Avoid online employment scams. Know what to expect from a real Vaco recruiter. Fraud Alert

Search
Close this search box.

Building your personal brand

Applicant Tracking System Misconceptions

Building your personal brand is hard. It takes time and requires the willingness to put in the work, which can often be the hardest part about it. 

I believe building your personal brand can get overly complicated, even though it’s really just what you are wanting to be known for. Asking yourself what you are passionate about can help determine what you can build your brand around. For me, it’s helping people in their careers. For you, it could be showing people how to play video games, being a music nerd and sharing random songs from artists no one knows about, or as simple as loving to post about cats.

Once you decide what you want your personal brand to be, follow these steps to grow your audience and make connections throughout your career.

Be consistent.

I think one of the most important factors when starting to build your brand is documenting your daily life consistently. To me, it’s almost like a new form of journaling except you’re posting it online for the entire world to see (lol). The even-more-important part of this process is staying consistent and posting as frequently as possible.

Build your community.

Another component of building your personal brand is expanding your network. You can do that through increasing your LinkedIn activity, creating an email newsletter, or starting a texting community. The biggest thing is that you develop and foster a group of people who share your likes and passions. Many people focus just on the documentation part and not on nurturing their community, which is also a very important piece.

Be patient.

I can’t stress enough that building your personal brand takes time. I’ve only really been digging into my “brand” for the past year, and I still have a long way to go.

You may find yourself starting with what you think is your personal brand but end up changing it along the way; that’s the best part about it because you have the freedom to do so. When I started a year ago, it was very much “how to find a job”; now, it is morphing more into marketing/branding and how much that plays a role in the job search.

With the majority of Americans at home and networking events put on hold, now is the time to cultivate your brand. You may ask yourself, “is it too late for me to start building my brand?” The answer is absolutely not! In the great words of my good friend Daniel Thompson from Vaco’s Tampa office, “when was the best time to plant a tree? 80 years ago. When is the next best time to plant a tree? Today.”

Get started and stay consistent! You will be amazed what will happen if you stay at it over time. The opportunities and networking possibilities are endless.

Taylor Desseyn is a Vaco senior recruiter, advocate, and personal branding entrepreneur. Learn more about his approach to team building and brand building here.

Share:

Get Our Job Seeker Tool Kit

Fill out the form below to get our job seeker resource guides delivered directly to your inbox.