What’s Your Brand?

What do Prince, Cher, Sting and Beyoncé have in common?

Music icons in their own right, each masterfully cultivated a professional brand so unique that they’re recognizable by a single name: I bet you can name a color associated with Prince in less than two seconds. And Beyoncé’s impact has extended far beyond her musical talent, acknowledging her as an industry game changer, brand queen and expert marketer.

What’s your professional brand — your unique gift that differentiates you from others and provides value in your industry?  

What Is a Professional Brand? 

Simply put, your professional brand is how you want others to see you. It involves practical, tangible details as well as bigger-picture qualities and characteristics that describe what you offer and why it matters.

Your professional brand is your superpower. It’s what makes you stand out whether you’re up against several (or hundreds of) other candidates applying for the same job, establishing thought leadership in your industry, running for public office, or attending networking events.

As the saying goes, you only have one chance to make a first impression. Everything that comes across about you influences that impression. From your online presence to your physical appearance and even the questions you ask, the way you show up in the world becomes “data” that shapes how others perceive you. In person, this takes about seven seconds.

Your professional brand ensures that your second, third and fourth impression are aligned with the first. When you’ve intentionally cultivated your professional brand, this seems effortless. You don’t need to “act” because you’ve authentically represented yourself at your best.

And Why Should You Care?

Because recruitment and hiring practices are now dominated by online tools, it’s more important than ever to have a strategically developed professional brand that sets you apart from the competition. Even if one of your contacts refers you for a position, the first place anyone will likely look to learn more about you is either LinkedIn or Google.

To learn how to make your LinkedIn profile work hard for you, read our three-part guide to using LinkedIn, starting with LinkedIn: Just Use It!

Maintaining your professional brand makes the recruiter’s/hiring manager’s job easier because you save them from having to sift through online rubble to find you. They don’t have to (and won’t be willing to) spend a long time putting 2+2 together to figure out why you’re a strong candidate for the position. Already, they’re grateful to you — before your first meeting!

Your professional and personal brands may be strikingly similar — or not. But they will overlap.

With that in mind, it behooves you to be very intentional about what you post on any social media site. Your strong political leanings and language or provocative photos might be a deal breaker for a potential employer — even if you’re an otherwise perfect match for the position.

We’re not suggesting that you scrub your social media pages; you certainly don’t want to hide any affiliations that are central to who you are as a person. However, be aware that anything

online is available for scrutiny. Proceed accordingly and responsibly.

Cultivating Your Professional Brand

Your professional brand is an opportunity for you to strategically represent yourself in a consistent and appealing way — equal emphasis on “consistent” and “appealing.”

Consistency begins with something as simple as your name, which should be uniform throughout your LinkedIn profile, resume, cover letter, business cards, personal or professional website, corporate or volunteer board bio and any professional directory listings. If you’re “Jonathan Q. Public” on LinkedIn, use your full name (not John or Johnny) and middle initial across the board. Remember, the goal is to make it easier for someone to know which Jonathan Public is you.

Your name, of course, is just the beginning. What about your professional photo? The style of your resume and cover letter? The way you communicate — both verbally and nonverbally? Your overall vibe? In the context of a job search, your professional brand extends all the way from your resume and cover letter through the interview and offer process.

Creating an appealing professional brand requires an awareness of your audience. That might seem counterintuitive. Isn’t your professional brand about you?! Of course it is.

And how can you sell yourself if you don’t know what your audience wants to buy? Whenever you’re communicating with an audience of one or 1,000, it’s helpful to know how to impart your message in a way that’s received positively — because it matters to them.

If you’re going to have an interview with a company you’d really like to join, learn as much about it as possible. What’s their culture like? What’s their mission? What are their goals? What’s important to them? What challenges are they facing?

This information helps tie your unique value proposition into the contributions you’ll provide when you join their team. If you’re not sure how to articulate your unique value proposition, try this exercise:

• Reach out to a handful of people who know you professionally, including former colleagues or bosses.

• Ask them to describe you, what it’s like to work with (or for) you and why a company should be interested in adding you to their team.

• See what common words or themes emerge. What’s the promise that you deliver? This is your unique value proposition.

Last Impressions Count, Too

It’s never over — unless you want it to be. If you don’t get a job, promotion or board position you want, how you respond can be as powerful and positive as a first impression, if you do it graciously. Use what may appear to be a rejection as an opportunity to respectfully sell yourself again. Try thinking of it as a “no for now” instead of a “permanent no.”

How can you do this? Write to the employer, thank them for letting you know they’ve made a decision (hopefully they’ve notified you), and wish them the best of luck with their new employee. Then remind them you’re still very interested in joining their team because of x/y/z (be strategic, remembering what’s important to them), and you certainly hope when the next opportunity arises, you’ll be among the first people they think to contact.

This is a great practice, since sometimes the new hire doesn’t work out. You want to stay top of mind for them, so don’t hesitate to stay in touch going forward. 

While your intentionally cultivated professional brand relies on consistency, it’s also a continuous work in progress, one you’ll continue to tweak and refine as you grow in your career. If ever there were a project worth the investment, shouldn’t it be you?

A sound strategy is the foundation of a successful job search.

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