Bringing Personality to Your Personal Brand

Standing out from the crowd can be difficult in this digital world. Everyone has their own personal brand and trying to sell yourself can be challenging. If you’re just starting out or your current branding isn’t cutting through the crowd. Consider rethinking if your brand is truly yourself. Understanding yourself can make a world of difference in trying to speak to your audience. 

WHY YOUR PERSONAL BRAND IS IMPORTANT

Kevin Lee defines personal branding be “the process of managing and optimizing the way you are presented to others”. In today’s digital world, developing a personal brand is viewed as being essential in career progression. Creating an effective and accurate persona online across all channels will provide credibility. Whilst further showcasing the value you can offer to an employer.

Recruiters and potential clients are going beyond just the Seek and LinkedIn professional profiles. They are conducting extensive searches online to formulate an accurate candidate profile. To see who you really are. It is essential to be personable, but just not too personal.  A 2018 survey conducted by CareerBuilder indicated:

• 70% of employers said they use social media to screen potential candidates throughout the hiring process
• 48% of employers continue to look into their current employees

Resulting in a further 34% being reprimanded or terminated by an employee based on the content found

You might be thinking that is understandable but why are am I focusing on  personality? According to Freberg (2018), personality is one of the three main components of personal branding. The others being expertise in your field and contribution to the community. To understand and showcase your traits can help positively attract attention and generate interest.

DISCOVERING YOUR PERSONALITY

Coming to the end of my university studies this year. I found myself in a position where I had to start thinking of how to brand myself for my career. At first, I found this thought to be super daunting and also overwhelming. Considering things like “how do I make myself who they are looking for?” or “will I have to change who I am to get this position?”. With further research and reflecting on what my lecturers had consistently told me over the past three years. One phrase kept repeating itself. BE AUTHENTIC. A confronting and slightly challenging thought. Since I had changed so much over the past three years. 

So I decided to find out my personality type and attributes. I spent the best part of an afternoon, quizzing myself and understanding my personality a lot more through Crystal Knows.  Crystal Knows categorises your personality by analysing personal quiz responses in combination with online profile screening. The amount of information the software complies about you feels like you’re apart of Netflix futurist series Black Mirror. Journalist Selena Larson described Crystal Knows as “it walks the line between innovative and super creepy, but it’s hard to deny it actually works”. 

Sources:

Stand Out from the Crowd: 5 Workplace Tips for Light .... https://www.tntpersonnel.com/2020/05/15/stand-out-from-the-crowd-5-workplace-tips-for-light-industrial-workers/