The Importance of Having a Brand: "Whether you like it or not, people have thoughts about you and that is part of your brand...a brand is how you differentiate yourself from other humans."

— Janice Chaka [00:00:19 → 00:00:26]

Crafting a Personal Brand as an Introvert: "Crafting a compelling and authentic personal brand as an introvert can help you stand out from the competition. It highlights your unique strengths, skills, personality traits, making it easier for potential employers or people that you know to see what makes you a valuable candidate."

— Janice Chaka [00:01:05 → 00:01:23]

The Importance of Creating a Personal Brand: "Creating a personal brand allows you to showcase your unique abilities. It could be deep thinking, it could be attention to detail, it could be empathy. Emphasizing these strengths demonstrates how you can bring your own fresh perspective and valuable contributions to potential employers."

— Janice Chaka [00:02:02 → 00:02:27]

Building a Professional Network: "Part of building a brand is building a professional network. And to be fair, having a strong personal brand will attract like-minded professionals and mentors who appreciate those particular things about you because they are authentic, because they are you."

— Janice Chaka [00:03:23 → 00:03:33]

"Crafting a compelling and authentic personal brand during the job hunting search and quite frankly, before you start job hunting is a strategic approach that not only sets you apart, but ensures you are presenting your true self to potential employers."

— Janice Chaka [00:04:39 → 00:04:54]

You. Hello and welcome to another episode of The Traveling Introvert. And today I want to talk about the importance of having a brand. Doesn't matter if you work for yourself or if you work for somebody else. Whether you like it or not, people have thoughts about you and that is part of your brand. And I didn't realize I had a brand. And a brand can mean different things to different people, but a brand is how you differentiate yourself from other humans. And so throughout the jobs that I've had, looking back, I realized that I had a brand, I just didn't realize it was a brand.

And if I had known that, I would have used that to my advantage more when talking about myself in work situations or in interviews or those sorts of things. And so why is it important? Well, here's the thing. Crafting a compelling and authentic personal brand as an introvert can help you stand out from the competition. It highlights your unique strengths, skills, personality traits, making it easier for potential employers or people that you know to see what makes you a valuable candidate. Because half the battle is people talking about you. And so how do you want people to talk about you? What sort of things, skills do you want them to talk about when they think about you? And part of that is aligning your brand with your values. Your personal image should be within your core beliefs and value systems because that gives you a sense of purpose which can attract humans to you and organizations that share similar values, leading to better job fit and satisfaction at the end of the day. And it helps highlight your strengths.

Creating a personal brand allows you to showcase your unique abilities. It could be deep thinking, it could be attention to detail, it could be empathy. Emphasizing these strengths demonstrates how you can bring your own fresh perspective and valuable contributions to potential employers. It's also really, really helpful to be doing this while you have a job. So many people have a job and like great, I have a job and get so stuck in the weeds of just doing the job that they don't continue to craft and hone what other people think about them and then they get laid off and they're kind of scrambling. But no time is better than when you have a job. To be making connections with recruiters, letting them know what you're good at, what your skills are, what your brand is. So when they come across a job that hits those keywords, the automatically think of you, they're chasing you, rather you chasing them.

Part of building a brand is building a professional network. And to be fair, having a strong personal brand will attract like minded professionals and mentors who appreciate those particular things about you because they are authentic, because they are you. And it doesn't have to be something that you scream from the rooftops. It could just be that you're really good at organizing things, or you're really good at tech, or just better than other people at tech. Your network will then be able to offer you support and guidance and open doors and career opportunities, further enhancing your job hunting success. And here's the thing so many people will see things in you that you can't see in yourself. So many people will see things in you that you're like that old thing, or, oh, that's really easy. Just because you find something easy doesn't mean everyone else does.

And so learning and listening to what people say about you, what they think about you, what they think your strengths are, if that isn't what you think your strengths are, maybe just take a look, see if they're right. Or maybe you need to tweak how you come across and what people think about you and how they think about you. Crafting a compelling and authentic personal brand during the job hunting search and quite frankly, before you start job hunting is a strategic approach that not only sets you apart, but ensures you are presenting your true self to potential employers. This is a powerful tool for building trust and communicating effectively and ultimately securing the right job job opportunities that align with your values and strengths. Thanks for listening. This is Janice at the Career Introvert, helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of the week