It's hard to talk or write about yourself. We don't know where to start. On top of that, articles and books and webinars for years have been teaching people the most heinous personal branding ideas imaginable. We've been taught to bury our personalities under piles of bureaucratic sludge. No wonder people are confused about how to describe themselves in writing!
Many of us fall into common personal branding mistakes when we are asked questions like “What do you do?”
Here are the five dangerous branding traps we see most often in our work with clients:
- Tasks
- Trophies
- Zombie brand
- Praising adjectives
- The One
What do these terms mean?
Tasks are lists of job activities that you have performed. Very early in our careers, we can use tasks in our branding to make it clear that we know how to create reports, process invoices or whatever tasks we have performed.
As we mature and begin to look at our roles from a higher altitude, we can see that the tasks we know how to perform are not very important in our branding. We can perform any number of tasks.
What’s more important is the impact that we have made already and the impact we plan to make in our next job. We can talk about ourselves at a higher level of altitude than the task-y approach “I spin, I weave and I sew.”
Millions of people can perform most of the common tasks that working people perform. You are so much more than a list of tasks. You can brand yourself for the job you want without making your brand a list of tasks.
Trophies are brand names that some people sprinkle into their personal branding. It’s great to have been to wonderful schools and to have worked for great companies, but you want to make sure that your brand is not all about trophies and brand names.
For the same reason, if you love Sales it’s wonderful to say in your
It’s not a great branding choice to make your LinkedIn profile Summary or your Human-Voiced Resume Summary a list of awards you’ve won and goals you’ve met.
That is a ‘grasp-y’ branding approach that says to the reader “I hope you find me worthy! Look at all the awards I’ve got and the goals I’ve hit.”
Human branding is based on who you are, not your past report cards or blue ribbons. Those things are part of you, but you have much more to bring to a job opportunity than a report of the accolades and praise that other people bestowed on you.
Your strongest and most authentic brand comes from what you believe and what you choose to do, not from the approval other people have given you.
Zombie branding is the traditional business branding that millions of job-seekers use to describe themselves. Most of us were taught to describe ourselves this way:
Results-oriented professional with a bottom-line orientation, skilled at multiple disciplines and experienced with cross-functional teams. Motivated self-starter who works well with all levels of staff. Dedicated team player who meets or exceeds expectations.
This branding statement could describe anybody. There is no life in it. There aren’t even any complete sentences in it! The personality and power of the resume’s owner are completely hidden.
Every hiring manager has seen thousands of zombie resumes. No one needs to see any more of them! You can sound like yourself in your resume.
We don’t say that we are smart and savvy or strategic. Only fearful people praise themselves. It is not different in the business or the working world but for a long time we’ve been taught that it is.
People who brand themselves using praising adjectives are saying to the reader “I hope these words tell you how smart and savvy I am. I am describing myself using these words because I don’t know to show you how I think.”
The number one rule of personal branding is “Show, Don’t Tell.”
If you are smart – and we know that you are – show us you are smart but don’t say “I am smart!”
The same goes for other praising adjectives. Tell a story that illustrates the quality you want to convey, rather than stooping to praise yourself in your branding.
The One is a branding choice for some people. They say “I’m the Chicago area’s greatest branding expert” or “I’m the Marketing Wizard.”
This is another branding trap, because anyone can call themselves a marketing wizard. It is a pasted-on brand rather than a brand that comes from you and your unique worldview.
It is an ongoing process to chip away at the layers that separate you, the real you behind the resume, from the people who would want to meet you if they knew more about you.
At Human Workplace we talk about this chipping-away process all the time. We call it Releasing Yourself from the Marble.
The analogy comes from a story about the artist Michelangelo. People asked Michelangelo how he could make such beautiful sculpture out of hard marble.
Here's his quote:
I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.
We all have angels inside us that we are working to set free, chip by chip! Your best branding choice is a simple story about yourself -- no praise, no trophies, just a story about why you do what you do. Here's an example:
I'm a corporate Research Librarian who loves to organize and track down obscure information that helps leaders make better decisions.
Now it's your turn!
