Personal Branding Archives - Engineering Management Institute

This is a blog by Jeff Perry, MBA

Personal branding is getting more and more attention as a piece of building our careers, yet many people ignore it or do not even know what it is. Whether you do it intentionally or not, you are putting off a personal brand — but is it the one that you want to have?

Let us dive deeper into how you can take charge and help others perceive you in the way you want to be known.

What Is a Personal Brand?

Put simply, a personal brand is how you promote yourself. It’s the amount of “who you are” that you allow the world to see. It’s your opportunity to tell your story and differentiate yourself from others.

An easy way to think about a personal brand is to imagine a simple Venn diagram. In one circle are all of the attributes, skills, personality traits, interests, and experiences that you have. In the other circle are all of the ways you show that to other people — online, in a resume, on LinkedIn, personal websites, and more. The intersection of the two circles is your personal brand — how much people actually see of who you truly are.

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.