Now more than ever it is
imperative that any professional has a personal career brand. It is no longer,
just do your job and update your resume. The average person will have in
between 7-10 jobs in his lifetime. You must actively manage your career to find
the next job; hence, the importance of creating and maintaining a stellar
personal career brand. The three Cs necessary towards creating your best
personal brand are clarity, consistency, and constancy. The combination of
these three guarantees that you’ll attract the people and employers in your
target market.
Dictionary.com
defines clarity as ‘clearness or lucidity as to perception or understanding;
freedom from indistinctness or ambiguity.’ It is essential that you get clear
about who you are, but, more importantly, who you ARE NOT. Clarity provides
you with an opportunity to thrive as a specialist rather than merely survive as
a generalist. It is better to know what you are not because you create clear boundaries.
You don’t want to transmit mixed messages, thereby, diluting your brand.
Clarity communicates a clear message of what you do. For example, if you are in
HR, you don’t want people coming to you about sales & marketing. The next
step is to identify your competitors.
Scanning the
professional landscape to see what your competitors are doing, and more
importantly, are not doing is critical towards how you’ll position yourself to
stand out. Learn from your competitors’ mistakes and capitalize upon the areas
that they aren’t already in. Being the first mover in an unsaturated area, lets
you become an expert. For instance, if you’re in HR but there aren’t as many
people working with newly returned war veterans, then this is a niche where you
can employ your transferable skills and become an expert. Once you’ve used
clarity to identify your competitors, you can then you can focus on marketing
your competitive advantage to the world.
Your
competitive advantage is the one thing that you do better than anyone else. Having
a clear definition of this advantage will attract more people and
opportunities. In HR, you do compile benefits packages in a way that new
employee understand? Your ability to translate industry-specific jargon into
layman’s terms without diluting its content is your competitive advantage. You
can convert this into a special niche being seen as an expert. Once you’re seen
as an expert, more people will come to you. The next C is consistency.
The word consistency
is defined as ‘steadfast adherence to the same principles, course, form, etc.’ In
order to keep current in this increasingly global and competitive landscape,
you must be consistent. This means consistently communicating the same message
offline and online. Take some time to review how your professional brand comes
across these two sectors because it’s imperative that you are consistent in
both areas.
Make sure that
your resume and LinkedIn profile are the same. If you’ve attained a new certification
or a promotion, list them on both your resume and LinkedIn. An outdated
LinkedIn profile creates inconsistent messaging. If you’ve been promoted from
HR Specialist to Senior HR Specialist, you must list this change on both
documents. Recruiters who might be interested in you for one job, may not know
that you have a new job or certification. It would be bad for your professional
reputation if a recruiter contacts you about a specific position but learns
that you’re in another position. Recruiters talk with other recruiters who work
at the company that interests you. You don’t want this kind of mistake to
precede you before applying for a job. Putting the most recent information on
your LinkedIn page guarantees that recruiters can see if you are the best fit
for a potential job. The next C is constancy.
Finally, constancy is defined as ‘uniformity
or regularity, as in qualities or conditions; invariableness.’ Being highly
visible online & offline to your target market is indispensable in today’s
marketplace. There are many ways to increase your visibility to ensure that the
right people see your talents. Offline opportunities include joining meetups,
alumni chapters, and professional organizations. In addition, you can be
visible through business cards and stationery. Handing out your personal
business cards is an effective marketing tool generating high visibility.
Furthermore, you can send thank you letters using your own stationery.
Regarding online visibility opportunities, you can register for LinkedIn
professional groups, follow people on Twitter or like Facebook pages of
companies of which you want to work. Moreover, you can also start a blog. For
HR, you can write about interviewing new applicants, dispensing benefits
information, handling attrition and completing retirement packages. A great way
to merge the offline and online visibility tools to achieve constancy is by
creating a communications plan.
Implement a
communications plan where you consistently brand your message. Your plan
manages how, what, why, when, and where to deploy your offline and online
strategies. For instance, you decide to post one HR-related article in your
LinkedIn feed. This daily task keeps your profile active attracting employers
and recruiters. The important thing here
is to stay consistent. Your communications plan ensures that you regularly do
something constructive towards promoting your personal career brand. Incorporating
three Cs of clarity, consistency and constancy guarantee increased demand for
your personal career brand.
