Build Your Career through Personal Branding

You've heard of big brand names like Apple, Reebok, and Coca-Cola. But have you ever thought about your personal brand? That is, the impression that you're giving recruiters, coworkers, and other people that you interact with, both in personal and professional settings.

According to personal branding expert Dan Schawbel, "the goal... is to be recruited based on your brand, not applying for jobs."

Schawbel knows the power of personal branding first-hand. He began working in marketing at EMC Corporation in Hopkington, Mass. soon after graduating from Bentley College in 2006. While working full time, he launched a blog and created a magazine to share his personal branding knowledge. He also filmed a series of short videos on personal branding and posted them to YouTube and his own website. Pretty soon, major media outlets like Fast Company began to take notice.

When Schawbel's company decided to hire their first Social Media Specialist, he became the obvious choice thanks to his skill at leveraging social media tools like blogs, video, and Facebook. Schwabel says the head of PR at EMC was "already sold before I walked in there." The job was his.

"Visibility creates opportunity," he explains. "You [could be] the smartest person in your field [but] no one knows about you."

Landing a promotion he hadn't applied for based on his reputation also inspired him to write a non-fiction book called Click_Connect_Conquer: Command Your Career By Building a Powerful eBrand, which is scheduled for release in April of 2009. "Our generation has so much to offer," Schawbel explains, "but a lot of people don't realize what they excel in. This book is very empowering. It gives you the confidence you need in order to make a difference."

Schawbel credits much of his success to his willingness to help others. He swears by the mantra that "the most successful networkers give value before receiving it."

Back in college, many of his fellow students asked for his advice on landing internships or jobs.

Now he makes it a point to answer every single email he gets and recognizes other pioneers in personal branding on his blog and in his magazine. He's interviewed the founders of LifeHacker.com, WordPress, and CareerBuilder, among others. He also created the Personal Branding Awards to recognize outstanding personal branding.

"I want to help people get blogs," Schawbel says. "I want to be the bridge that connects qualified candidates with the job that are theirs. I'm very transparent about everything. People love it."

Schawbel often gets emails from blog readers who followed his advice and successfully applied it to their own job hunts and careers.

So, how can personal branding help you land a job?

First, Schawbel recommends that you buy your domain name (www.YourName.com) before someone else does and start a blog. "A blog shows your e-brand to the world," he explains. "This is who I am, this is what I enjoy." He adds that he "came into the blogosphere as a no-name brand. [My blog] has gone from nothing to 700 and 1,000 visitors per day."

Choose something that you're passionate about and connect with others who share your passion. "Passion is key," he declares. "It's so important because if you're passionate about something you won't give up."

Schawbel built an audience for his blog by networking with other bloggers in his field and leaving comments on their blogs. "I believe that niches are really important," he says. "You must be the best at what you do for a specific audience."

He also advises college students (which are one of his favorite audiences for speaking engagements) to start early.

"Do not wait until senior year to start networking," he cautions. "If you wait until senior year, it's more of a forced effort rather than giving before receiving. If you have a genuine interest [in something] freshman year, you're setting yourself up for success later. In order to build your profile, you gotta start early."

Schawbel himself had eight internships during college, including stints at Reebok and 1-800-BAKERY.COM. He knew people who got offered jobs straight out of college based on referrals from their parents of family friends, but he went on what want he estimates to be about forty job interviews. As he puts it, "they missed a chance to learn how to market themselves. I learned the hard way."

He says that since many students don't learn how to market themselves in college courses, "there is an apparent void in our education system."

Although he had straight A's at Bentley, Schawbel stresses that "people need to concentrate more on work experience than getting straight A's. You can take what you're doing in school and bring it to work. When you graduate, people care about experience over anything else."

© 2008, Young Money Media, LLC

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