Personal Branding Pages for Your Resume

Most people have very incorrect ideas about branding. It has nothing to do with advertising, logos, slogans, or clever marketing tricks. Branding is the act of sharing brand principles with a target audience. We, at CV writing company Resumeble, know that a brand is a set of principles. For example, Volvo’s brand principles are “Safety” and “Quality luxury cars” and “Reliable commercial vehicles.” For example, the Smart brand is “Technological innovation” and “Safety through clever technology” and “Energy efficiency.” They share their brand principles in everything they do, and they do it so well that they are able to present all their values behind a symbol (logo). Adding branding to your resume simply means defining your principles and making sure your target audience absorbs those principles N.B your target audience is your future employer, who may be a business manager, but is most likely a HR staff member.

 

What Are You All About?

 

What’s your whole deal? Why are you so special? What are you going to bring that other people are not? The frustrated voice inside you probably thinks, “I have qualifications, experience, and I am a good employee, and that should be enough.” But the same is true for the other 200 applicants for the job you just applied for. That is why branding is so important, you need brand principles and you need to communicate them to the employer.

 

For example, did you know that most bosses/managers have a big pet peeve that bothers them more than they let on. The biggest pet peeve is people who call in sick (throwing a sickie). One of the most underrated brand principles is never having days off. You may look at the losers who have never missed a day of school or work, and you may ask yourself if they even have a social life. Yet, these are the people who get jobs. The people who can brag that they have had XX years in a job and have never had a sick day are the people who get jobs. Present such a brand principle to a frustrated-pet-peeved employer, and the job is yours.

 

Adding a Picture is a Good Idea

 

Opinion seems to be divided with regards to if people should attach photo images of themselves to their CVs, resumes, and applications. The weight of opinion seems to be that people shouldn't add images, but people who add images are able to sculpt their brand image far easier than people who do not add images.

 

If you are not sure which side of the fence you should sit upon, then try branding your resume and adding a photo. If you start receiving far more job interview offers, then you know that the image works.

 

Your aim is to echo whatever brand principles you have written. Remember that people judge people by their cover because nobody has time to get to know everybody they meet (or don't meet), so make sure your outward appearance matches your brand principles. If you have said that you are reliable and polite, then put yourself in a collared piece of clothing with the top button done up, and have your hair looking conservative and lovely. Have your hair wild looking wild or highly styled if you said you were very creative. If you said you are friendly and get along with anybody, then make sure you are smiling a little bit in your photo.