Stand Out, Get Hired: Master Personal Branding

Lori Cole (00:07):

All right, let’s go ahead and get started. Thank you for being here today, everybody. My name is Lori Cole and I am a certified career coach and advisor here at iHire. And I’d like to offer you a warm welcome to our session, Stand Out, Get Hired, and Master Your Personal Branding. Before we get started, I’d like to point out some features of our webinar platform that will really put you in the driver’s seat. So the widgets that you see on your screen or the windows, allow you to move and resize those windows and explore content related to today’s presentation. Make sure that you find that ask a question widget and submit your questions at any time during the presentation. Only Alexia, our amazing producer, will see those questions and we’ll answer as many as we can after the webinar. And then be sure to keep an eye on your inbox for tomorrow.

(01:04):

And you are going to get a recording of this webinar that you can watch on demand. And with that, I’d like to welcome our speakers, Laurie Ballow and Laura Wilhelm. So let’s start with Laurie Ballow. She is a certified advanced resume writer here at iHire. Lori has been with iHire since 2010, and she is known as our Swiss Army Knife because she has such extensive experience working both with candidates and employers. She’s a certified resume writer and she works with employers. She works with schools. She does it all. She also has a solid understanding of the job search process from both perspectives. So it’s so nice to have you here today, Laurie.

Laurie Ballow (01:51):

Thank you, Lori. It’s great to be here.

Lori Cole (01:53):

And we’re going to throw everybody for a loop today because we’ve got Lori, Laurie, and Laura. So we’ve got the L triple threat. So Laura Wilhelm is an account executive here at iHire, and she joined us during the work in sports merger in April of 2021. In addition to her role at iHire, Laura is also a ticket sales manager and analyst at the Tampa Bay Sun. It says SC. What does that mean, Laura?

Laura Wilhelm (02:27):

So it’s FC, which is football club. So we are a new women’s professional soccer team.

Lori Cole (02:33):

Okay. Gotcha. Gotcha. I didn’t know that I had that right. And in Laura’s spare time, she’s also an adjunct professor at Upper Iowa University where she develops and teaches a master’s level sports sales class, which she’s very good at sales. So it’s great to have you here, Laura.

Laura Wilhelm (02:54):

Thanks for having me. Happy to be back.

Lori Cole (02:58):

All right. So let’s talk about personal branding and why it is a game changer. So today we’re going to cover what exactly is your personal brand, how to figure out what makes you unique and put it into words. And we’re probably going to call this your personal branding statement. And then the fun part, and that’s how to show off your personal brand through your job hunt and through things like sprucing up your resume and your cover letter, really being able to nail those job interviews and making connections and managing your online presence. So let’s start with a quick poll question. We’re going to give you about 30 seconds to answer it here. Have you ever written a personal brand statement? And I will start out by admitting, I don’t believe I ever have. I know I’ve written an elevator pitch for myself, but I don’t know that I’ve ever written a personal brand statement, but that also could be because it’s a newer type of a term that we didn’t hear back in the olden days when I was searching for work.

(04:11):

How about you, Laurie and Laura?

Laurie Ballow (04:15):

Pretty similar. When I came to iHire 14 years ago, it wasn’t really talked about personal branding, but I think I have done so since then because of learning how to write resumes and working with job seekers and so forth.

Laura Wilhelm (04:32):

Yeah. I think for me, personal brand is more, it was taught to me more in my college years and personal brand was discussed a lot, but I don’t think I’ve ever actually sat down and written a personal brand statement. So I would have to put no, but I do know how to do it, but I need to-

Lori Cole (04:50):

That’s the thing. We’re good teachers. None of us have done it, but we’re very good teachers because we have the solid base here. So whether you have done it in the past or not, we are going to give you the roadmap today and show you exactly what you need to do. So Laura, let’s start with you and tell us what is a personal brand.

Laura Wilhelm (05:17):

Yeah, I think this is a great place to start, obviously, even from that question. I think personal brand has become way more important in this day and age because of all these different ways that you can get yourself out in the market. So I think, especially when I first learned about personal branding when I was in college and what that meant, I originally was like, “Well, a brand is just, okay, I recognize a Nike logo. I recognize a Walmart.” Things like that. Well, what you don’t realize is that you as a person have a brand, and it really is a combination of your reputation, your personality, your core values, your professional experience, your online presence, your social media, your area of expertise, things, your skills, things that you focus on, things that you talk about and really beyond. So a personal brand is really you and how the world sees you from the outside looking in and making sure that you portray all those things about you in a way that is easy to consume.

(06:15):

It’s unique to you. It’s really your unique personal identifiers that make you unique and make you yourself. And personal brand really starts to come into play in the job market, which I won’t spoil anything. We’re going to get into that about why we’re talking about it today. But a personal brand is really how others see you and how you portray yourself and your unique set of skills and experiences.

Lori Cole (06:42):

So I was getting the personal brand and the elevator pitch confused. So your personal brand is more your professional identity and then your elevator pitch is more of that 30 second, what you would say in an elevator. Is that-

Laura Wilhelm (06:57):

Yeah, exactly. Is that right? Yeah. So your personal brand isn’t a 30 second, like here’s everything about me that you could possibly want to know. A personal brand is ongoing. It’s evolving. It’s unique to you. It’s constantly out there in the public. An elevator pitch, for those that don’t know, it does involve a lot of your personal brand, but an elevator pitch is truthfully, if you got stuck in an elevator with a CEO and you only had enough time, 30 seconds to tell someone about yourself, that’s what an elevator pitch is. And truthfully, a personal brand statement can really stem from an elevator pitch. So a lot of that goes hand in hand when you’re doing things. So I think really making sure that you understand that an elevator pitch is more selling yourself, your personal brand in a statement. I have 30 seconds to say who I am, what my personal brand is all about, and an elevator pitch selling yourself, your personal brand is your day-to-day who you are, how you’re portraying yourself to the public.

(07:53):

Elevator pitches, I have 30 seconds to get it all out there in a really clear and concise way. Your personal brand is always your way of life. It’s the way that you portray yourself to the entire world at all times.

Lori Cole (08:05):

That makes total sense. And I think we’re going to cover elevator pitch a little bit later here too. So Lori, why should I care about having a personal brand when I’m just looking for a job? Is that really necessary?

Laurie Ballow (08:21):

It’s absolutely necessary, Lori, because finding a job is a sales process. Whether you like it or not, it is a sales process. You are the product, but guess what? You’re also the marketer, right? So you’ve got to market yourself and present yourself in a way that is credible. You want to make sure you’re reflecting the skills that you bring to the table. You want to reflect what you do really well, what you care about, your why, and encapsulate all of this to differentiate yourself from others, right? You want to stand out in the crowd, but you want to stand out in the crowd for the right reasons. So you’re kind of in control about what you put out there and what you reflect, right? So you want to think about all the things that you do really well, make sure that you can communicate them, make sure your social media reflects that and not just your LinkedIn, like make sure you’re paying attention to what you’re putting out there on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or whatever, because it’s all part of your brand and it’s your professional and your personal brand tied into one, but guess what?

(09:34):

People often will refer to all those social media platforms to see who you are. They want to learn more. So be memorable for the right reasons, be credible, be visible. You want a presence out there online because you want people to be able to see who you are. And you’re going to use this brand in every aspect, from your resume to your interviews, your LinkedIn profile, networking events and so forth.

Lori Cole (10:05):

Laura, share with us some tips of how to create a personal brand that truly reflects who you are.

Laura Wilhelm (10:13):

Yeah, absolutely. Obviously, we’ve talked about what a personal brand is, what it means to you, but how do you build one? It’s all talk at this point, right? We got to make sure that we’re building it from scratch. And I think a lot of people, when they think of personal branding, like outside of company, they think of celebrities, politicians, things like that. Well, we’re no different, right? We just are using it for a different purpose. So I think a strong personal brand is describable, it’s specific, and it’s authentic, right? Don’t put something in your personal brand that sounds nice, but it doesn’t actually reflect who you are because it’s going to come out. Personal brand attributes can really ... It has to be things that are unique to you, your skills, your qualities, your characteristics. And the best way to start building it is to sit down and start thinking about your experiences, your motivations, your interests, and get feedback from others.

(11:04):

I think one of the biggest things that I did when I was trying to decide what is my unique thing, right? What’s my special sauce? What’s my X factor? What’s my thing that sets me apart from a salesperson who has the exact same resume and experience? What is my thing that makes me different and how can I use that to my advantage? And I’m going to steal from one of my professors and mentors, Dr. Janelle Wells, she was one of my professors in my master’s program. And we talked a lot about this and she called it, what’s your superpower? What is your thing that if it comes down to it, you can always fall back on and be like, “You know what? This is what makes me different.” And I think establishing that now and figuring out what that is can help build the rest of your personal brand around it.

(11:50):

You need to have that full pillar. And I think I asked for help. So I went to my mentors, I went to my family, I went to people that I trusted their opinion and their true opinion of me, their judgment of me. And I was like, “Hey, what do you think I’m good at? What do you think I need to work on? “ Those people that I trust with my personal and professional development, I ask for their honest feedback. A great way you could always look at past performance reviews, but figuring out what your strengths and weaknesses are, even if it’s a weakness, that’s something that you can build on. And I think we’re going to actually share a link to some of this for you as well in the resources widget. But one thing too is if there’s people that you admire, right? If there’s people out there that you’re like, “I really like their style.

(12:42):

I like the way they do things. I think that they’re doing things right and I want to be them one day.” Check out their personal brand. Look at their LinkedIn, look at their social media. When you Google them, what comes up, try to emulate that, try to be that, try to have your activities hit that same mark. So a lot of people think that they need to do this by themselves. You don’t. You can absolutely ask for help. You get other people involved. And this is a sales tactic, and of course I’m a salesperson, so I’m going to tell you, but ultimately the best salespeople steal from other salespeople when it comes to tactics and ideas. If you’re on the phone and you hear someone say something and you’re like, “Ooh, that sounded really good.” I’m going to use that next time I’m on the phone with someone versus using my normal go- to, how are you?

(13:34):

Do that with your personal brand. If you see something out there and you’re like, “I really like the way that person posts on their LinkedIn page.” Start emulating that. Start doing that. Take ideas from other people if you value them. It’s a great way to get started.

Lori Cole (13:47):

Yeah. It gives you a template. I mean, I see those people all the time where I think, “Oh, I want to be them when I grow up.” And they’re younger than I am in some cases, but there are just certain things about people that you think, “Ah, I want to emulate that.”

Laurie Ballow (14:09):

Also, if you’re stuck on what are your strengths? I mean, I think most of us have a general idea, but sometimes you need validation, right? So there are lots of assessments out there. Is it the DiSC profile, Myers-Briggs, CliftonStrengths is one that I’m really a fan of. I know we’ve used that within iHire. We’ve also used it with the mentoring group that I work with, and it gives you a language. It validates what you think you knew about yourself. It might open your eyes to some things that you didn’t necessarily think were your strengths, and then it gives you the language to use when you’re communicating verbally in your resume, in your interviews, and you’re going to communicate those things with more confidence because you have that validation, right? And again, to Laura’s point, talk to people that you work with, your family members and people who know you really well, because they can also validate what you’re really good at.

(15:02):

So don’t rely just on your own head and heart, seek outside of yourself to get that validation and put some things on paper. So that’s where we are right now. I’m sorry, what was that?

Laura Wilhelm (15:15):

And make sure you’re confident. If you hear it from multiple people that you’re a great communicator, then you’re competent when you tell people you’re a great communicator. And one thing I wanted to note too, Lori, I love that you brought up the different assessments you can take because you’re not alone. Learn this stuff about yourself. Make sure to continue to keep up with this too. Your personal brand is going to change. Your experiences change you, your work, your life, everything changes you as a human being and your personal brand is constantly evolving. I mean, I took my disc assessment when I was in college and I was a strong D off the charts, right? And then I took it again after my first job and it shifted substantially after I had that first real job out of college. So I think making sure to keep your finger on the pulse with your own personal brand is huge because it is evolving.

Laurie Ballow (16:05):

That’s a great point. Really good point.

Lori Cole (16:07):

And I like what you said, Laurie, about asking other people. Don’t think that you’re bothering other people because they do want to help you and you will be surprised at some of the things that come from your coworkers or come from your family that you’ve never thought those things about yourself, but they’re telling you, “Oh yes, you are very good at this. You’re very strong at this particular thing.”

Laurie Ballow (16:34):

That’s right. And in order to ... So that helps you to build confidence, but then you also have to think about examples that demonstrate those strengths, right? So if you’re going to say you have a strength or skill, make sure you have some scenarios to back them up. And I’ll talk about that a little bit more with the interview piece, but you have to think of it holistically. You’re thinking about these skills, but also how do those skills, how are they reflected in my life, in my professional life, my personal life? How do I actually exercise those skills? So when you go to write a personal brand statement, you’ve taken inventory on all these things that you do well. You also want to think about your why. Why do you do the things you do? How do you do them? What makes you unique?

(17:19):

Laura brought up a great point about your superpowers, your special sauce, and she likes to ... I’m going to steal this from you, Laura, because I know you like to use the fact that you are a mascot. That’s a really unique thing to be able to say. Very few of us can say we were a mascot in college, right? So that’s memorable. I know Lori introduced me as a Swiss Army knife. I’ve been called a Swiss Army knife. And that kind of sums up the fact that I am flexible. I’ve pivoted a lot in my role here at iHire that I’ve taken on lots of different roles, worn different hats and kind of moved as needed. So I use that term because it kind of paints that picture. So think about this. Think about what people have said about you and how can you use that in your personal brand statement.

(18:10):

If you’re not sure how to do it, don’t be shy. Use AI. Lori is our resident AI expert and she’s really good at sharing prompts. I’m not going to read the personal brand statement because you’re going to get these slides. You can read that later, but I will give you a little preview on the AI prompt. You’re going to tell it the skills that you have, your why, your value prop basically, and your goals. And you’re going to say, “I need your help creating a strong personal brand statement for my job search. Here’s a brief summary of my background and what makes me unique. Help me develop a one to three sentence personal brand statement that encapsulates these things.” So that’s how you’ll do it. It might take a few tries. A lot of times you don’t like what it wrote the first time. Maybe you didn’t prompt it right, but you can keep iterating and then you’ll get to where you want.

(19:03):

And you’re going to rewrite it anyway, but at least it gives you a structure and a starting point really helps you with some of that mental block you have sometimes.

Lori Cole (19:12):

Yeah, exactly. Laurie, if you don’t like the first time, tell it to do it again and do it again until ... And like Laura said, you can take little pieces or snippets from each one of those and borrow or steal those and put those into your own branding statement. And yeah, it’ll do it in a fraction of the time that it would take for you to just sit down with pen and paper and start putting this together.

Laurie Ballow (19:43):

But you’ll want to use your own words, right? You want to make sure you are injecting your own personality. So practice it. You want it to be authentic. You’re only going to sound authentic if you feel it, right? So you want to make sure that it’s your word, your language, even though AI might’ve written it, translate it a little bit so that it flows off your tongue and practice, practice, practice.

Lori Cole (20:11):

So Laura, after we have our personal branding statement, how can we start putting it to work?

Laura Wilhelm (20:18):

Yeah, absolutely. We’ve talked a lot about what is a personal brand, how to create a personal brand statement, how do you figure out what your personal brand is? Okay, well, let’s use it now. Let’s put it to work. I think the biggest thing that you can start doing is have it in your resume and cover letter and your materials that you’re using to get a job. I think the easiest place to start putting it is you have that little introductory paragraph in your resume, that little key skills section that you’re like, “What do I put in here?” I have a lot of skills, but what are my top skills? And I think those are great places to start plugging in your personal brand and everything about you. But like Lori mentioned, make sure that it is you, right? Don’t just put it because it sounds good.

(21:05):

If you really are a good communicator and you can back that up, put that you’re a good communicator. I think it’s one of those ones where you have to make sure that it really does truly feel like you and you’re confident and you can back it up and you can give context. I think putting your personal brand in your resume, there’s a lot of easy ways to do it, whether it’s that introductory summary paragraph or in that key skills section. But one of my favorite things that I think is overlooked quite a bit is a cover letter because a cover letter is where you can really, really evolve your resume. It’s really supposed to be an extension of your resume to give more true experiences. So make sure that you’re telling a story. If you’re going to say in your resume that you’re a good communicator and that it’s your superpower, that’s your thing that really defines you as a person.

(22:01):

When you write your cover letter, I hope to see a story in there about you using that skill to help your workplace, to get to a goal or to solve a problem. You need to make sure that you’re giving true stories and experiences that you’ve done so that they know that you’re not just saying it because it sounds nice, right? It’s real. It’s truly a thing about you. And I think it’s really easy to just say all these things, but you need to make sure that you’re backing it up. And then please, please, please make sure to ... And you should do this for every job. You should always change your resume and cover letter for every job that you apply for based on what their skills requirements are and do the same with your personal brand. If they talk a lot about in the job description that they need someone who is very adaptable, like it’s a startup where we need a very person who’s easy to adapt.

(22:59):

They might be working from home one day, the next day they work somewhere else and they’re totally as productive. It doesn’t matter. If adaptability is a huge part because they’re a startup or whatever, if you are an adaptable person and that’s one of your skills, make sure you highlight that versus something else. Make sure to match up what parts of your personal brand align with what the company needs. A lot of these hard skills can be taught over time from a company, but they really need someone who can match to fit the goals of what they need right then. And if it’s a startup, they need someone who could come in and just be random every day. So I think making sure you adapt your personal brand statement and your personal brand inside of your resume and cover letter to each job is just as important as including it at all.

(23:43):

Don’t just include it to include it. Make sure it has purpose.

Lori Cole (23:49):

And you’ve got to think about this whole thing as your marketing packet. That is your marketing packet that you’re using to market yourself to the employer so that you can get in front of the employer in the interview and then sell yourself. So it is a big sales and marketing job looking for a new career. So I think Lori, we have another poll question here. How confident are you in answering the common interview questions? Tell me about yourself.

Laurie Ballow (24:27):

Everyone’s favorite question.

Lori Cole (24:29):

It is everyone’s favorite question. So you guys, talk about your superpowers a little bit more because I really like the idea of that. Laura, you haven’t talked about being a mascot much, and I know that you have some background in that. So tell us about it.

Laura Wilhelm (24:46):

Yeah. I think you want your tell me about yourself to be truthful, authentic, and memorable. So really, when I start off my tell me about yourself, I don’t just tell people I was a college mascot, right? They’re going to remember that. Great. But why am I telling them that I was a college mascot? What did that mean for that specific job? When I was applying to work at the Tampa Bay Lightning and hockey, I told them right away that I was a division one college mascot at a university and it was a male mascot. And okay, but yeah, that’s cool. And everybody remembers that you were a mascot. That’s crazy and you’re weird. But why? Why do I care at the Tampa Bay Lightning that you were a mascot? Well, I use it to my advantage because I said that I was willing to do anything.

(25:33):

I’m willing to do anything to make sure that this company is successful. I was willing to be a male mascot at a division one college and work countless hours in a sweaty costume and love it and impact the experience of all of these fans for a school. And I’m willing to do the same level of commitment for the Tampa Bay Lightning. So if I’m willing to do that, can you imagine what I’m willing to do for you? So I think making sure that, yes, you talk about your unique identify, you tell them about yourself, but that it does come back to, okay, why are you telling me this cool thing about you? What’s the point of it? So making sure that it has a tie-in if you’re going to bring it up.

Lori Cole (26:17):

That’s an awesome thing. Yeah. Lori, I was just going to say, you did a very good job of tying in your Swiss Army Knight story.

Laurie Ballow (26:29):

It’s on brand.

Lori Cole (26:31):

Yeah. Okay.

Laurie Ballow (26:33):

So go ahead, Laurie. I don’t mean to step on your toes. No,

Lori Cole (26:36):

No, no. I was going to say, so the majority of people feel confident that they have a very good tell me about yourself answer. Is there any way that we can make that better?

Laurie Ballow (26:51):

Well, you’re going to incorporate your personal brand statement, right? I think since most are pretty confident about this, you understand that you want to kind of give your 30 second commercial about who you are, what you do, why you do it, what you’re good at, and not about your vacation and your number of kids and that sort of thing. So this is about your professional life and what you’re bringing to the table. Nothing wrong, however, with including some personality with that statement, which is why it needs to be very authentic. It needs to feel like you. Make sure that you are thinking about how you’ve used your strengths in your career. And one thing that I always tell people, I’ve been coaching this for many years, is before you go to an interview, think about five or six scenarios in your professional life where you really excelled, where you overcame obstacles, where you demonstrated your problem solving abilities, your creative solutions, your tenacity, your communication skills, bringing people together, motivating teams.

(28:00):

Think about those things. And if you think of five or six scenarios, how you excelled in those areas and what you did to be successful, you’re going to be able to answer just about any question that they ask you, right? Because it’s all kind of circling around the same sorts of things. So your adaptability, as Laura said, your ability to pivot those kinds of things. So make sure you’re thinking about those well in advance and then you can say, “Okay, what part of my personal brand allowed me to achieve that success and speak to that.” So you’re going to share your strengths in achieving these goals and tell me about a time that you handled a difficult customer or a time that you had competing priorities. This is an opportunity to talk about your communication skills, your diplomacy, that kind of thing, your organization, so forth.

(29:04):

You can also use your personal brand to ask questions at the end. You can kind of weave in what you care about, your values. Perhaps you’ll say, “I was involved, I’m very heavily involved in a mentoring group in my community. I see that you have an internal mentoring program. Can you tell me more about that? “ Or, “I do a lot of volunteer work in my community.” I see that you guys do a lot of volunteer work or you have a lot of fundraisers or I too am involved with American Cancer Society. Tell me more about what you guys do with that. Now you are showing alignment and you’re showing intelligent questions. You did your homework. Always prepare lots of questions because what if they already answered that, right? You want to make sure that you have a good bank of questions because they’re going to be pretty thorough most of the time and you want to show that you actually dug in and did your homework Because nobody wants you to say, “Nope, no more questions. Thank you.” Right? Yeah,

Lori Cole (30:05):

That’s the worst.

Laurie Ballow (30:08):

I think that’s a good opportunity. But just again, I can’t say it enough. If you’re going to include skills and strengths and superpowers in your personal brand statement, make sure that you can show them the money. Make sure you have demonstrated examples to show that you really can do that in the workplace.

Lori Cole (30:29):

And Laurie, you were talking about those tell me about a time questions. Those are behavioral interview questions. And anybody that thinks they might be going on an interview should definitely Google the behavioral interview questions. We also have resources for that in our resource center about what kind of questions you may encounter so that you can decide what kind of stories you want to have in your back pocket so that you can answer those questions and not answer every one of them with different variations of the same story. I’ve been in interviews like that before where it’s like, okay, so we’re talking about this again. Did you do anything else at that company that you could ... Are there different stories that maybe you could bring in and tell us what you did at that company? So it’s really great to be prepared for those behavioral interviews because I think those are the trickiest ones of all.

(31:31):

And if you’ve got those stories made up, you should be feeling confident and good to go. All right. Now, Laura, I’ve witnessed your networking skills when we’ve attended conferences before, and I know that you’re a real pro. Tell us how to use our personal brand when we’re networking.

Laura Wilhelm (31:56):

Absolutely. And this is my favorite slide. I do love networking. I love a good conference. I like to be face-to-face in front of people. I love a webinar, don’t get me wrong, this is fantastic, but I do like that interpersonal communication too. And this is something that goes beyond ... It also enhances your personal brand. So while you’re networking, you’re also enhancing your personal brand out into the public. So you’re making it a reality versus just saying, “Here’s my personal brand.” This is starting to, okay, now I’m actually putting it into action. And I think we talked about this earlier, right? And you can refer to it a few different ways, 30 second commercial, your elevator pitch. It’s all really the same thing, but it’s basically, I have 30 seconds to tell someone about myself and that’s it, to get it out in the open.

(32:45):

And I think a great way to start is by transforming it from your personal brand statement. So we already talked about building that in AI and using your own words and pulling that in. Well, your elevator pitch, your 32nd commercial, you’re telling me about yourself is just an extension of your personal brand statement. It’s just taking it to a new level. And you really need to ensure that if you’re going to say something about your personal brand, that it is communicated consistently. So it’s the same across all different platforms and profiles that you might have. If you say that part of your personal brand is you really are involved in volunteering, right? You volunteer at animal shelters. It’s a huge part of your personal brand. Make sure that people see that in action across all of your platforms. It’s not just something that you say.

(33:36):

It needs to be something that, number one, is authentic to you and is consistent across all of your different avenues. It’s not just something, “Oh, I only do that because I was told that.” It shouldn’t be a check the box activity. It’s not something that, “Oh, this sounds good, so I’m going to do it.” It really needs to truly mean something to you in order for it to have the impact that it needs. And then anything that doesn’t align with your personal brand should be removed. And that’s across all platforms. Even if it’s everything should be private except your LinkedIn, that’s one thing to note. Everything should be private accept your LinkedIn. But if for some reason it isn’t, even if it is, anything that is, they can find it. So it’s the internet, you can find anything now. So make sure that you remove anything that is not aligned with your personal brand, because that’s where people are going to look.

(34:23):

After you get through some of these stages, the next thing they’re going to do is look you up on Google and then LinkedIn and be like, “Okay, who is this person really in the back?” So it’s great to say all these things. We also have to reflect them in your day-to-day life and the way you do things. And networking is an extension of that. So if you’re going to tell someone at a networking event, your personal brand statement, and then you go to the next person and say something different, that is already hindering your personal brand. You need to make sure that it’s consistent across the market because it’s going to get out there. News will spread about you quicker than you realize. And in some fields, it’s even faster because they’re smaller fields. So make sure that you’re consistent, make sure that you’re bringing it up and make sure you’re having connections with people.

(35:09):

I think one of the biggest things with networking is it is really your first impression with certain people and you don’t know what it’s going to end up being. Make sure that you also listen to them. You hear them out and you ask questions. It’s almost a mini interview when you’re networking, but it’s just a little mini interview for a friend. It’s not an interview for a job. It’s more of a, this is a mini interview to see if we can be connected.

Laurie Ballow (35:36):

You know what I always do, Laura, because people are so intimidated by the word networking and the thought of networking events. Some people do it naturally. The three of us, it happens to be a skill that we have and it’s something we love, but an awful lot of people don’t love it the way we do. And it can, even for those of us who love it, going into a room, if you’re going by yourself and you’re just going to meet people, that can be super intimidating. So to your point, what I always do is say, “I’m going to learn something.” The goal is to learn something. Yes, I’m going to be selling myself along the way, but I don’t feel this pressure to close the deal. I’m not necessarily thinking it’s all about me. Yes, I’m going to be prepared and know what I want to say when somebody asks me a question, but my goal is to ask others questions and learn.

(36:18):

It might just be about where to have dinner tonight, right? About the good restaurants or what’s this town known for or tell me more about your company. I’m really interested in what that company does. I’ve heard of it, but I’m not really familiar. Or guess what? I know somebody who’s looking for work in that area, these kinds of things because I often leave with connections in my head of, “Okay, it didn’t benefit me personally, but I know lots of people that I can connect as a result of these conversations.” So if you go in thinking you’re going to learn something, it takes a little of that pressure off of feeling like it’s all about you.

Lori Cole (36:57):

Absolutely right. Lori, your personal brand and your reputation and your personality, recap all of this for us and tell us where we go next with all of this.

Laurie Ballow (37:15):

Well, okay. So we just reviewed a whole bunch of things. What is a personal brand? It’s that combination of reputation, personality, values, your online presence and the experience you’ve had. You want to reflect on all of this, your skills, experiences, get feedback from others. Don’t just rely on what’s in your own head, but hear from those you love, hear from those that you work with, take assessments and gather all this data to really come up with what feels like true that you can confidently communicate. You’re going to incorporate all of this into your resume and cover letter. Think of your cover letter as your 30 second commercial and your resume for that matter. I’m sorry, both of them, your resume and cover letter or your 30 second commercial. I was thinking ahead for a second. I wanted to note that that top half of your resume is the most important real estate, right?

(38:07):

That’s what you get in 30 seconds. Really, most people are only going to look at it for six seconds. So you want to make sure you’re front loading your personal brand into that top really third of page one. You’re going to use your personal brand to answer questions and demonstrate your skills in an interview and then prepare an elevator pitch based on all of this and practice, practice, practice, practice in front of a mirror, practice in front of folks at home or your coworkers. Make sure that you are also mimicking all of this in your online presence, especially LinkedIn.

Lori Cole (38:44):

Absolutely. All right. Let’s go to our Q&A now. First question, do you have any suggestions to make your brand statement come across more natural during an interview?

Laura Wilhelm (39:01):

I think Lori just mentioned it, but you got to practice. And again, goes back to the same thing. Make sure it’s truly about you. I think when you ... AI is great and we’ve mentioned it, right? But make sure that if they use a word that you’ve never said in your whole life, you probably should use a different variation of that word. If it’s not part of your normal way of talking, then it definitely shouldn’t be ... I don’t use the word startled at all. I never am like, “Oh, that startled me.” I’m not going to use that word even though it wouldn’t come up in a personal brand statement, hopefully. But in that case, it’s not something that would naturally roll off the tongue for me. So you always have to make sure that however you do this, you have to practice it and also make sure that you’re using jargon that is normal to you in your daily speech because it will come off more natural.

(39:55):

But I have multiple times practice things in the mirror or in front of my parents or my friends. And in sales, you role play a lot. Role play with somebody like walk up and

(40:05):

Pretend that they’re asking you to tell me about yourself and just go for it. I think practice is huge and it’s overlooked sometimes when you get out of ... When you get to certain stages of your professional career, you’re like, “Why do I need to practice it?” You should always be practicing things like this before you take it. Practice makes perfect, right? So I think really going over it multiple times is a great idea.

Laurie Ballow (40:28):

You know what else you can do? You can go into Zoom and use your camera like you’re looking at your backgrounds and you can see yourself on camera and that way you’re looking at yourself as if you’re in an interview.

Laura Wilhelm (40:41):

Yeah, that’s a great point. That’s a great idea.

Lori Cole (40:45):

So what are some other AI prompts that could help me build my personal brand statement? Well, if you guys don’t mind, I’ll take this one, but I would say go to your tool of choice, whether it is ChatGPT or Perplexity or Claude or Gemini and just you can ask it that question. “What should I ask you? Write a prompt that will allow you to help me write a personal brand and it will come up with a great prompt. And then you can say,” Ask me questions along the way. “And it will prompt you with some questions so that you can end up with this personal branding statement. And if it is too formal and structured, which is the way that some of these AI tools tend to write, you can say,” Hey, make it more casual, make it more conversational and that will really help you to get to the right place if you’re using AI to do this.

(41:52):

“What are some ways to improve your online presence?

Laurie Ballow (42:00):

Get involved on LinkedIn, join groups, comment, share content. I think sometimes people don’t participate because they don’t want to think of what to say or think of what to create. You don’t necessarily have to be the creator, but you can respond to others and participate, participate in these conversations, right? If you are involved in some community work, you’re on a board, you can include some of that in your profile so people can see other things that you do other than just your job and your resume kind of stuff. And also talk about your interests in your personal platforms. You can also share some of your activity. If you Google yourself, that’s going to give you some insights into what somebody will see if they want to really find out who you are and what makes you tick.

Lori Cole (42:55):

And as Laura said earlier, lock down those non-professional accounts. Lock down your Facebook and your Instagram and all of the places where employers probably shouldn’t see some of the personal things that you share, but make sure that your LinkedIn account is wide open so that those employers can see that because they will look. What are some ways to make your personal brand really unique and memorable?

Laura Wilhelm (43:34):

I think it needs to have a unique identifier. I know I’ve already mentioned what mine is, right? Make it something that is really unique to you, your life, your experiences, whether that’s, “Oh, I was raised in a military kid, or I lived in Japan for two years,” or something. Make sure it’s something that if someone saw your face again, they’d remember that specific ... Even if they don’t remember your name, they’ll remember that one thing about you that was unique to you. So it can be anything, but make sure whatever that one thing is, it does tie back to your personal brand. If your unique identifier is that you have a dog named Pork Chop, okay, that’s great, but how is your dog being named Pork Chop going to apply your personal brand? So things like that, you can really use whatever you want, but you have to make sure it pulls back into the true purpose of your personal brand, which is selling yourself, which is getting yourself out there in the market.

(44:35):

So find that thing about you that’s unique. And again, you can ask for help with this, right? You can ask people like, “I can’t figure out what my unique thing is.” Maybe I haven’t had one of those cool experiences, or maybe I haven’t lived abroad, or maybe I haven’t done this or that, or maybe I have done some things, but I don’t know how to tie it back into my brand statement. You can ask for help, you can ask AI. I mean, there’s all these ways that you can do things, but establishing what that unique thing is first, it makes it a little bit easier to backtrack and pull it into your brand.

Laurie Ballow (45:12):

I’ll share a quick story here. Lori came up for the company picnic last week and stayed with me and she brought me a little gift. I care deeply about the environment, right? That is part of my personal brand. It doesn’t have to do with my job, but I will say I think it helped to get this job because prior I saved the company 66% on paper costs by figuring out we don’t need paper anymore. Why are we producing paper in triplicate? So this is my personal brand always has been I pick out the recyclables from the trash can and put them in the right place and that sort of thing. So anyway, Lori comes with a nice environmentally friendly gift and hands it to me and says, “It’s your brand.” And of course, Lori’s title is brand ambassador. So she’s very tuned in. But anyway, she was like, “It’s right on brand for you.”

(46:03):

And I was like, “Yes, yes, it is.” So thank you. And I love it.

Lori Cole (46:09):

Thank you. I’m glad you like it. So is a cover letter through HRIA system ... Let me see. Is a cover letter run through like an applicant tracking system? Is it just like your resume? So I understand what this person is asking. So this person is saying, “Is your cover letter going through the applicant tracking system the same as your resume?”

Laurie Ballow (46:37):

And yes, usually it is. Not always, but usually it is. So you want to assume that it’s going to be so that you include the keywords and so forth that are necessary.

Lori Cole (46:49):

How important are volunteer and mentoring activities that are not job related to your personal brand?

Laura Wilhelm (47:00):

I would say very important because it’s what you’re doing with your spare time. So I think true professional work experience is great because it’s what you do day to day, all day. Work experiences is fantastic, but a lot of your unique identifiers are going to be what you do outside of your nine to five. A lot of your unique things that someone is actually a little bit more interested in when it comes to those personality hires is what do you do in your spare time? Are you someone that I want to spend 10 hours almost a day with? I spend more time with you than I do with my spouse or my kid. These are those things that like, I want to know these things about a person. What do they do in their spare time because it helps align with how you will be in your work time, right?

(47:52):

What’s important to you? So I think it’s just as important how you portray yourself outside of your normal nine to five.

Laurie Ballow (48:01):

Also can speak to some of your skills, right? So you might be demonstrating skills while you’re doing those activities. And it also shows alignment because most of us now want to work for a company whose values and mission align with our own, right? And by the same token, employers value candidates whose missions and values align with their own. So it can really go a long way, I think, to showing alignment and shows that you’re passionate about something.

Lori Cole (48:35):

This will be our last question. So why would we use AI if we’re rewriting our brand statement anyway? So I would say if you are comfortable, if you’re a great writer and you can rewrite it without any outside help, then that’s wonderful. Then we’re not recommending that those folks use AI, but there are an awful lot of us out here that are not natural writers. So getting that little extra boost from AI and the ideas that come from it that maybe you would’ve never thought of if you were just writing it on your own, that’s the little extra something that AI can help with if you’re not a natural writer.

Laura Wilhelm (49:25):

Yeah. I just think it’s a great starting point. I was always afraid, even with assignments in college, I was like, I had this 10 page paper or whatever and I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I don’t even know where to start with this. 10 pages, it’s forever. I’m never going to be able to write 10 pages.” But once you do that first paragraph, it’s like, “Okay, now I know what I’m doing for the rest of this thing.” I can fill it in. So I think AI shouldn’t be replacing you. That’s not the point. But for a lot of people, it’s hard to have that kickstart of, what do I even have my first word be? What’s my first word of this statement going to be? Do I say hi? I mean, what is it? So I think it’s a great way to get yourself started if you’re not comfortable.

(50:07):

If you’re comfortable doing it, don’t. I mean, sometimes I feel pretty good about posting on my own social media because it’s my people, but I don’t feel super comfortable sending marketing emails. I don’t consider myself that creative with subject lines, things like that. I will put them into AI because they help me think of things a different way. So I think it’s a great starting point for people that are a little nervous or just not super comfortable or wordsmiths, right? It’s just a great way to get started, but if you feel comfortable, you should go for it.

Lori Cole (50:39):

Yeah, I totally agree.

Laura Wilhelm (50:41):

Awesome.

Lori Cole (50:42):

All right. Well, Laurie and Laura, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate you being here. Also appreciate everybody out in the webinar audience. Thank you for all of your questions. Those were just great. Keep an eye on your inbox tomorrow because we will be sending you an on-demand recording of this and we will be in touch soon with a new invitation to our next premium member webinar. If you have any questions, you can always reach out to us and we hope you have a wonderful day. Thanks again, Laurie and Laura.

Laurie Ballow (51:19):

Thank you. Thanks. It was awesome to be here. Really fun.