Building Your Personal Brand
Building Your Personal Brand
Making your personal website…In today’s competitive job market, you need to seize every opportunity you can to single yourself out from the herd. One of the ways to do that is by building your own personal brand and creating a personal website will help you to do just that.
Accomplishing the following two steps will certainly get you started on building your personal brand and achieving your career goals:
Step 1: Choose a website hosting company. Listed below are several companies that offer you free services to help you create and build your own personal website:
https://www.websitebuilder.com/
In order to promote your personal website effectively, developing the following 3 pages is critical to your success:
Page 1 – Homepage/The “ me” page. It’s the first thing your visitors are going to see, so it should reflect who you are. The background should be a nice photo that represents your personality and/or hobbies you like to do.
For example, use a photo of a favorite place you like to visit or perhaps one of your hometown. Select a photo that will show a little about who you are and add a little flavor.
Next, add a photo of you. Since this is going to be a first impression, let’s make it a good one. If you are looking for a job in a field like marketing or graphic design, where business casual is the norm, then make sure your photo reflects that. Also, make sure you are smiling. Everyone looks better when they smile.
And finally, include a brief description about yourself, four or five lines that describe who you are and your career goals.
Page 2 – Your resume. If you already have a great resume, then just copy and paste it on the page. This is also an opportunity to revise your resume, if necessary.
Conventional wisdom says that your resume should not be more the two pages. If, for example, you have a 6+ page resume, consider condensing it down to 3 pages or less. In today’s fast-paced workplace, brevity, keywords, and specific accomplishments usually carry the most weight with human resources personnel than densely written resumes.
Also, create hyperlinks to all the companies you have worked for in the past so that potential employers can easily access them.
Page 3 – Your cover letter. A good cover letter highlights your professional accomplishments, your unique skill sets, and your career goals. Also include the types of position(s) that interests you and what makes you an attractive candidate for said positions. Keep in mind that this information will be posted on your website, available to any potential employer/human resource personnel visiting your website.
Besides these 3 key pages, you can also do more. Remember this whole site is about promoting you, letting employers know you are ready for business.
So, if you are on a career path that needs portfolios, make sure you post them to this site. If you have hobbies, include them. Be creative. Target your primary audience – potential employers. Remember, you’re trying to sell yourself, so make sure everything you put on this site is work appropriate.
In addition, don’t forget to add your social media links – such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Companies will be checking them anyways. If you have not done so already, clean up all the drunken late night and party pics. You always want to present the best possible image online and in person!
