Capture Your Personal Brand in One Sentence

By Abby Locke of The Ladders

Describe your value, then convince others.

Your personal brand is the keystone to communicating your value during a job-search campaign. Once you have a clear statement to describe your value to an employer, you can start convincing others to believe it.

Gain a competitive advantage by honing a personal brand statement. Include it in your resume; revise it to create an attention-getting, 30-second elevator pitch; expand upon it through career success stories in an interview and communicate it frequently to others at networking events.

The following examples use the same personal branding statement, which was developed for a manufacturing executive.

I employ cutting-edge technologies to speed manufacturing so companies can grow revenues, cut costs and increase profits.

How best can you use this simple statement of value? While you don't want to repeat it word for word, you can improve your perceived market value by weaving this message into every phase of the job search.

1. Incorporate it into your executive summary

With only 20 to 60 seconds to catch a recruiter’s or hiring manager’s attention, you can draw them into your resume and set the tone in your header and executive summary:

Example:

SENIOR MANUFACTURING EXECUTIVE
Senior executive with broad-based expertise steering multimillion-dollar, global manufacturing companies. Strategic thinker able to identify new technologies that make manufacturing more efficient and revenues stronger, improving profit margins. Creative leader with proven strengths in P&L management, product innovation and turnaround operations.

2. Add power to your elevator pitch

As you network, you'll need a brief, memorable elevator pitch that sells your value, not just your experience.

Before:

“Hi, my name is Carl Brown, and I am an executive with 15-plus years’ experience with global manufacturing companies.”

After:

“Hi, my name is Carl Brown. I'm an experienced manufacturing executive who deploys new technologies for global companies seeking efficiency and revenue growth. Some of the top companies I have worked with include ABC Plastics, Newform Manufacturing and TechNec Corporation.”

3. Make an impresion in interviews

Understanding the core of your personal brand will help you answer critical interview questions with authority.

Question: “So Carl, tell me about yourself.”
Possible answer: “OK. As you've seen from my resume, I've got more than 15 years’ experience in P&L management, product innovation and turnaround management for global manufacturing companies in the plastics industry. Throughout my career, I have employed innovative technologies to manufacture products more efficiently. That's helped my employers achieve aggressive business goals.”

Once you can articulate your unique value to your next employer, you can leverage that personal-branding message in creative new ways.

MRI First Friday Preview: May 2011

Marc Cenedella's Best Career Advice Ever

borrowed from Marc Cenedella's most recent newsletter:

You know that part of the interview where they ask "well, do you have any questions for me?"...

Say yes and ask: "How do I help you get a gold star on your review next year?"

This bit of advice has helped more people in more interviews than any other bit of advice I've shared over the years. Why?

Well, the interview process lends itself to our becoming self-absorbed and talking only about ourselves.

Or conversely, we become "job analysis engineers" and ask all sorts of questions about the job and reporting structure and how it fits in with the company's five year plan and so on. I love getting questions from candidates in interviews, but I do have to admit I feel that they're not quite getting the point of an interview if they pull out six pages of typed, single-spaced questions.

We get so obsessed with the details of the job that we forget about the work.

Working together and being a good addition to the team mean being concerned with how you are making the team successful. And that means being concerned with how much you are helping to make your boss successful.

Asking this question shows that you have empathy. It shows that you have an interest in your boss' career and future success. It shows that you are not just a self-absorbed "what's in it for me" kind of person. And it shows that you know you are there to "give" as much as you are there to "get".