Personal branding is the key to help employers understand what makes you tick. You can prove yourself as an asset to their business before you even walk through the door. Your resume, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and portfolio are all key elements in creating your personal brand.
Become a Thought Leader
Use your social media platforms to your benefit. Make sure that you are curating and creating relevant content. Don’t make your social media all about work, make sure your personality and interests are in there too. Post articles from news sites, blogs and other exciting internet sources. Your potential employer will gain more insight about who you are if you are posting consistently and post what you are passionate about. It is an added bonus if your posts are timely and getting attention from other social media users. Finding material that you care about is key.
Build Your Strengths
By now you should have some idea as to what your strengths and weaknesses are. If you are still having trouble figuring out what these may be, you should look into what situations make you happy, what types of work you like to do first or even take any number of aptitude tests. Once you have some idea as to what your strengths are, build on them. If you are great at leading group work, do more leadership activities in your daily life, this can be an intramural sports team, position at church or even just going online to see if there are any speakers coming through your town to speak on leadership. Any of these could help you hone your skills that are already prevalent. If your strength is an eye for detail, look into hobbies that use this skill such as photography, sewing, or painting miniature figures. Do this for a few of your strengths and then you will be able to better brand yourself on a resume or interview. When your potential employer is asking what you have over the competition, you will have definitive skills that you can explain. Make sure that you include these strengths in your resume, portfolio, interview and even photos of you building your skills in your social media.
Be Consistent
Your branding should reflect in everything you create, this could be down to even minor detail. Keeping the same font in your resume and portfolio. Showing off strengths that you talk about in your resume in your portfolio and social media. You should also be consistent in your writing. Have someone (or a few people) proofread your resume before handing it to an interviewer. Make sure that you use correct spelling and grammar on your social media accounts. You should also make sure that the photos and opinions that you are posting are things you want a potential employer to see. That could mean cleaning up your Facebook to be job search ready.
Using these tips are sure to set you apart. For more tips and tricks visit our Facebook and our website.
