How To Leverage Your Personal Brand To Land Your Dream Job

One of the most common goals that many have when wanting to build a personal brand is to assist them in finding a new job. Your personal brand is simply you sharing your story and who you are. Therefore, the goal of leveraging your personal brand for a new job is to be able to strategically communicate what you want and what you are looking for in a position. Especially with being in quarantine, there are not as many in person networking opportunities, so it is important to learn how to authentically connect with others online. 

Below are tips on how you can utilize your personal brand to find the gig for you!

Update Your Profiles

First and foremost, it is important that you update all your social profiles with your most current info. To prioritize which platforms to focus on, think about the platforms that those in your industry frequent the most. By default, I would recommend focusing on LinkedIn and Instagram. Therefore, make sure to first start on LinkedIn to update your work history. Add details to each of your jobs and add links to examples if possible. For a full list of LinkedIn updates, you can download our LinkedIn checklist here. For Instagram, review your photos and if there is any you feel you should archive. Then update your bio to reflect who you are and your interests. 

I recently created Cloudy To Clarity to help women create a personal brand statement to identify their goals. I also teach you how to apply your personal brand statement to your various social media platforms. You can learn more here. 

Connect and Network

Because we are able to hide behind our screens, some forget some of the basic principles of networking online. For example, when you go to a networking event in person, you don’t walk right up to someone and introduce yourself and then ask for a job. Instead, you introduce yourself and start a conversation. Therefore, you need to think about networking online in the same way. If you reach out to connect with someone on LinkedIn, make sure to include a thoughtful and genuine message. You can say something like, “Hi Lindsay, Hope you are well. I am a big fan of (your company) and recently came across your profile. I love the mission of the company and all the great work you do. Would love to connect with you. Thanks so much!”

To identify who to connect with on LinkedIn or Instagram, I would suggest writing down a list of companies you are interested in working for. You can search the companies on LinkedIn, on the company page you can click on ‘See all employees on LinkedIn.’ When you click on that, it will bring you to a list of people who work at the company. You should then scroll through and identify HR reps and/or those in the department you are interested in joining. 

Once connected with these individuals, you can also look them up on Instagram and Twitter. When you interact with them in your feed, focus on genuinely commenting and interacting on their posts. Don’t think about constantly messaging about a job – the goal is to build a relationship first. This is not going to happen overnight, so you need to be patient and consistent. 

Engage in the Conversation

It is important that you set aside time weekly to interact, post, and engage in the conversation surrounding your industry. By regularly sharing your POV on topics related to your industry, it will help to build awareness among your network about your knowledge – and keep you top of mind. To help create a framework of what to post about, identify 3 main topics or trends in your industry/industry you are looking to get into. Then find ways to engage with those topics, whether sharing your POV or commenting on others talking about the topics. By doing this, it puts you right into the middle of the conversation that others in your industry are participating in. This will then grow your awareness and help you grow your network. 

Another way to engage in topical conversations in your industry is to identify Facebook or LinkedIn Groups related to your industry. This then allows you to speak to a more engaged audience around key topics in your industry. You can find Groups by searching industry keywords or ask friends and colleagues if they have any Group recommendations. 

LinkedIn and Instagram also allow you to follow hashtags. You can identify 2-4 hashtags most used by those in your industry. You can cross reference this by searching hashtags within Instagram and it will populate the most used hashtags. Then follow the hashtags on both Instagram and LinkedIn, content from those hashtags will start to populate in your feed. 

You can click here if you would like to learn more tips on how to create your own content schedule. 

Apply for the Job

When you do find a position that you are interested in, don’t just apply and wait. Go on LinkedIn and see if you are connected with anyone that works at the company. If you are connected to someone that works at the company, but you haven’t spoken to them in a while, you can still send a very genuine message to inquire about the position. You shouldn’t approach it directly by saying, can you put in a good word, but ask how they like working at the company and if they know the hiring manager. 

Optional: Create Your Own Website

This is not essential, but a great way to separate yourself from other candidates is to create your own website. By creating your own website, you can get creative and decide how to present yourself and your story. You can read more tips here on what to include on your personal website.