Brands are brand, be it personal or corporate, and share some similar traits. Your brand is about who you are, the values you embrace, what you stand for, and how you express your values. A personal brand helps to convey your value and communicate a unique identity to potential employers. In the same way, as any company’s brand does to customers that help to stand out from the crowd, explains Mike Giannulis. Personal branding is all about telling one’s story that plays a vital role in establishing an individual’s career and even boost it. A majority of hiring managers base their hiring decisions on a candidate’s personal brand.

This article should help you identify the opportunities for personal branding when branding new people.

First, define yourself – Who you are, says Mike Giannulis

Your personal brand must reflect your personal and professional identity accurately. And to establish the brand, you must first define your identity. Make a list of your personal strengths and weaknesses based on your identifiable characteristics as recognized by others, the areas of work that you excel in, what motivates you, and which roles seem too much stressful. What projects are you passionate about and can work without fatigue, and which are the projects in which you required too much hand-holding? If all answers are not available, you can take help from family, friends, and co-workers to know how they describe you.

Set the goals about what you want to be known for

Your personal brand is more like a roadmap of where you want to go rather than what you are today. In addition to helping in understanding your current competencies and skills, build into the brand your strengths. And weaknesses related to whichever career or industry you want to break into. This will help to distinctly uphold your skills as well as the areas that need improvement or gain new knowledge for advancement. Creating a timeline for your progress can help to determine the steps you need to take to achieve the goals.

Conduct audience research

Even before you start building your personal brand. You must determine the audience or the industry segments or the employers you want to reach. Reach out to some thought leaders of the industry, recruiters, or any individual in a specific company. It will determine how you craft your story by knowing what you need to tell them to impress them most. To impress recruiters and hiring managers, you need to strengthen your LinkedIn profile that most recruiters refer to. If you are a professional graphic designer working in a personal capacity. You can create a portfolio or a personal website to uphold your brand.

Prepare an elevator pitch

Along with conceptualizing your brand, craft an elevator pitch consisting of a capsule of 30-60 seconds depicting your story. Whether you are attending an informal party or networking event. You can use the elevator pitch to describe yourself succinctly. And point out what you do and where you want to be. It should pinpoint your attributes and crisply convey the message.

Regular networking helps to promote your personal brand effectively.