06 Feb The New Resume: Your Personal Brand (and Why It’s Time to Leverage It)

Why applications are changing and personal branding is stepping in

No, your actual resume won’t change. You’ll still have that document sitting on your desktop or some folder waiting to be edited and tailored to a new position.

What I mean is that there’s a new type of resume waiting to be leveraged.

It’s your online presence, a.k.a. your personal brand.

Don’t get me wrong, that 1-2 page word document summarizing your added value through education, job experience, and skills won’t be dead just yet. Keep it handy. Employers still need to scan, skim, and deem you worthy of an email or phone call.

I’ve personally sent hundreds of versions of my resume to the internet’s black hole of career sites, job boards, and staffing agencies. I hoped a potential employer would skim over my carefully selected action verbs, bullet points, and virtual sweat droplets and grant me a chance. I would meticulously tailor my resume to match what the job ad was looking for. I reflected the endless bucket list of criteria with synonyms and paraphrases to be the undeniable best candidate.

And that’s how it’s always been.

But things are changing. The rise of entrepreneurship and a majority millennial workforce which demands more purpose-driven work has given birth to a new era of hiring. Now, recruiters and managers look for glistening resumes and people who align with their organization’s values and are pleasant work with.

And how can they tell if they don’t know you personally? Well, online.

This is where your personal brand steps in to do the heavy lifting. Being present online, speaking up about your passion and networking with the right people will land you more opportunities than ever before.

Having a prominent personal brand allows you to stand out from the crowd, showcasing who you are, what you can do, and why you do it. You can align your personality, skill set, and knowledge to your career aspirations and target it to the right audience. You’ll build trust, authenticity, and influence.

Why and how to focus on your personal brand

They why of personal branding

• You’ll connect a human touch to your skill set. You’re not just a word doc anymore, you’re a dynamic source of information and opinions, with interests and desires to go with them.
• You’ll be able to communicate your added value while creating deeper connections and rapport with a potential employer or client.
• You’ll show that there’s a living and breathing person behind your profile picture, that way more people will relate and engage with you.

The how of personal branding

Genuine, consistent, and focused brands are those that leave a mark and a legacy. To develop and activate a successful brand, you first need to develop a story around it.

Take some time to think about a narrative that encompasses the facts and feelings around your brand, the aim is to spark an emotional reaction in your audience. It should involve why you started doing what you do and how you’re passionate about it, adding your authentic voice and values.

Never think that your story isn’t interesting or unique, all our narratives are one-of-a-kind, it’s up to you to bring it alive through strategic storytelling. The same way you make up a bedtime story for your kids or tell your friends about a night out. Put together a plot, a conflict or struggle to overcome, and a happy ending (where you are now!) for the main character, a.k.a. YOU.

Once you’ve come up with a cool story, activate your brand:

• Instead of just talking about your work and knowledge, share it. By participating in discussions, sharing tips and best practices, or helping someone connect with the right people, you’ll be remembered well beyond the single interaction.
• Tie all your content under your brand story and stay consistent. The best way to tell a story? Written content or video.
• Create and curate messaging under one vision to attract the right connections and opportunities. When disseminating your key message, make sure it connects back to your greater vision so that you attract the people you want to work with.

Convinced?

These are all great reasons to focus on your personal brand today and become your own living and breathing resume. People are drawn to authenticity over conventionality, actions over words, and dynamic content over static.

Wanna have a talk around personal branding and how you can develop and scale your own? Drop me a line in the comments.