I got a J O B and I wasn’t even looking. In fact, if all interviews I’d gone through during my time searching for work were this easy, my anxiety around job searches wouldn’t exist. So, If I wasn’t looking for work, how did I end up with a J O B?
Thanks to my personal brand.
I Was Offered a Job After a Podcast Interview
My guest got off the zoom call and told his VP of Operations, “I think I just hired the host.” Two days later we had a deal. A week later I started.
Before coming on my show, BrandAPeel, he’d Googled to see what I was about and since I dominate 5 pages, he found a lot about who I am and what I do.
At the time, he was looking for someone who could jump in, take on a project, and run with it without too much input from him. Which I’m really good at — Jumping in without looking and figuring things out.
I didn’t need to prove myself — My personal brand did that.
A personal brand helps you get noticed and when the right person sees you, they will reach out. It just won’t be on your timeline. Just like credit, you need to build it when you don’t need it so you can benefit from it when you do.
Personal Brands Get You Hired
I’m just one voice in a sea of voices about the benefits of personal branding. I wanted to know if others were able to benefit from having a personal brand in their careers.
What People who Hire Say about Personal Brands
Having a personal brand makes it easier for smaller businesses with better working conditions to find you. *
Every job-seeker looks at bigger brands with more visibility in hopes of employment. They are either lost in a sea of applications or if hired, in a sea of employees.
Smaller businesses and individual clients are often on the lookout for talent, and they are usually workplaces that have more to offer in terms of growth and flexibility. A personal brand increases your visibility, and puts you on the radar of these lucrative clients.
*I make a mental note when I see someone writing well on LinkedIn, knowing that that person will be a great addition when we expand. *
I’ve found a lot of writers this way. While not having a personal brand is not something that will be held against you, it certainly boosts the number of leads you will capture.
If you are a writer and love paddle boarding, make sure you follow Annesha on LinkedIn
I’ve spent hours on LinkedIn and have met lots of interesting people, like me, who are self employed and building a personal brand. It is the best place for you to build a professional personal brand and make connections.
I’ve talked to a few people on BrandAPeel about how they use LinkedIn to create real connections and not just collect a bunch of followers they’ve never talked to one-on-one. If you want to get noticed on Linked In — Engage with people by commenting on their posts. Commit to 5 a day for 100 days and see what happens.
Get Hired BEFORE Your Graduate with a Personal Brand
One of my first interviews was with a woman called Michelle Enjoli who got a job in Morning TV at stations in New York City before she graduated due to her personal brand and being in the right place at the right time.
Another University Student who is finding his way to a dream job due to putting in the extra effort to create a digital personal brand is Riley Blanton.
Riley Blanton Graduate Student and owner of PostpartumBrain.com which focuses on perinatal mental health and birth trauma.
I started my website two years ago and it has blossomed into a brand full of opportunity. As I mentioned, I am in a Master’s program for Marriage and Family Therapy. I do not graduate for another year and a half, but so far I have been offered 3 jobs for after graduation based on my interest and expertise in postpartum mental health through running my brand.
I wish my kids would let me help them with their personal brands, but they don’t like being out there where people can see what they have to say. Many teens and young adults aren’t thinking too far ahead when they are posting about their personal lives.
Considering the political climate online, I’d say teens and young adults are not alone when it comes to posting the wrong thing, which gets in the way of success.
When a Personal Brand Goes Against YOU
I get anxiety when it comes to being the new kid in the group. I do much better after I’ve been around a while and start holding court with people coming to me for advice and to talk. But at the beginning, I make it hard for myself, but not as hard as this gentlemen’s choice of topic to talk about online.
Matt Phelps is a YouTuber and CEO/Founder of STEEL, an online facial exercise equipment store.
My brand is niche and can be controversial at times, which has stopped me getting certain roles. As a professional Conversation Rate Optimization Specialist, my personal brand conflicts with the personality that one is expected to have- dry and analytical.
I do wonder if my posts about the dark times in my life got in the way of my success. If potential clients decided not to move forward with me because they’d read about how I’d struggled.
Thing is, it doesn’t matter if people have judged me and swiped left instead of right. It’s my story and I came through the worst of it with the tools to help others who are drowning in their own mud pits of life. I want to help people because I know what it is to be out there alone, in the dark, just trying to make it through the day on your own, when no one would give me a break.
If it weren’t for that time, I wouldn’t be writing that the story, with ideas, and advice helping someone hold on for one more day.
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Personal Brands can Lead to Leadership Roles
My current role is Director of Marketing Automation and I have a team to lead remotely as more responsibilities are moved over to me. In all the time I was looking for work with just a resume, I didn’t get called in for a leadership role because a formal paid management role was not on my resume. My personal brand allows me to share stories of my work, thought leadership, and growth.
Ross Kernez Director of Search Marketing at HPOne & Clearmatch.com knows the value of having a personal brand and invested to build it out right.
I was actively building my own personal brand rossk.com in the build-up to landing my current position as Director of Search marketing at HPOne & Clearmatch.com *
*I had been working at my previous firm marble.com for a number of years and had helped marble grow significantly. I was seeking a new role with greater responsibilities in a company that was still growing in a niche that had huge potential.*
*As an SEO specialist, I knew that my own online brand & presence would be one of the first places ‘would-be’ recruiters and directors would check in order to get a feel for me and what I could do.*
*I invested thousands of dollars out of my salary to build up my personal brand because I knew it would be a worthwhile investment and one of the best chances of success for landing the position I dreamt of. *
*Now in hindsight, I can say with confidence, it was indeed a worthwhile investment and I encourage others to also invest in their own personal brands in the hope of landing their dream positions.*
A CEO Weighs in on Hiring and Personal Brands
I spent so much time trying to get hired with my resume in hand and went through all the hoops presented to me and it was rare that I wouldn’t have more than one interview with a company. What I found so frustrating and soul crushing was not knowing why I didn’t make it.
I’d go through the process, beat out hundreds of people, yet when I wasn’t chosen to move on, I was crushed. I was only looking at the closed door not all the doors I’d gone through. The ones that were closed to so many others.
Dragos Badea, CEO at Yarooms hybrid workforce management
Those, like me, in hiring positions, are much more likely to hire someone with a personal brand than one without for the simple reason that it makes you more memorable. When you’re dealing with hundreds of applicants in a given time frame, all of whom have at least most of the qualifications necessary to do the role, what do you think will most heavily influence the decision when it comes to choosing who moves to the next round?
Being memorable, standing out, making an impression. Unless you are head and shoulders above the rest of the candidates interviewing for the role, and sometimes not even then, the person who made the strongest impression on the hiring manager will be the one that moves forward.
There are so many reasons why a person doesn’t get hired. It can feel like a kick in the gut to not be the one to come in out of the cold to the warmth of a paycheque and a place to belong. But if that place isn’t right for you, it can end up being more traumatic and then you end up like me, so scared of being fired, you do things to ensures it happens.
A Personal Brand is Essential for the Self Employed
As a consultant, contractor, content creator and creative entrepreneurial owner of MarketAPeel — A Personal Brand was a necessity and is part of the business brand and product brands. So though I have a job, I still have MarketAPeel, BrandAPeel, and APeeling to grow and they will benefit my employer just as they benefitted my clients. I sold 40 hours a week of my life, not my whole life.
I’m not the only self employed person to get a bigger gig due to a personal brand.
In a sea of sameness, I’ve found that having a strong digital personal brand has been key to getting noticed — and also in establishing street cred, if you will. If a consultant or job candidate doesn’t have a strong personal brand, especially if they bill themselves as a branding expert, it just doesn’t add up.
In terms of getting hired, I’ve gotten many clients and jobs based on people connecting not only with the quality of my work, but also with my personal brand (Leave It to ’Berta). In fact, my current job at Collaborative Classroom is a DIRECT result of my brand. The Marketing Director at the time was so enamoured with my resume and the way I presented myself that she INSISTED I get hired. She even picked me up and drove me to the interview as I’d just moved to San Francisco and didn’t have a car.
Have you got a story about how a personal brand helped you get a job or find the right candidate for your company? I want to hear from you and so do my readers. This is one of many articles I’m writing on the importance of personal branding and finding a job. To have your story included, drop by MarketAPeel and submit your story.
