Personal Branding – What does your digital professional shopfront say about you?

Having a compelling professional profile – what is in it for you?

Not so long ago your resume was the only document that you could use to sell your professional capabilities, experience and skills. When you were looking for a new job or work opportunity, you updated your resume and crossed your fingers hoping to get a call from the prospective employer for an interview.

Fast forward to 2018. Your resume still plays an important role in reflecting your professional capabilities. But there are now infinite digital platforms you can use to build your professional profile as well.

What does your current digital shopfront say about you?

There are so many ways to get in front of reputable companies online. Alongside creating a compelling resume, you need to ensure your LinkedIn profile articulately reflects your skills, experience and core competencies.

You can further improve your “digital shop front” by building a professional presence online, contributing to relevant and reputable digital forums.

There are so many benefits to proactively building your professional profile.  Obviously one of the main benefits is to improve your chances of securing work with reputable companies.

Here are some other benefits of building a comprehensive professional profile:

1. You will be more visible within your company. That means improved professional connections with others in your company. This can lead to greater work satisfaction, sharing and brainstorming ideas with like minded people.  Greater visibility can also lead to access to new and interesting work opportunities and roles within your company
2. You will be connected with more opportunities. LinkedIn plays a pivotal role in building your professional profile. With a fully optimised profile you will gain access to a higher quality professional network. With careful keyword and content curation, you are also more likely to hear about more work opportunities from prospective employers and recruitment consultants.
3. Your reputation will improve. When people look you up, they will be impressed! Building quality content on a range of digital platforms improves your reputation and credibility, before you even meet relevant people face to face.
4. You will make more money. Freelancer or gig economy enthusiast? Neglecting your digital professional profile is like opening a store with nothing displayed in your windows. Outdated digital content about your career history, skills and experience harms your reputation.

Don’t make people guess what you have to offer – make it categorically clear what you are about and what value you can offer

Tips for Talented Individuals – Building and optimising your digital professional profile

Many of you lack the confidence to build their digital professional profile. Some of you worry you will need to dig deep into your pockets to make your professional profile shine. This is not necessarily the case.

Whilst there are services available to assist you to build your professional profile (like me!), you can steadily build your professional profile yourself with a little time and consistency in your profile building efforts.

I am VERY aware that taking the time to proactively work on your professional profile is not likely to be on the top of your TO DO list – but it should be. Of course I am very happy to help you (click here to get in touch) if you are time poor or just need a little help to draw out your skills and core competencies and devise the right strategy for your sector and role type.

Alternatively put aside say 45 minutes a week for a few weeks to update your various digital assets (ie your Linkedin account, contribution to relevant digital forum discussions, enhancing your personal website etc).  You will make a dramatic and invaluable improvement to your digital professional profile. Check out my tips here for the key digital assets you should update.

Tips for talented individuals to grow your professional profile

Here are some actions you can take today (not tomorrow, next week or in a couple of months), to improve your professional profile:

1. Update your LinkedIn profile (this is a no brainer). Your LinkedIn profile should be an ever changing reflection of your skills, experience, core competencies and contributions to your sector
2. Check out who else in your company is passionate about “X”  – reach out, go and have a coffee and learn a little more about them. This one small step in proactivity will most certainly start to build your network. It will also allow you to connect meaningfully with someone else in your industry/sector
3. Take a look at one of the new gig economy websites. See how people are positioning themselves and articulating their unique value proposition. Could you take inspiration from the profiles that you review? If there are elements of other profiles you like, incorporate those elements into your own digital profile approach too
4. Research the most reputable online forums for your industry sector or skill set. Start contributing to these forums. Generously offering value to others by contributing to conversations. Over time your reputation will build and grow. You will most certainly make new connections and your digital shop front will reflect your professional input, influence and contribution

Tips for those looking for talent

1. When searching for talented individuals to join your company, see how active they are in your industry. Can you see evidence of them contributing to relevant digital forums? Does their  LinkedIn profile articulately reflect their skills, experience and key achievements?
2. Regularly review internal systems that house information about existing employee skill sets. There may well be talented people within your company who would be great for a specific project – rather than looking outwards for new talent immediately, consider the possibility of promoting from within

Building your professional reputation online is essential. You can no longer rely on your resume alone. Use the many digital platforms available to improve your “online shop front”. You most certainly want window shoppers to stop by and spend a little time seeing what you have to offer.

Need some help updating your resume, LinkedIn profile, personal website or other professional branding assets? Get in touch.

Don’t hesitate to reach out to me if I can assist you to improve your digital professional profile. Whether you need a full digital professional profile report with detailed recommendations or just a few hints and tips, I would love to help you.