There's a great conversation on the costs (and benefits) of a personal brand over at the JibberJobber blog. It started with recognition for Heather Henricks's portfolio web site—a personal branding vehicle created by Brandego. The question that came up in the comments is whether her career is helped or hurt by a controversial volunteer organization she includes on her site.
Some points from the comments:
- Branding will repel as well as attract people. Make sure your brand only repels people and companies you wouldn't want to work with.
- You can put things on a web site that you wouldn't put on a résumé.
- Your brand is not your value proposition. It's the difference between what you can do for a company and what sets you apart from the others who can do the same thing.
- Never let a company manage your career. Only you can do it well.
And it's still going. Take a few minutes to read through the comments. A solid group of thoughtful folks have shared some useful insights. Then, take a look at Heather's site and think about whether your career would benefit from this kind of promotion—even (especially?) if you're currently employed.
Full disclosure: Brandego was founded by friends of mine, but I have no financial interest in their success.
Tags: career personal branding Brandego
Comments (3)
Hey Nathan, thanks for picking up on this - the dialogue there is blowing me away because of the expertise - and the opinions are strong and stated.
You bring out some great points and a terrific question - this is the type of stuff I wish I would have been reading before I got laid off. Although, back then I wouldn't have given it the proper time because I was paying way more attention to my job than to my career!
Posted by JibberJobber Guy
|
December 1, 2006 4:29 PM
Hi, Jason. It's amazing when the comments take off, isn't it? It's the one downside of reading blogs with a feed reader—unless someone mentions the comments in a post, you can miss a lot of the conversation.
Posted by Nathan Gilliatt | December 1, 2006 4:58 PM
Yep - it is too bad... I'm actually going to go through and create various posts though - milk it :p
Posted by JibberJobber Guy
|
December 2, 2006 12:30 AM