Personal branding is definitely a buzz for ordinary job seekers and quite familiar to entrepreneurs. This is synonymous with self-packaging, in which people and their skills or abilities constitute themselves as brands. Any business cannot survive if it is not for the brand. This is also true when applying for a job; people need to have their own personal brands to sell in the job search industry.
We often get caught up in the web of confusion, forcing our brain to think of ways to get a better job. Sometimes, we even take risky steps just to get the job we don’t really like for the sake of having financial resources, which if not endless, at least enough to sustain our daily needs.
Self-help books clutter bookstore shelves with tips for getting a job, but none seem to help. There is step-by-step advice flowing through print and online media, television and radio. Actually, sometimes we couldn’t accomplish all those seemingly simple steps that many times we lose where to start. The arrival of Tom Peters’ article on personal branding is a great help. In his article, the steps and tips for getting a job are condensed in a few words. There is a possible way to get a job, and it is by understanding and applying the concept of personal branding. The concept sounds like marketing jargon and it really is. The person becomes a commodity and, at the same time, a marketer and CEO of his own company that Tom coined Me, Inc.
We define marketing as an ongoing process of planning and executing the marketing mix of products, services, or ideas to create an exchange between individuals and organizations (Wikipedia). The very moment we write our resume, or even at the moment of writing it in mind, it is already a marketing process; and we have become a marketer. We become marketers because the act of writing our resume, writing it, and printing it on bond paper are already acts of marketing.
The term “marketing” inevitably draws negative reactions from job industry neophytes because “selling” oneself is unthinkable; the human being is degraded to a commodity. Well, this isn’t really about downgrading, it’s about converting. There is no problem of depreciation of human value in the process. It is not about the literal sale of human beings, as in human trafficking and prostitution. That is unquestionably unthinkable. The rampant misuse of the word “marketing” in the media can be partly blamed for giving it a bad connotation. This article will clean it up. Marketing in this article explains the beneficial process and nothing but the ethical one. This article uses “marketing” in view of its definite and functional similarities to job application processes only.
Now that I think about it, turning the “I” into a commodity to sell is the right metaphor. The “me” is the product and the recruiter or employer is its buyer. Selling literal goods is earning income after they are sold to buyers, right? This is also the same when applying for a job; we earn income in the form of salary after we are hired. The only difference between marketing and applying for a job is the term used; resume per ad, recruiter or employer per buyer, self per product or merchandise, salary per income, etc.
Personal branding simply means building reputation and self image. It involves two parties, namely “you” and “others”. “You” and “others” serve as shapers for a brand that Tom Peters calls YOU, the supreme self that is easily marketable.
Personal branding is not a fabrication of social identity and it shouldn’t be. There are processes involved such as identity optimization and personal visibility campaign. Sound like another SEO jargon? Sort of, but they’re not really hard to understand. They are synonymous with what search engine optimization processes do to a website: optimize the website so that it is visible (or more visible if already visible) on the web. As with personal branding, optimizing and being visible are two inseparable processes. Self or identity optimization and visibility take place at the same time. Unlike the case of website optimization, the website must be optimized to be visible on the search engine results pages.
How does personal branding start? Actually, it starts from the very moment of publicly exposing our reputation as a person. When we send out a resume, we already allow ourselves exposure to people, hiring officers, and the interview panel later on. All the information we put in a resume are actually crumbs of our “I” that are translated into text organized by skills, experiences and personal information. Interests and hobbies also speak of what a person is. That is why a resume must be carefully crafted so that every detail is accurately written. At the moment the curriculum is made, a You brand is made. The You brand must be well represented on the resume.
The resume contains details that are like pieces of a puzzle; when assembled, the You is complete. The way in which the skills and abilities or the entire character are presented greatly affects the formation of the brand. The impression given by the recruiter/employer contributes to the brand. Even anything you say, like sending emails, and anything you do, like the way you walk and talk, also add to You brand attributes.
Identity optimization or self-optimization is done online or offline. But since we are in the era where knowledge of Information Technology is essential; It is a trend to do it online. There are many websites on the internet dedicated solely to job hunting that cater to both local and international audiences. Now, this is where online networking comes into the picture.
Self-optimization is defined as the enrichment of one’s own image and reputation by minimizing unnecessary attributes and the appearance of marketable ones. Do we need to change our attitude? Of course, we don’t have to. Change includes how we manage and deal with our attitude. Registering on social networking sites that are so famous like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram helps in optimization. Make the brand visible and highlight only the marketable attributes. When we say marketable attributes, it refers to our personal traits that recruiters/employers look for in a job applicant. In other words, you should put only the information that we want our prospective employer or recruiting officer to see and read about you.
It’s often tempting to post a photo of yourself with a bottle of vodka in your hand or a photo showing our bodies because it’s “cool”. But that is only in the eyes of our friends and it definitely discourages the hiring of officers. Creating an account for online job networking sites (such as LinkedIn or any website for job search purposes) should be taken seriously. Every bit of information encoded matters. Our performance or achievements, growth and value as a brand are the differentiating factors for them to hire us or not.
Self-optimization should be done alongside self-marketing. It would be easy to market goods that are known to have satisfied consumers, wouldn’t it? It is also the same thing that happens and should happen with the You brand. Having optimized well, especially online (in which social networking sites play a role, as does the online job and recruitment market), marketing would be easy. Although, sometimes, it is a difficult job to do.
As Tom Peters said, acting selfishly would be unavoidable as the CEO of Me Inc. Being developed or rewarded and credited in the work you acquired in some way belongs to being selfish, but the flip side is that it has also helped in the progress of the company. .
Recently, personal branding is slowly gaining eminence as an effective and applicable concept to guide people on how to find their dream job. Many people are already applying this concept. Some multi-business companies recognize this as a simple way to allow both parties (job seekers and employers) to get what they want to achieve in the complex world of the job search and HR search industry. The time will come when Personal Branding, its possible concept, will be practiced by most industries of all kinds in any part of the world.