Personal Branding With Self Marketing

If you don’t promote yourself, who will? In today’s highly competitive job market, developing and maintaining strong personal branding is more important than ever. This is particularly important in the application phase. By marketing yourself strategically, you can differentiate yourself from the competition and increase your chances of landing your dream job. Here you will find valuable tips on how to build personal branding that will make you stand out from the crowd.

The Most Important Things At a Glance

Developing a solid personal brand is called personal branding or rebranding.
Good positioning of one’s brand on the labour market requires both the development of one’s ego and the presentation of this ego.
With strong personal branding, employees have many benefits, such as increased visibility and reach in the workplace, positioning themselves as experts in a particular field, and improving bargaining power in salary negotiations.
Personal branding is something for the self-employed and a highly relevant tool for employees to build a good image with potential employers and present special skills and successes.
Essential components of self-marketing are good storytelling, good references, convincing communication of personal and professional values ​​and a professional appearance on social networks.

PERSONAL BRANDING: THE BRAND “I”

Developing the brand “I” is called Personal Branding or Me-Branding. The term includes two components: the development of one’s strong ego, which the ancient Greek Pindar assumed was inherent in us from the outset, and of course, the presentation of this ego. Both sides are essential for good brand positioning in the job market.
The second aspect – self-presentation – comes to the fore in the age of social media but is only a sensible form of self-marketing if the first part is correct. On the contrary: Some people damage their publicly visible own brand by inappropriate photos of themselves on social networks.
But you don’t do anything wrong in this respect, develop your personality comprehensively and appropriately and don’t post every party slip-up on social media. In that case, you only have to ensure that your best personal qualities are appropriately placed in the foreground regarding self-marketing. This requires a sure instinct. Regarding what potential employers get for a picture of us on the Internet, we can post our private pages on Facebook, Instagram or other channels.
We have a private life, which we can show because privacy is also part of the “I” brand. But it doesn’t have to be photos that lead us to public places with beer bottles in hand. However, the image of the sailing trip in casual clothing is lovely. The sports friend comes across as sympathetic.

DEVELOPMENT OF PERSONAL BRANDING: ALSO INTERESTING FOR EMPLOYEES

Applicants can assume that HR managers will search for them online after receiving their applications. The HR manager not only wants to find private entries in social networks but also information about the professional career and skills of the applicant. LinkedIn and Xing, mainly as professional networks, offer an ideal platform for presenting yourself as an employee and conveying a uniform, coherent image.

To build their branding, applicants should know that they are responsible for their brand and should always work to develop and maintain it. The digital world offers many possibilities to strengthen your personal branding. For example, applicants can publish professional articles, write blog posts or create an online portfolio. Appearances on social networks should also be carefully maintained.

It is essential for applicants to develop their strengths and skills and to specialize in specific subject areas to differentiate themselves from other applicants. Consistent and authentic communication is the be-all and end-all to build trust and credibility and to establish your branding in the long term.

Personal solid branding offers employees many advantages. It ensures higher visibility and reach in the working world, positions them as experts in a particular field, increases their attractiveness to employers and improves their negotiating position in salary negotiations.

PERSONAL BRANDING: NOT JUST FOR THE SELF-EMPLOYED

Personal branding is not only something for the self-employed but also a highly relevant tool for employees to build a good image with potential employers and present special skills and successes.

COMPONENTS OF SELF-MARKETING

Your brand is far more than your professional skills. It also plays an important role.

• a good storytelling
• good references
• Convincingly communicating the personal and professional values ​​that are important to you and
• a good visibility

A company is not looking for people but for personalities!

The good thing is that you significantly influence how you are perceived, that you can design your appearance on social media and Co. yourself!

PERSONAL BRANDING IN THE APPLICATION PROCESS

During the application process, the HR manager will want to look closely at his (favourite) applicants. This also includes research on the World Wide Web. It is essential here that the information that the HR manager has gained about you through your application documents matches the knowledge that he will be able to google about you.

Self-marketing involves knowing your brand, which must have a core. This means: On Xing, you refer to the continuity of your professional development; the exact points mentioned in your application also appear.

An engineer could emphasize a particular area of ​​expertise wherever he shows his expertise. That comes across as authentic and, therefore, credible, which is how brands are created. These always focus on their core. The product can be exceptionally high-quality but not cheap and thus belong in the premium sector; it can also be remarkably inexpensive (Aldi).

PERSONAL BRANDING IN THE COVER LETTER

 To work out their branding in the application, applicants should emphasize their strengths and competencies concerning the job advertisement’s requirements. A great way to do this is to write a compelling cover letter that will grab the recruiter’s attention and generate interest in the person.

Applicants should ensure the cover letter is informative and reflects their personality and passion for the job. Clear and concise language and appealing formatting are also crucial to leave a positive impression.

USE PERSONAL BRANDING IN YOUR CV

The CV also offers opportunities to strengthen personal branding. Applicants should list their professional positions and qualifications here and highlight their successes and remarkable achievements. For example, facts and figures such as increases in sales, savings or project scope can attract attention and arouse the interest of the HR manager.

EXPECT QUERIES

Even if you can influence a lot of the relevant information circulating about you on the Internet, one or the other piece of information is no longer available to you. However, an HR manager may discover this information and address you in the application process. Therefore, before the interview,

scour through all the connections found on the Internet with the most incredible attention to not being surprised by such questions and being able to position yourself on the information.

CONCLUSION

Personal branding is becoming increasingly important in the digital age. How you and your brand are presented and perceived can also be decisive in the application process.
Invest time in building and maintaining your brand. Communicate your successes, values, skills and competencies to the outside world. Suppose the messages about yourself that you convey in the application to the company correspond to this image. In that case, they don’t seem like mere lip service that you cobbled together for the job in question but result in a compelling story.
An authentic appearance is the be-all and end-all here. Don’t force yourself into any role in your self-marketing. Be what you are. Don’t be afraid to present your private pages on social networks; it makes you human and approachable. However, be sure to use only positive representation and weed out anything that might be too personal or show a wrong side of you.