Why Personalised Career Branding is Essential for All Professionals
- Brainz Magazine
- 19 hours ago
- 7 min read
Written by Jeanette Walton, Career Brand Consultant
Jeanette is spreading the word about the essentiality of career branding for all professionals. As a Career Brand Consultant, she has pioneered a career branding framework, amongst other educational resources, to amplify the use of career branding to cut through and stand out.
Unless you’re hiding under a large boulder of blissful ignorance, or you’ve consciously taken a ‘no thanks’ stand against modern society. Just like the rest of us, you’re navigating highly digitised, information-overloaded landscapes. It’s been cited that on average, we are exposed up to anywhere between 4,000 and 10,000 online ads per day. And that’s not factoring in the daily bombardment of other digital forms of communication, such as emails and text messages.
So if, as a professional, you apply a target audience lens, e.g., recruiter, consumer, or commercial partner, you’ll quickly ascertain how essential an individual career brand is to attract, engage, and encourage interest. Whether you’re a jobseeker, a business owner or a thought leader, if you’re not thinking strategically and methodically about how you can stand out online, there is a very real chance you won’t be seen, you won’t be heard, and/or you won’t be taken seriously.
“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” (Herbert Simon, Computer Science Researcher)
Examples of the professional benefits of career branding
The jobseeker
A former colleague and friend of mine recently had to filter through 280+ job applications to recruit a new team member. No doubt, a time-consuming task and further validation that you generally have around 5-7 seconds to convince recruiters and other key audiences to read on. Despite the scan reading approach, she identified a significant amount of AI-generated resumes because they “all read the same” and didn’t highlight how the candidate stood out from the rest. She was also surprised at how many resumes weren’t tailored for the relevant role. This is where a strong, foundational career brand aligned with your professional objectives will be beneficial. It will not only ensure that you get picked up by recruiters and other audiences, but it will also inform and influence your future career advancement steps. That is, you’re less likely to apply for positions that aren’t that relevant. And just imagine if your digital assets, such as a LinkedIn profile, complement your resume and other career documentation. They will not only further substantiate your brand, keeping in mind that many recruiters will next check you out online, but could also escalate your career opportunities.
The business owner
One of my favourite well-trodden statistics is that at least 80% of consumers want to feel trust in a brand or business before making any type of investment. Unless you’re physically interacting in your local market or community, particularly with your target audiences, the digital landscape is where you’re going to build that trust and credibility. While I’m dispersing statistics, Forbes has recently reported that businesses that use brand stories to truly connect and resonate with customers are 20% more likely to outperform their competitors. If we also factor in that just about any consumer now uses digital portals to investigate and evaluate whom to invest in, you’re going to miss out on a large chunk of the online viewership if you’re not promoting and interacting online. And that’s where a strong, foundational career brand is advantageous. It will inform and inspire you to take the time to cultivate credibility and relatability. In my own business, I am continuing to extend my digital reach and reputation. It’s getting quicker and easier to come up with new content based on my clear, consistent and constant career branding. I know who I am, what I’m advocating, and who and how I can help. And I now actually enjoy the process of creating posts, promotions and other collateral inspired by my foundational career brand.
The industry thought leader
Whether you’re a researcher, an entrepreneur or a public speaker, you should be using digital technology to ‘spread the word’ and establish a community of supporters. Even if you already have a decent industry network, you’re really limiting yourself professionally and doing a disservice to potential ‘groupies’ if you’re not using digital assets like LinkedIn to grow awareness. I’ve recently had a couple of business owner clients who are well established in their field, who didn’t really need to use career branding to pursue paid work opportunities. It was their wealth of knowledge and experience that was worth sharing with others, whether that was consumers wanting to deploy them, industry counterparts wanting to learn from them, or commercial partners wanting to distil and distribute their intelligence (e.g., media and conferences). A strong, foundational career brand was used to communicate their impressive accomplishments and accolades, to assert them as industry thought leaders, and to define them as unique and of value.
Consumers and others want authenticity, relatability and credibility
Most consumers and other target audiences want to feel a sense of resonance and reassurance from the brands and businesses they investigate and engage with. This includes ‘golden marketing child’ Gen Z consumers, who dominate brand influence, spending power, and digital prowess. They are the generation most likely (79%) to advocate the importance of brand trust.
Defining strong, foundational career branding enables us to connect with our audiences in an authentic manner. Our individualised stories and anecdotes, underpinned by core brand values, influencers and differentiators, will help us to convey reassurance and understanding.
The personal benefits of establishing a strong, foundational career brand
Some of the core personal benefits of identifying and activating your own specific career brand are:
Self-assuredness of future plans and goals
You’ll have a clearer sense of direction in terms of your future professional pathway, if you have a career brand profile that highlights your core strengths, experiences, and offerings, whether you’re putting the feelers out to determine if it’s the right time to make a job move. Whether you’re keen to integrate your skills and knowledge into another market or industry. Or whether you’re wanting to start building networks and connections in a new profession, to better understand how you can start transitioning. A strong, foundational career brand will fuel your commitment to progressing any future career goals and ambitions.
You may have more relevant professional experiences and capabilities than you realise. When producing career branding strategy and collateral, I find clients are often pleasantly surprised by the additional career information we draw out and showcase to enable an advantageous career move.
“Career planning is the ongoing process of thinking about and managing important decisions about your work and life. It helps you identify your interests, preferences, and strengths. It gives you the tools you need to consider priorities and evaluate options.” (alis, Government of Alberta, Canada)
Energised approach towards promotions
It’ll energise and inspire your career brand promotions across diverse communication channels. With a deeper appreciation of your specific values, influencers and differentiators, your strong, foundational career brand will cultivate and feed into the content and collateral you use to advocate yourself professionally. For example, if you’re in a highly competitive field such as IT or marketing, you’ll have the brand intel to be able to ensure that you stand out. And this will be underpinned by an inner confidence of who you are and what you can do professionally.
As a career brand consultant, I’ve had career branding strategy clients verify that the process has been personally beneficial in terms of them feeling better informed and inspired about their future career opportunities. They vibrate energy and enthusiasm now that they have their own unique brand that they can use to promote and interact across various professional contexts.
“You have captured the key concepts we discussed precisely and eloquently, reading this piece [career branding brief] has emboldened me to ‘own my brand’ in a confident and authentic way.” (Debra Cook, HSEQ & ESG Leader & Former Client, Australia)
Proactive and informative engagement
It’ll help you to effectively engage in a positive and captivating way. Have you ever felt a bit apprehensive or underwhelmed about what you’re saying in a professional forum? Whether that’s a job interview, a business promotion or a prospective customer discussion? I know I have. The more you speak and exemplify your strong, foundational career brand, the more you’ll be convinced and convincing that you’re a professional that can and will put into practice what you have promised. Keep in mind that there’s also a human-to-human energy we pick up on when engaging with one another. And confidence and self-assuredness are far more likely to win the ‘yes’ vote than hesitation and self-doubt.
You’ll also continue to expand your existing knowledge and intelligence in line with your career brand focus and objectives. For example, in my business, I’ve continued to accumulate research-based statistics that further enhance and substantiate my argument that career branding is now essential for all professionals and professional contexts.
“If you don’t give the market the story to talk about, they’ll define your brand’s story for you.” (David Brier, Global Branding Expert)
Other personal benefits that you will attain from defining a strong, foundational career brand include:
Motivation to grow and evolve: Motivation to evolve and expand yourself professionally.
Inner knowing of skills and capabilities: Assurance of what you have on offer professionally.
Alignment with values and drivers: A better appreciation of what really matters to you.
Ability to relate to target audiences: How to effectively communicate with target audiences.
Confident that you stand out: Understanding of how you differ from others in your field.
There’s also a higher chance of you continuing to compete against AI, such as in online searches, if you have applied a strong, foundational career brand that conveys uniqueness, authenticity and credibility.
“When you realise that your personality is your superpower, your personal brand can become a superpower, too. No robot, ChatGPT or any other AI application will ever replace my personality or network of connections, based on authentic relationships.” (Forbes, USA)
In summary, it's worth putting in the effort to pinpoint your core career brand elements and to showcase these across your digital profile and other brand collateral. A clear, consistent and constant career brand will ensure that you continue to be found and engaged with among target audiences. It will pave the way for you to deliver on your professional goals and aspirations. It will keep audiences interested, including via the slow-burn marketing approach. And it will inspire you to step out and speak up as a professional with insights and anecdotes to share.
Read more from Jeanette Walton
Jeanette Walton, Career Brand Consultant
Jeanette is a Career Brand Consultant who helps professionals worldwide to enhance their career prospects. To address a gap in the market, she designed a career branding framework that helps professionals design and apply their own unique career brand. She also avidly writes articles, newsletters and eBooks, features on podcasts, partners with industry alliances, and delivers educational presentations on the benefits of career branding. In her spare time, Jeanette fosters dogs, visits an aged care resident, and co-facilitates a LinkedIn Local networking group.
