How to Manage and Own Your Personal Brand

By Kathleen Laney

Republished with permission from Laney Solutions blog.

To clearly differentiate the value you bring to an organization during the interview process, you need to do more than have a good reputation. You need to have a well crafted personal brand.

We often confuse our reputation with our personal brand – but these two are different things. Everyone has a reputation good or bad, and your reputation is largely based upon the opinions and beliefs people form about you as a result of your actions and behaviors. Your reputation is about your credibility within the industry. Your personal brand, on the other hand, is a much more intentional portrayal of your values to an interviewer. It is how you want people to see or perceive you.

Your personal brand is about visibility and the values that you outwardly represent. You have the power to define your brand by aligning your intentions with actions to influence how others see you and help them connect both emotionally and intellectually to the image you hope to portray.

If that image aligns with the opportunities you are pursuing, you are more likely to get the job.

Learn more by downloading our “Guide To Personal Branding” in our Career Center. This guide was designed to help you create, develop, manage and build your personal brand with a series of exercises, checklists and best practices for getting started.

Kathleen Laney is founder and search consultant with Laney Solutions.