You’ve already heard about personal branding. I know it sounds like such a fluffy, trendy term thrown around on the internet. But it’s not. Whether you know it or not, you already have a personal brand. It’s what people around you think of you.

If you asked your colleagues, former managers, and friends – what would they say about you? What are you known for?

That’s your existing personal brand.

The good news is that you can take control of your personal brand and reach your career goals.

I used my personal brand to break into the largest tech company in the world (Amazon), so I know you can do it too!

Rebranding yourself doesn’t have to be a tedious and cringe-worthy process. It’s quite the opposite. You will use what you already have at your disposal namely your experience, skills, personality. Then you’ll get to brand yourself and start attracting tech opportunities.

In this blog, I will show step-by-step how to do that:

What Is Your Career Goal?

This is the first step that everyone skips. But if you get clear about your career goals, you’ll build a strong foundation for your branding and make it more effective.

So what is your next career goal?

• Landing X role at Y company.
• Transitioning from X field to Y field.
• Using my experience in X, to get into Y roles.

The more specific that you get, the better. What is your dream job? What requirements do they list in their description? What company is your dream company?

Learning the inside and out of your target role and company is the stronger foundation there is. Once you have that knowledge, it’s time to start branding yourself according to your target role.

Choose Your Brand Pillars

Every brand in the world has pillars and yours will be no exception. Think about the experience, abilities, and skills you have that best position you for the job. 

As an example: If your career goal is to get into Project Management, your pillars could be: 

• PMP Certifications
• Team management
• Project exposure
• Cross-team communication

Your pillars can be a combination of hard skills, soft skills, and personal interests. I recommend you select at least 3 main pillars before moving to the next step.

Here’s an example of what my brand pillars looked like before landing a data analyst position at Amazon:

1. SQL
2. Advanced Excel skills
3. Customer Service expert
4. Women in tech advocate

Take a look at your list of accomplishments, certifications, experience, and skillset, and make a similar list as it applies to your target role. In the next step, you’ll find out what to do with them.

Marketing Your Brand

It’s time to take control of the conversation and put your brand out there. Putting your brand out there is the secret sauce to start attracting opportunities.

So how can you do that?

You can do it a few different ways:

1. Taking on projects related to your pillars at work.
2. Start conversations with people with similar pillars as you.
3. You can start a side project that showcases your knowledge and experience.
4. Writing about your expertise online.

The method that you chose will highly depend on your goals. If you’re currently job seeking – I’d recommend method number 2 and 4 using LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is a great platform that you can use to market your brand. Tech companies use LinkedIn to search for talent and it’s the perfect place to position yourself and start attracting recruiters. 

So these are two effective ways to market yourself:

Writing posts about your expertise.

Writing can be scary, especially if you haven’t done it for a while. The beauty of writing on LinkedIn is that a lot of people do it. You can start by sharing articles in your industry and slowly move into posts where you talk about your area of expertise.

This doesn’t have to be a tedious process. Whether you think so or not, you’re a leader. You have knowledge in a specific area. If you’re feeling stuck, revisit your pillars. Those are the things you will be writing about with a personal twist.

Here’s an example of one of my posts. I talk about a topic I’m an expert on (tech careers) with a personal twist (my experience as a woman in tech).

Yours can be a topic you’re studying and add a personal twist. For example:

Topic of study: Software Engineering

Personal twist: Your learning journey, the challenges you’ve faced, the things you enjoy.

LinkedIn posts should be short and sweet. Make your first sentence attention-grabbing, include some white space to make it readable, and finally, have a call to action at the end. A call-to-action can be anything from inviting your readers to comment below, to inviting them to add you.

Start conversations with people with similar pillars as you.

One of the biggest mistakes job seekers make is to use LinkedIn to chase after recruiters. Unfortunately, this isn’t the best way to grow your network or get closer to your dream job.

You can leverage your personal brand to start conversations with folks in your target role. Nourishing this type of conversation can help you land referrals, which still is the fastest way to land jobs.

The best news is that LinkedIn is a search engine. You can find people with similar backgrounds and experiences in seconds. Growing your network doesn’t have to be an awkward experience, as long as you make it conversational.

Here are a few tips to get you started on this process:

1. Find folks with similar backgrounds as you.
2. When connecting, send a personalized note and make it about them!
3. Once they connect with you, engage with their content insightfully.
4. Reach out to them with an insightful comment or question about a similar experience.
5. Nourish the conversation. Share your content with them.

Conclusion

The goal of personal branding is to put your most valuable experience in front of the right people. Tech companies hire people they like, know, and trust. The steps outlined in this blog are a great way for you to get started increasing those factors.