Building a personal brand statement

You are unique. You have a set of qualifications, skills and experiences that may be common within your industry, but when you add your passions, character, personality and personal values to the mix, there is no-one quite like you. So how can you communicate this to the world? By creating your own personal brand statement. This blog post from Jorgen Sundberg gives you some ideas of what a personal brand statement looks like.

So how can you go about creating your own personal brand statement? Well, after reviewing the different posts online and a variety of books, I can safely say that there is no one secret formula. Ultimately, what you’re trying to do with your personal statement is communicate:

• What it is you actually do. Not your job title, but what you do. For example I help job seekers get the jobs that they want. What do you do?
• What value you add to an organisation. All jobs in an organization’s aim to do one of two things: make money or save money. How to you contribute to the organization’s bottom line? For example, a cleaner in hospital contributes to the hygiene of the hospital, reducing the spread of infections and the cost of treating infections. How do you add value?
• What do you do that is unique to you. This could be your specialist knowledge of your niche area or a mix of your talents, personality and values. Either way, in what way are you unique?

When crafting your personal statement, it should be:

• 1 or 2 sentences long
• should be able to be said in one long breath
• understood by an 8 year old

It’s a work in progress, but my personal branding statement is developing into:

I turn job seekers into job magnets by helping them to identify how they contribute to organisations, teaching them how to communicate their value and showing them how to build relationships with a network of high-quality contacts in their field of expertise.

Activity:

Have a look at the personal brand statements in the blog posts mentioned and think about how you could craft your own personal brand statement. If you’re happy to share, I’d love to hear what you’ve come up with.

Further reading:

• Personal branding for dummies by Susan Chritton
• Creating Your Authentic Personal Brand Statement by Meg Guiseppi
• How to craft your personal branding statement by Jorgen Sundberg

If you’re looking for a job, then why not take my free Get That Job challenge? It covers preparing a resume that gets you interviews, building a killer LinkedIn profile, networking and interview skills. Alternatively my Get That Job Club has an exclusive range of courses and resources designed to help you get the job that you want. Try it for 1 month for only €5.

See you here tomorrow where we’ll look at how you can go about building your own personal branding toolkit.

Take care for now

Karen x