Your professional brand is the image portrayed to hiring managers and other professionals. It is important to build and maintain your professional brand as it not only helps you find a new job but helps you to excel in your current profession or position. Whether you are a freelance graphic designer or a CEO of a large corporation, others notice your brand and keep it in mind. This helps you to further your career and reach your top career goals. Here are some things to know about working on your professional brand.


Find Out What Your Brand Is


Just about everyone has a brand, even if right now it is more of a personal brand. The majority of people nowadays are using social media, which is the primary source for branding yourself online. For a professional brand, try entering your name in a search engine and see what the top results are. These are your brand. Perhaps you have articles about recent accomplishments, books you have written, or profiles on LinkedIn and Google+. If you have a blog, that is bound to show up within the first few results as well. This is the information a prospective employer is going to find if they perform a search on your name.


Personal Versus Professional Brand


While it is great to have a personal brand, you should be keeping your personal life out of your professional brand. The hiring manager isn’t as interested in what you did this past weekend as what your professional strengths and accomplishments are. Your career, aspirations and goals should be the building blocks and the focus for your professional brand. For searching purposes, make your personal social media profiles private and separate from professional ones.


Building Your Brand


If your professional brand is not quite up to par, there are many things you can do. First of all, consider having a blog and website for your brand. This helps more professional-related information show up for your brand as opposed to personal information about your life. The blog should be relevant to the type of career you want or industry you specialize in. If you run a freelance or small business, start a website for that business and work on business social media, like Google+, LinkedIn and business Twitter and Facebook pages. You should also have a VisualCV, which is an online resume to share with employers as opposed to an attachment you have to email them.


Start now on building your professional brand as soon as you decide what you want your brand to portray. It helps with your job search and can even cause potential employers or clients come to you.


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