Why Is Selling Something Easier than Selling Yourself?

In an increasingly competitive job market, it is important to stand out from the crowd and be noticed by recruiters. Famous brands such as Apple, Nike, or Tesla are immediately recognisable, and carry with them a promise of product quality and consumer expectation. The same is true of personal branding. Prospective employees are selling a ‘product’ (themselves) to a ‘consumer’ (the company).

Building a personal brand is often much more difficult than selling a physical product. This is because it can be difficult to quantify features of your personality that will make you look good to an employer. Your personality is much more than these details, but to impress in that key job interview you will need to sell yourself, and this means creating a ‘brand’ version of you which will make it easier to market yourself and get that dream job.

One of the biggest challenges of personal branding is the inability to separate who you are as a person, and who you are as a brand. In fact, the term ‘brand’ can often be an alien concept to many people when applied to themselves. In order to sell yourself well, think of the best features of your personality. What do you excel at? What strengths make you the best candidate for the job?Answering these questions is the first step to creating a successful personal brand.

Employers are not merely looking for facts about you. A unique selling point is telling a good story, something that shows how you can be of value as an employee. Examples include a graduate who was looking for a PR role, and who put down that she had real experience of handling PR crises for McDonalds. Focusing on social media in creating your persona brand is a must. According to research, 92% of companies are using social media as part of their talent strategy, with 3 out of 4 hiring managers looking up a candidate’s social media profile. Key platforms include LinkedIn, but also Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

When you portray a professional and positive image, you are more likely to create a good impression in the eyes of employers. CareerBuilder.com has conducted several surveys and found that 37% of employers use social media as a screening process, and that nearly a third of companies use social media to evaluate you as a person. They also found that nearly a third of hiring managers found positive information online that convinced them to offer the job to that candidate. This is where a good personal brand is vital. Do it right and you will stand out enough to get the attention of prospective employers.

Adam Watson