How to Build and Propagate Your Personal Career Brand

By Sharon Graham.

Personal career branding is fast becoming an accepted mainstream term. Personal branding is not only for the self-employed or small business owner, but also for experienced job seekers and career changers. To succeed in the labour market, you need to continuously foster, develop, and deploy your personal career brand.

Here are 20 things that you can do to propel your personal career brand.

1. Define your target market by demographics and psychographics.
2. Have a personal brand tag line that communicates your value.
3. Know your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses and what differentiates you.
4. Ensure that your personal style and image reflect your brand and are relevant to your audience.
5. Be able to explain your five most compelling brand attributes.
6. Be known by others so well that everyone introduces you in a similar way.
7. Review your objectives regularly and post them where you can see them.
8. Have a yearly communications plan for your brand and know your message.
9. Launch your personal blog, and ideally post three times a week.
10. Be an active member of at least one professional organization or association.
11. Write an article for your professional or association publication at least once a quarter.
12. Get your articles posted on relevant web sources.
13. Post book reviews relevant to your industry and target market on websites.
14. Be an active volunteer in one charitable or philanthropic venture.
15. Establish a focus group of peers and colleagues for regular brand feedback and advice.
16. Know, and work on, lessening the impact of your negative brand attributes.
17. Have a consistent look for all your ‘stationery’ including self-marketing documents.
18. Mark everything with your brand including voicemail, e-mail, reports, and thank you notes.
19. Build a strong professional network and ensure that everyone is ‘touched’ at least twice a year.
20. Measure your brand development regularly.

Working on and defining your personal brand cannot be completed in a few days. It is a holistic approach not only to your career, but also to your life in general.