of it that way. I realized that I wasn’t getting what I wanted because no one knew what I was doing and what I stood for.
The concept can be problematic because I was just as good as a candidate before I started to brand myself, but once I started to put my accomplishments online and started talking about my purpose the positions started rolling in.
It was crazy I went from being completely stuck to getting a new job (that pays way more), finding a paid internship in my field (super rare).
That’s how personal branding has transformed my career outlook and I think all young professionals can utilize digital media to create a brand for themselves and stop waiting for jobs to come to you but to go out there and get what you want.
Here are the ways you can start building and leveraging your personal brand today:
Google yourself
Is this a little conceited? Maybe, but is it necessary in the digital age? Abso-freaking-lutely
In order to create a personal brand as a young professional, it is absolutely crucial that you know what your personal brand is and I hate to break it to you but we all have one whether you meant to create it or not.
So in order to do damage control or maybe give your self a pat on the back, you need to take stock of what is floating out there about you on the internet and whether those are things that you want to be associated with you.
Now it’s important to take note:
What is the top platform that comes up when you’re google- Make sure that has the most complete view of who you are or how you want to be perceived
What social platforms are featured
What pictures are shown on google images
Now you’ll want to start by ensuring that your picture comes up in the photo section of google (ahem, one that you’re actually proud of and not your high school prom photos) and you’ll want to go to the websites you have access to fix any typos or upload fresh new profile pictures for each.
If anything comes up that you don’t approve of or you don’t want to be associated with, you can start by contacting the owners of the pages/photo or if that doesn’t work reporting the page on google.
Also, it might help to make any personal pages private so that they don’t come up on the first few pages of your google search, while this isn’t foolproof it will help to give you some sense of separation between your personal and professional life.
This is just the first step.
Create a saying or phrase for yourself
This might feel weird because you’re thinking, I’m a person, not a business.
I hate to break it to you but as a young professional you are in some ways your own business and the goal of your business like most other businesses to differentiate yourself from the competition.
Just think of it, there’s a million fast-food restaurants in the world but somehow we can all tell Chick-fil-a from KFC by just a single glance even though they use similar colors.
That’s because they’ve branded themselves differently so even though they both use red and they both sell chicken there’s no way anyone would even think to compare them.
Having a word or phrase associated with is just one of the ways you can do this.
And it’s funny because you probably have one already and you don’t know it.
Think to how you describe yourself in interviews, what annoys you about other people in your industry, what others often say about you and there might be something that pops up across all of those.
I’m a fan of picking a word that encapsulates how you would describe yourself professional. When I picked a word I decided to go with unconventional.
As a future historian the world sees it as a stuffy profession and honeslty kind of boring, but I’ve never seen it that way I’ve always seen the exciting part about learning about people.
So in my linkedin bio, my cover letter and my interview I really hammer in that as a person in the industry, I’m not looking to be the cookie cutter historian but someone who goes against the grain and can make history fun.
Obviosuly this isn’t meant for everyone because some employers want somone who is more traditional but that has yet to hurt me because the people I atttract the types of employers and postions that fit my unique skills and not the other way around.
Another reason why having a word or catch phrase is important in personal branding is because of impressions.
To be honest most people won’t read all the way through your cover lettter, or read through your LinkedIn bio but instead people skim.
We all do it!
But as someone trying to leave a lasting impression you can work around this by being concise about what you want people to take away and getting straight to the point.
And yes, everyone is multifaceted and one word or phrase doesn’t describe all of you, but there are certain parts of ourselves that are more prominant than others.
While you can show up as your full self in person, its really hard to convey that complexitiy over the internet, so simplifying your message can do wonders!
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Choose a color
This is stuff most people don’t think about. When you think of professional materials and documents you don’t often think of color.
But guess what? There is room for color in professional branding but more often than not people chose black, so by default you’re choosing black as the color that represnts you.
While someone people would happily choose black most people probably wouldnt.
When we think about color as it relates to personal branding it doesn’t mean you should use bright red background color for your resume but instead it means utilizing color as an intentional choice to set yourself apart. Doing this sublty can make a world of difference when it comes to looking at your application.
Give your recruiter’s eyes a break from the worlds of greys and black!
Pick a color, a color that makes you feel comfortable and find ways to incorperate that into all you professional materails. As an accent color and not as a default color for professional documents.
Color creates contrast and allows the brain to make associations quickly so a simple green highlight in your resume header, cover letter header and your linkedin bio creates cohesiveness and is a great way to create a connection amongst all your professional platforms.
The typical advice that young professionals get is to play it safe when it comes to any professional materials, but that advice is outdated, this isn’t the 1950s, jobs have evolved and the world is vastly different.
Everyone has hacked the job application process and more often than not people stick with the default options and that makes it nearly impossible to tell anyone apart.
This is where personal branding comes in because intrinsically it’s about you. It’s personal. What do you and only you bring to the table? Thats the questions that employers are now asking and you have to be able to answer that before you ever get called for an interview.
Utilizing color should not be about overwhelming all your work with color because people’s eyes still need visual breaks, a little splash is all you need.
Do a Media rehaul (stick to professional media)
This includes your catchphrase and branding choices.
Now that you’ve made an intentional choice about the colors you’ll use in your application materials and the word/phrase that you’re crafting your application around now its time to make sure that it is known in your online presence as well.
This is one of the first place recruiters will go after checking out your application and you’ll want to make sure it matches everything you were saying in your application material.
So go through the professional networks you’re on and go through and see if the color choices you made for your background or header match the ones you picked for your personal brand or if your photos really represent you in a way that feels authentic to you.
Also, look at how you describe yourself in your bios, does that sound like you or does it sound like a template you grabbed off someone’s obscure website?
Bottom line: Does your professional networks tell your story?
If it doesn’t then you need to go in and rewrite your bios and make sure there’s some cohesiveness across platforms.
You shouldn’t say the same thing for every platform because they have different audiences but once you know what you’re trying to say it becomes way easier to repackage it for different audiences!
Figure out your origin story
This goes back to, who are you? Who are you really?
Instead of trying to mold yourself into who you think the employer wants you to be you gotta own your shit. Everyone thinks you gotta make yourself seem invincible like you have no flaws and that’s the key to making employers want you.
But the truth is as you get deeper into your career people will start to sense your bullshit from a mile away. So just be upfront. Be honest about what lead you up to that point professionally.
No this isn’t your sob story and I wouldn’t stay away from that in a professional setting FYI but instead its about what type of education did you have, why did you choose to do certain jobs in your early career, what experience did you have before you applied?
All of those things are apart of your professional story and its okay if all your answers aren’t perfect but if you can be reflective and draws lesson even from the not so perfect parts of your career history then you actually have shot of an employer understanding instead of glossing over things or lying and then realizing that job wasn't for you.
No one is perfect and most people don't have a straight line to success but like all the ted talks about the person that lost their job and ended up growing a multi-millionaire business failure can be sexy if you know how to package it right.
Know your audience!
I’m sure you’ve heard this before but it’s absolutely crucial when it comes to personal branding. The mistake we all make is that we get lazy and we start to recycle the same message for all our audience, but this is the BIGGEST mistake.
If you’re going to make one change let it be that you tailor your message for different audiences
Different audience responds to different triggers and you may think they you aren’t good enough or your message isn’t resonating with people but it just may be that youre telling it the wrong way.
Think about it this way, when someone wants you to buy something? They don’t start by telling you “hey buy this thing because I really want to make loads of money” while that might be the case they start by telling you the customer how the product will be beneficial to you, so that in turn you will by the product which will help them makes loads of money.
You see what we forget in personal branding is that humans are transactional by nature and no its not dirty or bad to want something from someone but it is unreasonable to expect a lot from people when you aren’t prepared to give value in return.
So when you want to spark someone’s interest you start with why it should even matter them because, to be honest, maybe it doesn’t and you're trying to “sell” to the wrong audience.
Figure out who is your audience and take time to think about what is this audience looking for.
Is it a job? If so they maybe they want someone who can add value to their company which can include professional or technical experience or maybe even a different perspective if you have a very unique background or perspective in your field.
Is it a customer? They may want something to make their life easier
Is it a viewer? Then they might want to be entertained or educated
You see you have to start from the perspective of who you’re trying to pitch and really figure what is it that they want and what is that you want and how can those things co-exist.
Keep your language targeted towards the audience your speaking to on each platform, yes other people who don’t fit that audience might find it but you still trying to target a specific reaction so it’ll be better for the outcome of your goals.
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That’s a little introduction to how you can start implementing strategies to build your personal brand and set yourself apart professionally. If you want more advice about building a career that you actually love and feels authentic to you then read: