9 AGCAREERS.COMAGRICULTURE & FOOD CAREER GUIDE Whether you’re applying for a job, aiming for a promotion, trying to connect with leadership, or working with clients, we always do our best to ensure your credentials and experience are known, but can you say the same for making sure they know who you are? While it’s important to share your qualifications, you shouldn’t underestimate how important your values and personality are. Although this may be demonstrated through interactions, you’ll have a significant advantage if you can give people a sense of who you are before meeting them. This idea of consciously creating a message of you as a person, with your different strengths, values, and characteristics, and then advertising it to others is called making a personal brand. Living in a time when we can connect with people even before meeting them, creating a personal brand has never been more critical. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A PERSONAL BRAND AND A RESUME Everyone has credentials, and because we’ve worked so hard for them, we like to show them off, but your personal brand isn’t supposed to lay out your education, experiences, and qualifications instead, it’s supposed to be a description of your experiences and values. When creating your brand, remember how you navigated and contributed to different experiences, what kind of role you played, how you collaborated with others, and how you accomplished your goals. Asking these questions is meant to help you understand what kind of person you are, what your strengths are, and where, and in what ways, you can best contribute to a goal; for example, are you open minded, professional, creative, attentive, strategic, or divergent? Your qualifications and experience are undeniably necessary, but who you are and how you act are as well. THE IMPORTANCE OF A PERSONAL BRAND Personal brands establish a persona of who you are, which is vital because it not only articulates who you are as a professional but also displays your values and leaves little room for people to make assumptions. Impressions are meaningful and personal brands are designed to ensure that people understand who you are and your values. Now someone who already feels established within a company might think that taking the time to create a personal brand isn’t worth the effort since they’ve worked with people within the company and have already made an impression, but this is only partially true. Although you may be comfortable in your position, what happens when you want to move up in the company or bring in a new client? Can you be sure those decision makers know who you are and your values? Employers and clients value good character; your brand is a shortcut to demonstrating that character. CREATING YOUR PERSONAL BRAND The first step to creating a personal brand is to take a moment for introspection and think about how you want to describe who you are and the kind of person you want to be. This process of self reflection can be difficult and uncomfortable for some, but if you don’t invest the time to understand who you are properly, you can’t expect to create a brand for yourself! Another way to think of it is you’re trying to advertise yourself as a product. If you were to try and sell a product, you would naturally showcase its values, but you need a strong understanding of the product to know where to start. The same could be said for creating your own brand; if you don’t know your strengths, how can you expect to create an accurate image for yourself? Although essential to the process, sometimes introspection can only take you so far. In this case, it’s all right to By Kathryn Doan, CVO, Director, AgCareers.com > > >
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTQyMDk=