Abasiakan DennyLeveraging personal branding is important to stand out in today’s competitive job market. It clearly articulates your values, skills, and competencies for potential employers and helps build credibility and trust. Here is a comprehensive guide to building a credible brand.
Define Your Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
Many candidates find it hard to answer the question, “What makes you the ideal candidate for this job?”The answer to this question is contained in your UVP. Your Unique Value Proposition highlights a combination of your skills, attributes and experiences that makes you different from other candidates. To build a credible UVP, you need to:
- Reflect on your skills and experiences
- Identify your audience and tailor your UVP to meet their preferences
- Highlight key achievements
- Craft a compelling but concise narrative
Optimise Your Online Presence
A strong online presence is crucial to stand out to recruiters. You can effectively communicate your UVP by building a robust and professional profile, before setting out to create an online presence, you must:
- Clearly define your goals. Setting relevant goals can guide your purpose for building a credible online presence.
- Choose a social media platform that aligns with your professional goals. For example, LinkedIn is a professional platform that can help increase your visibility and enhance your brand so that you can meet potential employers. Join groups and engage with posts.
- Incorporate relevant SEO-friendly keywords that match your skills, experiences and speciality into your online profiles.
Build Strategic Network
Strategic networking is crucial to building professional connections that foster growth and job opportunities. Your network should reflect your visions and missions specific to your skills and experiences. For effective networking, the following strategies must be employed:
- Set clear networking goals e.g. finding a mentor in your chosen field, exploring job opportunities, etc.
- Research and attend events that meet your interests, skills and experiences. You may attend conferences, workshops, seminars and other virtual events.
- Optimise your online presence and be as professional as possible in your heading, summary, and skillset.
- Follow up after meeting someone and look for opportunities to offer value to your contacts.
Customise your Application Materials
Tailoring your application materials such as your resume and cover letter is crucial. Different jobs or opportunities will demand crafting your application materials in a way that will suit the position you’re applying for. The following points should be considered when writing a resume and cover letter for a job opportunity:
- Thoroughly analyse the job description. Take note of the skills, years of experience, and other qualifications. This is crucial to help you understand what the employer wants.
- Customise your resume by including the required qualifications, skills and relevant years of experience. Craft a compelling cover letter. Your cover should provide more strengths to your qualifications highlighted in your resume.
- Maintain consistency in formatting, tone and context. Your resume and cover should complement not corrupt each other.
The evolving job market demands a more proactive step to stand out. Personal branding is a great step to meeting this step. A well-defined UVP, a professional online presence, effective networking and customisation of application materials are ways to build a strong online presence.
