Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Generation Y/Millennials Recommended Career Resources Social Media on April 7, 2009 at 8:26 am
As the job market becomes more and more competitive, students and recent grads need to do everything they can to stand out from their peers. One great way to do this is by building your professional reputation, also known as your “personal brand.”
For advice on creating your personal brand – and using it to help you land a great job – I turned to Dan Schawbel, the leading personal branding expert for Generation Y. Dan is the author of the brand new book, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success (Kaplan, April 09), as well as the publisher of the Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine.
I recently had the opportunity to interview Dan. Note that I’ve posted excerpts of this interview on other blogs, but the full text of our interview is only available here:
Lindsey: How do you define personal branding?
Dan: Personal branding is the process by which we market ourselves to other people. The process that I’ve developed in my new book, Me 2.0, is “discover, create, communicate and maintain (DCCM).”
The first step in this process is to discover what you’re passionate about and your area of expertise, while establishing goals and forming both a development plan and a personal marketing plan.
The second step is to create marketing materials, which could include a business card, portfolio, website, blog, social network profiles, a podcast, a video resume, as well as traditional documents like a resume and cover letter.
The third step is to become your own personal PR person and communicate your brand to others through speaking engagements, commenting on blogs, writing for magazines, pitching journalists and more.
The final step is to maintain your brand, which consists of online reputation management and keeping your profiles up-to-date and accurate with changes in your career.
Lindsey: You are in your 20s. How have you established yourself as a personal branding expert at such a young age?
Personal branding came naturally to me because I marketed myself extensively through college, including eight internships, seven leadership positions and straight A’s. Instead of networking with other professionals, I applied and interviewed through job boards and corporate websites, which really forced me to differentiate myself.
I had never termed this to be personal branding until I read Tom Peter’s article in Fast Company magazine. The second I read his article, I realized that personal branding was my passion and since I was blessed with entrepreneurship genes, and skills that I collected from middle school (graphic design and website development), I was able to execute on my dream and build a brand faster than most.
When I first branded myself, I considered myself a “personal branding spokesman,” because my theories weren’t proven and I was a prolific writer on this topic. As I started to see results from my brand building, including being recruited for a new social media position at EMC Corporation, and press mentions in BusinessWeek and The Wall Street Journal, I transitioned my brand to “personal branding expert.” Instead of being this general with my title, I decided that my audience would be Gen Y, because that niche was wide open and because I felt that the millennial generation required extensive help to prepare them for the real world. As a millennial myself, it was easy to connect to this generation and thus my personal brand statement (who you are and who you serve) became “the leading personal branding expert for Gen Y.”
My genuine enthusiasm and knowledge in this field has allowed me to break through the clutter and establish myself as a top marketing blogger, magazine publisher, video producer, consultant, speaker and book author. If I lost everything today, I’d still pursue my passion for personal branding.
Lindsey: Does personal branding change (in definition or activities) based on the stage of your career? In other words, should Gen Ys think of personal branding differently from more established professionals?
Dan: Personal branding is based on who you are as a person. Depending on your career status, you’re branding strategy will change. For instance, you would position yourself differently if you were a job seeker, instead of an entrepreneur trying to raise venture capital or a marketing consultant. The personal branding process is still the same, but your marketing strategy will differ based on your audience and goals.
For example, Gen Y college students should start this branding process freshman year and invest in networking, so when they graduate, they don’t have to spend eight months applying for jobs and interviewing. Gen Y needs to understand that business is changing, but it’s taking time, so I encourage them to use social media tools as a competitive advantage in the workplace and when applying for jobs. Gen Y’s disadvantage is experience, not age, and their advantages are technology and hyper-connectivity.
Lindsey: Can you share 3 personal branding tips from your book that are most important for Gen Ys graduating from college this spring?
1. Have a targeted approach to applying for jobs. Most college graduates will furiously apply to hundreds of jobs online, praying that they might get a few interviews and hopefully a job. Regardless of what the economic situation is, a focused job search will always prevail. Instead of getting a job that will pay your bills, try your hardest to create your own job at a company that you’d love to work for. Write down the top five companies that you want to work for and the job description you would like to have.
2. Conduct a people search, not just a job search. Job boards are fading away and aren’t as useful as they were a decade ago. Now, everyone is on social networks and can be contacted, without having to go through chains of command. The best way to navigate the recruitment process is to contact employers directly, instead of applying for a job that might not be available anyway. Use search engines, including Twitter, Facebook, Technorati and Google to locate employees who work at companies you’re interested in and reach out to them. By doing this, you’ll appear genuine and have a better chance of getting the job you actually want.
3. Protect and promote your brand as much as possible. Protecting your personal brand is extremely important because there are other people in the world with your name and if you fail to register your name on social networks and your domain name, someone else will. Also, you’ll want to command your Google results because employers will be searching for you. Promoting your brand is required to gain the necessary visibility to be recruited based on your expertise. By using social media tools to get your name out there, you have a better chance at obtaining a great opportunity.
Lindsey: You and I are both big fans of Twitter and use it to enhance our personal brands. In your opinion, why should college students and young professionals try Twitter?
Dan: Twitter is a platform the disables corporate hierarchies and enables direct connection and relationship building. Through Twitter, I’ve met some very successful people, such as ex-model Kathy Ireland and others, who I would have never met otherwise. We always talk about how you should build your network before you need it, and with Twitter, if you gain enough followers before you need their support, the chances of tweeting yourself to a new job increase substantially.
Twitter is a great tool for actively listening to your audience, while learning about news quickly. Twitter is actually more effective when you’re branding yourself on other platforms and when you can link to a site that best represents you, such as your blog or LinkedIn profile. Despite Twitter appearing as a mainstream tool, it’s still fairly new, with “only” five million users, so you’ll appear as a forward thinker just by joining.
Lindsey: Why should Gen Y college students and recent grads read Me 2.0?
Dan: Gen Y is entering a job market, where there are 22% fewer jobs available (NACE). Being able to differentiate yourself can be challenging, but Me 2.0 is packed full of advice that will help you unearth your passion, master your niche and enjoy life. Me 2.0 teaches you how to command your career and create your future and will guide you through a proven process that will take you from self-discovery to celebrity in just over 200 pages. Me 2.0 is the handbook for surviving and thriving in the digital age. Read it before everyone else does!
Tags: Dan Scawbel, Me 2.0, Personal Branding, Twitter
[...] benefit – it improves your personal brand (haven’t heard that term before? Check out this awesome piece from Lindsey Pollak and Dan Schawbel). Which means when someone types your first and [...]
@Ellie in Austin – Yes, I strongly recommend listing resume details on LinkedIn. That is what the site is for! If you’re uncertain, take a look through the LinkedIn profiles of people you admire or people in your industry and you’ll see how common and helpful it is. Good luck!
Lindsey
Is it really true to include details of your resume on your LinkedIn profile? I don’t know about this, it sounds like I am trying too hard. I don’t want to look desperate.
@Shawn – great point. It’s really important to “toot your own” horn a bit. Don’t expect your boss to take note of your accomplishments.
Thanks for the comment!
Lindsey
Personal PR is also huge on the job. Regardless of how great your boss is, there’s a good chance he or she won’t know exactly what you’ve accomplished over the past few months. Use a little Personal PR to periodically keep your boss in the loop about what you’re working even if he or she doesn’t ask.
[...] to all of the great feedback from my Personal Branding and Your Job Search post earlier this week, I wanted to share information about an upcoming personal branding event in [...]
@Carol – thank you for sharing this resource. Hope you had some more coffee!
Lindsey
Sorry…here’s the link! Need more coffee ;-)
http://www.articlemarketer.com/marketing_your_resume.php
Great post, and excellent discussion. Brand yourself as an expert in your field is critical.
As Carla said above, employers are Googling you as you apply for those jobs. The link above is to a recorded interview might help anyone looking to position themselves as an expert in the Google-sphere, while marketing their resume.
[...] Personal Branding and Your Job Search: An Interview with Dan … [...]
It’s definitely a crucial thing to build nowadays. Online personal brands are often not given focus by students in their early years.
nuResume, a budding student career network aims to give students a professional online identity by giving them their very own Google-optimized multi-media pages complete with featuring an online resume with portfolio, videos, blogs and more!-all for free. It’s also a site to network with fellow students, or employers, career centers, faculty, etc. Our two star student contests are also open to all students looking for internships. More details at http://www.nuresume.com/contests
Nice writing…Personal branding is very important and especially for jobs.
@RJ – excellent comments. Substance is crucial or branding is hollow. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
Lindsey
Excellent post and very thought provoking…undoubtedly personal branding has its place and Dan’s expertise and experience points to how mastering its methods can reap reward. However, the most revealing aspect to the post was Dan’s previous record, “eight internships, seven leadership positions and straight A’s”. This is the type of substance upon which a personal brand is dependent for success. For those without such a track record, a personal brand will fool nobody. Form cannot conquer substance over the length of a career (or even a job search) and Dan’s success is I’m sure, as much about his productivity and high levels of previous achievement as it is about his branding. My recommendation to anybody about to invest time in branding themselves is to ensure that they’re not putting the cart before the horse. Concentrating on real world experience and productive delivery is the foundation necessary for success. Get that before you brand and in the words of the post, “before everyone else does!” For without it, regardless of your personal branding efforts, you’ll be going nowhere.
[...] View original here: Personal Branding and&… [...]
@Carla – great points. I agree that personal branding is now more important than ever. Thanks for the comment.
Lindsey
@Jun – thanks for sharing the video. Will check it out!
Lindsey
I don’t think people realize how much they need to brand themselves – now more than ever. On-line, if you have a professional image, it will be noticed. If you have an unprofessional image, that, too, will be noticed.
Employers are savvy enough to do Google searches, too, right?
Carla
Lindsay, I’ve been sharing the video interview I did with Dan around the Twitter sphere, and I want to make sure you and your readers get to see it. You can check out the video here.
Hope you and your readers benefit a lot from it!
- Jun Loayza
[...] Original post: Personal Branding and Your Job Search: An Interview with Dan … [...]
[...] here: Personal Branding and Your Job Search: An Interview with Dan … Share and [...]
[...] Read the original post: Personal Branding and Your J… [...]
Great Post!
[...] Personal Branding and Your Job Search: An Interview with Dan … [...]
[...] Original post by Lindsey Pollak Blog [...]
[...] Original post by Lindsey Pollak Blog [...]