This is a guest blog by Jamie Buck
In this article, I’d like to discuss how I stumbled onto the path of personal branding by identifying my area of expertise. By sharing this story, I hope you are able to take a few shortcuts to finding your own path to personal branding.
First, why are personal branding and expertise important?
- Personal branding is a way to differentiate yourself from the crowd, a time-tested cornerstone of career development. Additionally, it invites conversation with like-minded folks.
- Developing expertise is essential to personal branding. It may be subjective but can be seen as a skill that adds additional value. You may ask, don’t we all have expertise? Well, yes and no. To the outside world, a discipline (such as engineering) may be seen to have a level of expertise, but within the bounds of that discipline, at best, it can be a level playing field unless you actively build your expertise.
[Read more…] about Overcoming Resistance When Developing Your Personal Brand
In episode 204 of The Engineering Career Coach, I will be answering some questions that we received from our listeners about career development and goal setting, specifically on leveraging accomplishments and about how to show your company that you are ready for an engineering management position.
1. Be unprepared…know the role you are interviewing for , basics about the company, their products (a general understanding is sufficient) and as much info about the interviewers as you can get (most of this information can be found on social media). I heard the story of a candidate interviewing with General Mills and was asked what his favourite General Mills product was. He knew they made cereal, so he named one of his favourites…Raisin Bran….a Post or Kellogg’s product, not General Mills.
