6 Steps To Creative Personal Branding

We are always thinking about our next professional step. Personal and professional growth is a basic human need - it makes life so exciting. But few of us have a clear method to do so. Most of us use the trial and error version. Not knowing where you end up can be very exciting, but it's not always fulﬁlling. It can leave us with a feeling of unused potential, and without a link between our strategy and our personality. Related: There’s No ‘I’ In Personal Brand We all know at least one teacher who shouldn't be a teacher because he doesn't have patience; one doctor without empathy, one sales person without communication skills, and one HR person without people skills. After having worked with more than 1,800 participants from more than 60 countries in my workshops, I have learned that most professionals are not taking enough time to position themselves and underestimate Aristotle's thinking in boxes. We tend to turn our back on our own big ideas that spring out of our personality, but those are vital. An unbiased picture of our faults and virtues is the key to clearly deﬁne how we add value, socially and economically. This picture is the link between strategy and personality. Here is a framework for an effective change process for your professional positioning strategy:

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Step-By-Step Guide For Building Your Personal Brand

The personal brand is an underestimated necessity for every professional. It helps you bring in great opportunities and reach your goals. While most people think about business branding, we should be smart and work on our own personal brand a much as we can. Related: How To Create A Personal Brand Without Being A Jerk Since you are reading this article, there is a pretty good chance that you already started building your personal brand. Although all brand aspects are important, make sure you understand the strategy tips that we mention below before you start thinking about everything. Although the big moves are those that will count the most, you do need to take care of the small things, too (i.e.Facebook photos). Here's a step-by-step guide for building your personal brand:

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Creating Your Personal Brand Statement For An IT Resume

Information technology is a unique field that has the privilege of being both highly-specialized and broad in its scope as new technologies develop and evolve. As a member of this field who is also seeking employment, you are likely to face candidates who bring a lot of expertise to the table. So, how can you ensure you stand out from other candidates?

Creating Your Personal Brand Statement...

A great way is to develop your brand, then write a resume incorporating a quality personal branding statement that solidly defines your role as an expert IT professional.

What's A Personal Brand?

A personal brand is not unlike a brand used by a company to associate a product with a business. For instance, in order help customers remember the McDonald’s company name, owners developed Ronald McDonald, who represented a fun way for people to identify the company, its name, and its food. Many professionals have searched for similar ways to make their names synonymous with a specific field or job position, which they’ve been able to accomplish by creating a personal brand. As an IT professional, a personal brand can ensure that others quickly associate your name with your specific role in the world of information technology—so when a person says, “I’m looking for a quality programmer, developer, and so on,” someone can immediately say, “I know the perfect person: [insert your name here]!”

Branding Yourself In Your IT Resume

There are a number of ways to brand yourself as a specialized IT professional. One of the easiest is by using the Internet. By setting up professional profiles that incorporate your title and resume/bio via sites such as LinkedIn and Google Plus you can effectively associate your name with your field. But if you’re actively applying for jobs, another way to brand yourself is by creating a branding statement. This statement is used to define a product similarly to a company’s use of branding to define its products. The only difference is that the product is you. Here are a couple of great examples of branding statements you might use as an IT professional:

APPLICATIONS DEVELOPER with 10 years of success developing, testing, implementing, and enhancing numerous applications to meet and exceed diverse business objectives.
NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR with eight years of experience managing hardware and software, providing expert troubleshooting and problem resolution, and utilizing a diverse technical skill set to successfully manage shifting business priorities.

Branding statements are almost always listed at the top of your resume beneath your name and contact information. In other words, you want this statement to impressively summarize who you are and what you can contribute to a company in an amazing first impression. There isn’t a specific formula you need to use when creating your personal brand statement. So, take time to think about your role as an IT professional and what contributions you want to make to the field, then creatively define how you will make a difference for any company that hires you.