Knowing your 'professional brand' is the new buzz word in career development. But what is meant by 'professional branding' and how can it help you when making a career change? Well we asked Marianne Cantwell, a career coach specialising in helping people identify their own personal brand, to talk us through it and get you started on figuring out your own professional brand...
'Professional Branding: Why making like an ipod can get you a great job' by Marianne Cantwell
Imagine this: you're in a candy aisle of a supermarket, with 100 types of chocolate bars in front of you. You only have 20 seconds to choose one - and that one has to be the right one, one that you'll have with you for years.
Here's the catch: all the chocolates are unwrapped, with no signs or labels telling you which is which.
How do you choose? Well you have to either try as many as possible or make random decisions based on shape, colour, sheen etc. Either way, you're likely to feel either rushed and pressured, or sick from gorging on random chocolate bars.
However if, say, 10 of the 100 chocolates were packaged, in bright labels, with a clear identity, (think Milky Way, Green and Blacks, Twix), then you would know what they were about, pull those forward and choose from these... discarding the unbranded, unpackaged ones. It's just not feasible to differentiate between so many seemingly similar products so quickly without any help.
That's the same dilemma facing an employer seeking to fill a role in a crowded job market. You may be the best employee (or chocolate bar) for the job, but without a brand that speaks to the employer upfront, you may get passed over for someone who is not as good as you.
It is your responsibility to make yourself stand out. And having a ‘professional brand' is the way to do it.
What is a professional brand?
A professional brand is the core thing about you that you want people to remember. It can expand or contract depending on circumstances, but the core is always there. Examples of professional brands are:
"I have 15 years' experience turning around teams and driving change in media organisations".
"I am a small agency project manager with a solid track record of making projects happen on a restricted budget"
Interestingly, neither of the people who these brands represent thought of themselves as the above until we started the professional branding process. In fact, when I met these people, they insisted there was nothing special about them that could be relevant in the current climate - reading the above, would you agree? Both brands are strong, powerful, and convey more about each person than a 4 page CV ever could.
What's more, professional brands are perfect for career changers. Read example 2 above again. That person's aim was to change industry. So his brand and all the stories we developed around it are cross industry - and still powerful. Suddenly new realms of employment are available.
What difference do you think a good brand could make to you?
What makes a good professional brand?
There are three things that make a brand successful:
1. It delivers products that are clear and differentiated
Apple doesn't deliver copies of other products. It delivers products that are special and unique; you know what each one does in a nutshell.
You need to find the ‘key' that will help you stand out as different in this crowded marketplace - and convey this so clearly that even the ‘jaded consumer' that is an employer in 2009 will see it.
2. It delivers really, really good products that people want as soon as they see them.
Think of some of the rejected products on Dragons Den. Many of them are new and different, right? Yes - they're so different they have us falling off the couch laughing. What's missing? The quality and the appeal.
Ensure that your brand is right for the roles you are targeting. Ensure that what you are promising is not clichéd but useful and real. And if people snigger when they hear your brand, revise it, pronto.
3. It delivers on its brand promises
Apple doesn't waste time telling us it is new, innovative, outstanding. Instead Apple presents its products so you SEE all of that; it delivers products that actually work. Really, really well.
Your own brand needs to be real. This is not about nice words. This is about getting to the essence of what makes you different, valuable, and right for that environment - and having the evidence and stories at hand to prove it.
Making it happen
What is your professional brand? Does it fulfil all of the above? If you don't have one, start thinking now. Here are some approaches to get you started.
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Look through your CV - can you see any themes running through it? (eg: have your roles focussed on driving change, or delivering projects etc)
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Write down all your favourite work experiences - what themes can you identify?
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What do you do best? How does this fit with what people want and need right now in the roles you are targeting?
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Look at your strengths, get your personality profile professionally assessed.
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Or for a kick-start, get someone else to analyse you and your work history to pick out that glaringly obvious brand that you might just be too close to to see.
No matter how you go about finding it, your professional brand will make you more confident, focus your job hunt, and make you more employable. Just do it!
Marianne Cantwell helps professionals decide on, find and get great new jobs in the recession. She specialises in helping jobhunters create a unique and effective professional brand to help them get where they want to be!
Marianne offers readers of Career Shifters a free introductory telephone session. To arrange a call, email marianne@careerrevolution.co.uk . Marianne runs career move coaching organisation Career Revolution (http://www.careerrevolution.co.uk/) and writes popular career blog Free Range Humans (http://www.freerangehumans.blogspot.com/).
Are you ready to change career but don't know where to start?
Then the brand new Careershifters Guide is designed for you.It will take you step-by-step through the career change process with practical exercises and expert guidance on how to figure out the career that suits you best through to the practicalities of making the change happen (even when you have a mortgage to pay and family to feed!).
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