Creating Your Own Personal Brand - Thursday Thoughts

Personal branding is more important than ever. It is becoming increasingly more popular for recruiters to use social media during the interview process. According to 2018 career building survey, 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates during the hiring process and 43% of employers use social media to check on current employees. Your personal brand is an indication of the best you have to offer, and the brand you communicate marks your career reputation. When carrying a personal brand, your unique promise of value will have far-reaching effects throughout your future job searches.

Whether you’re a free-lance PR professional, or working in-house for a particular brand, your own personal brand is essential; just like it is for everyone nowadays. Dig deep and start formulating all the qualities that make you different to everyone else. You can connect with markets, and stand out from the crowd. Think – ‘if I was to google myself, what would I want to be found?’

In my second semester of my Public Relations and Brand Communications course at Leeds Beckett University, one of our modules is all about building our own personal brand. Not only is this the most useful module ever because it teaches us EXACTLY how to brand ourselves, but it gives us time to actually start creating pieces of work. We are going to be assessed on these which is yet even more helpful so we can improve on our brand and get it to be as good as we can. It can be difficult to make time in your week or month to sit and develop pieces to represent you as a brand so I am extremely grateful for this module as it’s giving me an opportunity to create and reflect as I make my personal brand.

First off, I think it is important to sit with yourself, and establish your personal values. Reflect on your needs, desires and what you care about most in life and be sure to write these down (writing down things is so important as they can be so easy to forget and it is so much more convenient when you suddenly thing of something to be able to quickly list it than try and remember it – I learnt this the hard way). These can be anything from togetherness, trustworthiness, belonging and stability to self-respect, success, leadership and boldness. Values are great forces for our identity; they can be thought of as guidelines to get you to where you want to be in life and what you want to get out of it. You can then begin to build your brand based on these values such as including them in your personal statement.

Next it is a good idea to identify any passions you have that make you, you; put them in a separate list to your values. You love reading? Music? You do a particular sport? You’re part of the arts? These make you unique. Use these as examples when talking about any characteristics or skills as these things are what have shaped you as a person and make you individual. Embrace them in interviews or when writing your CV or personal statement!

 Thinking of your own particular characteristics in another list can be difficult. If you were to ask someone else what they thought of you, what would they say? But don’t actually ask them. The whole point is to create a brand based on what you think of yourself. Are you patient? Determined? Optimistic? Trustworthy and reliable? These are what you can write about in your personal statement for definite. Use the passions you listed previously as examples of your traits to prove yourself, in a way, as this helps people envision these characteristics in you on a daily basis.

When identifying your strengths/skills it can be pretty tough! I mean, everyone always claims to find it difficult to think of what you’re good at, but stating them shouldn’t be seen as a big headed thing to do. How else you expect to get that dream job you’re reaching for?! This is one of the only times you have to be big headed, so take advantage of it and completely sell yourself and your abilities. As examples, the main skills I have identified in myself are my communication skills in different writing styles and public speaking, confidence, reliability, time-management, motivation and DEFINITELY my organisation skills as anyone who knows me will be able to confirm I am abnormally organised. It is ok to list these and say you are good at them. Yes, everyone has things that may need working on (which you can choose yourself whether to ever state or not, but I personally don’t unless asked as this is what I was advised) but everyone also has strengths…don’t feel ashamed to point these out to an employer or anyone coming across your brand!

There is nothing that I value more than work experience right now. Back in high school when you’re asked to complete a week or two’s placement and it seemed like a proper drag…you’re really going to appreciate it when creating your brand. I have done a placement in high school, one in college and one whilst at University so far with two different ones planned for summer. Part time jobs also count; in some ways they can be more valuable than placements. These experiences are perfect to link with your skills so you can give real life working examples of them. How did you use your motivation when you had a really unpleasant customer when working as a waitress? Did you use your organisational skills on your work placement to ensure you got everything done in the day? Those sort of things; what happened and how your skill helped or resolved the real life situation?

Another thing that can feel difficult to talk about are any achievements. As I said and will say again…it isn’t being big headed to talk about things you have achieved. These achievements can show commitment and willingness like winning in a sport, or performing in a show; being awarded employee of the month or becoming a course representative/subject leader/head of year. This demonstrates to people that you succeed in things you have taken part in. Everyone has achievements and it is ok to state these and be proud of the things you have done!

In my module, we are being assessed on quite a few things. We have had to do two individual presentations in which we peer and self-assess and then write up a reflection on. We also do a personal development plan of our future goals; kind of like our values. Personally though, the biggest and most important assessment is creating our own personally branded portfolio.

I am really enjoying developing my portfolio; it is something great to do in your own time and isn’t actually causing too much stress (apart from the fact that I have a specific time limit and other module assessments – but nothing to actually do with this particular piece). I have been taught and completely agree that it is so important to establish a sort of ‘look’ of your brand. Choose colours and carry them through with a design on your cover and CV. This colour scheme can even be carried through in the future when making presentations on yourself (make sure you know reasoning behind your colours before though). I have recently rewritten my personal statement and CV to fit perfectly into my Public Relations portfolio but you can adapt your own to suit your own career path and personal brand. I am also including lots of proof of work from my work experience as evidence for any future employers looking through.

The best thing about creating a portfolio is that it is so easy to add to and adapt as time goes on. Add more work experience and proof of work; change things as you grow. It is also so important to value every single piece of work experience or achievements you have had and use them in your portfolio and personal brand as well as continuing to strive to get more. These are invaluable to employers. Remember, no achievement is not worthy. I was a literacy leader back in high school which is such a long time ago, but this experience meant I was working with younger ages, which I wouldn’t have done otherwise and that could open another door to a different opportunity for me; you just never know.

One more thing; try and say YES! Yes to experience, Yes to achievements and Yes to your strengths. These are what make you the best you.

Thanks for reading! Keep smiling and have a great day! Liv xxx