Believe About You
The most important part of personal brand is truth. If you’re branding yourself as a big thinker and you get to my company with no big thoughts, I will be much quicker to dismiss you as a phony. Be authentic to who you are and where you are in your career. If you just graduated from college or are early in your career, no one will have the expectation that you have any hard skills—so don’t pretend that you do. Instead, you may want to brand yourself as a great communicator or a problem solver.

Sometimes, personal brands are humble enough to showcase the areas you are developing. Let’s take me as an example—I’m a leader of a growing company and it’s a personal goal of mine to become a more compassionate, inspiring leader that empowers my team every day. I’m not at the peak yet–I’m learning and growing and making mistakes. This is ok. Be real and half the battle will be won.

Finally, branding yourself is not bad, fake, or self-promotional–-view it as showing off the very best of who you are and the person you will bring into the office every day. And for the rest of you, leave that for Saturday night.