The Importance of Your Personal Brand and How to Improve It

CEO and Career Coach Kate O. discusses the importance of understanding and expanding upon your personal brand.

You’ve probably heard the buzzword “personal brand.” You might have even rolled your eyes when you heard someone say it. I know that it’s easy to dismiss words that get thrown around a lot, especially when you’re dealing with the hard work of a career transition. The reality is, however, that whether you’re transitioning internally or looking for a new role externally, your brand is one of your most powerful tools to help you land the role you want.

What do I mean by personal brand? The simplest definition is that your personal brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.

Let’s take the internal candidate example first. I recently had a client who was up for a big promotion to partner at her consulting firm. He was passed over for a promotion on the first round of consideration, even though his reviews and project had all gone very well. The feedback he ultimately got out of his manager was that “the partners weren’t sure he was ready based on some things they’d heard.” What a maddeningly vague piece of feedback! This is a great example of personal brand, however. When my client asked around some more, he learned that certain partners had an impression of him as being a micromanager and not focused enough on building client relationships. He didn’t think this assessment was accurate, but it doesn’t really matter what he thinks if that’s the view the decision-makers have. Armed with this knowledge, he could take concrete steps to show the partners his focus on clients and change their view of him. He was able to do this over the next 6 months and secured his promotion.

A similar situation happens when people are searching for a new role externally. Especially if you’re looking to pivot to a new role or industry, understanding your brand and how you may need to proactively shift it is vital. Shifting your brand in this instance can be as simple as removing old content from your resume and focusing on more recent projects and accomplishments. Or you may need to explicitly tell some stories in your resume and your interviews to explain how your skills transfer to the new role. This is all branding, and it will make all the difference in how people see you and whether they think you’re qualified for new opportunities.

In both cases, the person needs to identify what their target role is, and what desirable attributes are for that role. This will tell you what some elements are of your desired brand. You layer that in with the strengths and interests that make you tick.

The second step is to assess the current state of your brand. What would your managers say about you if they were to review you for a promotion right now? What does the hiring manager say about you after an interview? That’s your current state.

Lastly, think about how you can strategically evolve your brand to suit your goals. It might take some time, and it definitely takes some thoughtful planning, but you can absolutely shift your reputation and the impression you make on people.

In summary, if you know what your brand is, you can make the adjustments necessary to shift and improve it. Take the time to learn what people think of your job performance and take proactive steps to manage it in order to set yourself up for success when the time comes to move up or move on.

#career #personalbrand #promotion

How to Conquer the 6 Second Resume Screen

CEO / Career Coach Kate O. discusses tips from her time as a resume reviewer that can drastically affect your resume’s chances at being completely reviewed.

Introduction: Did you know that most hiring managers only spend 6 seconds reviewing a resume before they decide whether to keep reading or toss it into the reject pile? That might sound harsh, but as someone who used to review up to 100 resumes a day, I can tell you that it’s a matter of necessity. So, if you’re applying for a job and you know you’re qualified, your challenge is: how do you get past the 6-second screen and get to the interview stage? Here are my top tips for how to make your resume stand out:

1) Before you start writing your resume or hit send on an application, make sure that you’re sending the version of your resume that best positions you for the role you’re applying to. This concept of positioning is crucial. The idea is to think of yourself as a product and the hiring manager as your target audience, then follow the basic rules of advertising. What does my target market care about the most? How can I make it very clear to them that I provide exactly that value? This might require taking off some experience and expanding on others or rebranding your key skills to match what’s in the job description. A little bit of effort towards positioning yourself correctly can make all the difference.

2) Include an Executive Summary section at the top and avoid the Objective section at all costs. An executive summary is key – it may be where your reader spends all or most of the 6 seconds. You can use the summary to include key pieces of information like your top skills, years of experience, and an overview of your career trajectory. I don’t recommend an objective because if you’ve submitted your resume, your objective is already clear: you want to get a job. You don’t want to use limited space to say something that your interviewer already knows. You DO want to use your space to summarize your experience and present a clear personal brand.

3) Vary your format but be sure to keep it focused on Accomplishments vs. Tasks. The biggest mistake I see people making on resumes is they want to convey everything they did and were responsible for on their resume, and the result is that it ends up reading like a long list of tasks. This doesn’t do anything to set you apart from other applicants who have held the same role. In other words, it doesn’t give a clear sense of the unique value you will add to a company. Instead, consider using multiple formats or frameworks, and always be sure to quantify the scope and impact of your work whenever possible.

3 Surefire Ways to Maintain Balance While Working From Home

Work-Life Balance | Habit-Building | Personal Development | P.S. Your Career

Working from home (WFH) is the new normal whether we like it or not. Due to the pandemic and the resulting stay-at-home orders, millions of Americans are spending the entire day inside. For some, this has resulted in a less productive workday as the distractions range from family / roommates engaging with them to easily appeased hunger pangs. For others, it has exploded their work into a full-day event with only a few small breaks. For most of us, an adjustment needs to be made to ensure the work-life scale remains balanced for the long haul. Here are 3 sure-fire ways to improve your work-life balance.

Build a balanced schedule and social routine

It is important to ensure you make time for the pieces of the day that don’t contribute to work stress. Though seemingly unimportant components of the day, showering, eating and enjoying a home-cooked breakfast, and enjoying your coffee as you digest the news are examples of ways to improve your work-life balance and are often the first to get nixed when stress gets turned up. A way to improve this situation is to plan these rituals into your day. Block them out in your schedule, prioritize them, and resist the urge to jump straight into your email when you wake up. This way, when work begins to challenge you, you aren’t starting from a place of stress.

Another component of a day to enforce in your schedule is in social interactions. In this time of video conferencing for work and alone time at home otherwise, it is even more important to take deliberate steps toward calling a friend or family member to socialize with them. The more regular, the better, as it will play a key role long term in improving the overall balance between work and life. Humans crave social interactions and support, especially in challenging times such as the one we are all navigating right now. For the P.S. Your Career team, that means a weekly happy hour where we talk about anything other than work. For you it may mean a regular time to connect with family and friends.

Maintain a consistent health regimen

The importance of a good health regimen – regular exercise, a healthy diet, and a regular sleep schedule – should never be overlooked! Simply stated, you feel better when you do these things. Physiologically, your body undergoes a slew of hormonal changes before, during, and after exercise that increase your mood -- making you feel more hopeful, euphoric, and relaxed -- while repairing damage from and building immunity to high levels of stress. Along those lines, a regular sleep schedule can contribute to all of these by supplementing the recovery, from both the exercise and a stressful day, and ensuring you feel well-rested for the next one.

Enforce regular hobby / personal development time

Make the time to do the things you want to do and enjoy doing as if your mental health levels depend on it. This could range from potting plants to photographing airplanes. While professional / career development could be included here, even better would be a completely non work-related hobby. One that allows you to completely disconnect from the workplace and any stress that comes with it.

As creatures of habit, humans need to understand that there are healthy and unhealthy habits. Though success at work can be a large contributor to overall happiness, it is important to realize that it can often come with continuously high stress levels when one fails to take steps to mitigate them. Implement healthy, balance-positive routines to promote a sustainable system for the long haul.