Gone are the days where polishing a single Word document was enough to achieve your career aims. Now, you have to worry about your personal brand online.
The modern workplace is bringing with it many welcome trends that prioritise employee welfare, such as flexitime and remote working.
Yet in many ways, the working world has also gotten a lot more complicated to navigate as time has progressed. Applying for a job was once a simple matter of submitting a hard copy CV and updating it every so often to reflect changes in your experience. With the advent of the internet, there’s much more to consider.
While job applications will often still call for a résumé, jobseekers now have to contend with ensuring that their digital footprint doesn’t reflect badly on them and potentially sour the interest of an employer. LinkedIn profiles, which have now become a vital tool for recruiters to sift through applicants, require constant maintenance; you won’t just be judged on the experience, but also the tone, frequency and quality of the regular posts you’ll be expected to make.
Professional value can no longer be contained within a few pages of a Word document. Now, you have to take it a step further and essentially run your own personal PR campaign. So it might be a good idea to set aside some time to work on your ‘personal brand’ online.
The first step in doing this is to do a self-inventory of the kind of values that most define you. Your brand is really of no use in helping to land your dream role if it doesn’t accurately reflect who you are as a person. Try to shortlist three to five values that most encapsulate who you are and try to be cognisant of them every time you post online.
It’s also a good idea to try and find your ‘niche’. The perfect niche is one that you have a huge interest in but not a lot of people specialise in. If you take the time to develop an expertise in this topic, you’ll distinguish yourself from your peers as a valuable and rare authority on a particular subject.
For more advice on building your personal brand online, check out this infographic from Headway Capital.
Image: Headway Capital
