The students' guide to cultivating a personal brand
By Karen Lomas
The trick in job-hunting is to make sure your pitch to a recruiter (via your cover letter, resume, or digital resume (the Zygadoc), clearly communicates your personal brand.
What is a personal brand?
We can portray different personas depending on the context. We might be playful with our friends and more contained in our mode of conduct in a business meeting. On the other hand, a personal brand refers to the bigger picture – the overarching you. This becomes the way in which you are generally perceived to be by others.
A personal brand refers to:
- who you are
- how you interact
- what matters to you
- your individual unique identity.
Consider one of your role models and what it is about their identity that you appreciate. How you describe that person is their personal brand.
Social media and your personal brand
A prospective employer can access any public social media accounts –Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok – with relative ease. If people wish to portray themselves in a certain way but then have photos or videos published that contradict that image, it’s easy to spoil your personal brand. When job hunting, it’s a good idea to check all your social platforms so that how you present yourself is consistent and not confusing to others.
Realistically, you can’t ‘sell’ your personal brand in a certain way. You need to maintain your branded identity and demonstrate your style 24/7. For example, if you’re meeting someone while networking, you must be on-brand throughout. You can listen to an entire podcast on this topic.
Karen is a career coach specialising in early career exploration with school-aged students. This article is an edited excerpt, published with permission from the author. You can view the whole article and its accompanying podcast here.Read on:
