Who Controls Your Personal Brand? You or Your Employer?

There's an interesting phenomenon occurring these days when it comes to the idea of "employees as brand ambassadors." With social becoming increasingly more important to most corporations, there is a lot of discussion about how to use employees and their personal social media accounts to help promote the company and its brand.

 What often gets lost in all that discussion, because on the surface it sounds fairly harmless, is that if you as the employee are not careful, your own personal "brand" can get lost or sacrificed for that of the company.

 On top of just the social media aspect, after many of my client members come on board with their new corporations, a lot of them are finding that these organizations have internal staff devoted to building their bios and to shaping how they are "introduced" to the global marketplace. As a result, the company ends up shaping the personal brands of these employees, writing the bio, taking over their LinkedIn profiles, etc.

I can't tell you how many LinkedIn profile summaries and job descriptions (or what are supposed to be job descriptions) I've come across that are really advertisements for the company, not the actual person whose profile it is that I am reading.

So I walk away with very little knowledge of the person and annoyed by the "corporate speak." (Honestly, it's a bit like putting up a company billboard in your front lawn.)

Caution: Don't hand over how you are presented and defined.

It may seem harmless enough at first, but with LinkedIn in particular playing a more prominent role in career progression, it's important you don't lose control over what makes you unique. To help with that, starting last year, we began offering several "Brand Ambassador" options, all of which are designed to help you stay on target with this phase of your career management, as well as in control of how you are shaping your career.

Here are a few of them: Your Brand Ambassadorship Is Yours to Define

• Customized Bio Design:
  • Click here to order a custom bio design with Stephen $375.
• PowerPoint Presentation Design:
  • Lately we've been having more and more of our client members request PowerPoint presentations that serve as additional marketing pieces beyond just the bio. I've seen them used as part of speaking engagements, team introductions, with industry association meetings, etc. Click here to order a custom PowerPoint Presentation Design $695.
• Bio Update with PowerPoint Presentation Design:
  • We've put the two together here with the Bio & PowerPoint design for just $879 (almost a $200 savings).

Of course, you can also always take advantage of our free 15-minute phone/Skype consult with me. To book yours today, simply click on the calendar image below, and pick the date/time that works best for you in your time zone:
  The point is to make your career management simple, targeted, and certain.

--About Stephen----

Stephen Van Vreede is not your average IT/technical résumé writer. He provides career strategy and concierge job search solutions for senior (15+ years) (ITtechExec) and up-and-coming (NoddlePlace) (5-15 years) tech and technical operations leaders. Stephen and his team focus on building simplified, targeted, and certain career move campaigns, be it an external search or an internal promotion. He is co-author of UNcommon with career development leader Brian Tracy (out June 11, 2015). Contact Stephen directly at Stephen@ittechexec.com or send him an invite at https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenvanvreede. To see whether Stephen and his team are a good fit for you, take their free (and anonymous) 1-minute compatibility quiz, Is the ITtechExec Approach a Good Match for You? Also, feel free to take his complimentary resume self-assessment quiz, How Certain Can You Be About Your Technical Resume? You might be surprised by what you find out!