As a career-minded professional have you ever stopped to consider what your personal brand says about you to potential employers? Your brand often goes before you (and your resume) and is a representation of your values, skills, and work ethics. A positive brand can very much work in your favor; while a negative personal brand can work against you.

Take the time to take an objective view of your current personal brand to see if you are your own worst enemy or your best advocate. Here are some things that your personal brand might be saying about your work ethics.

Are you being authentic?

Recruiters and professional employment agencies are able to spot inauthentic candidates. This comes from years of meeting with people and learning if they are being truthful or if they are making things up along the way. Your personal brand should be highly authentic and you should be being honest at all times. Don’t try to over inflate your achievements or anything else because it will catch up with you.

Are you too transparent?

Then there’s the problem of being too transparent about your personal brand. You should keep your personal life and your career life very separate. This is especially true if you’re using social networks to look for a job. Highlight your career achievements, work ethics, and community causes; but keep your personal life such as your intimate friendships and the activities you participate in your personal time away from each other. You don’t want those embarrassing photos of the frat party you attended to end up on the desk of a recruiter.

Are you consistent?

An area of your personal brand that will be under scrutiny is if you are being consistent. For example, if you are consistently sharing content in a specific industry on all of your social media feeds and your personal brand is about this, you are in a better position than if you are all over the place. Your brand should be focused in a specific area and you should be regularly sharing this with others. You also want to watch the consistency of your dates of employment, your job titles and responsibilities — which will be evaluated when you turn in your resume.

Is your presence favorable?

Take a high-level look at your personal brand. Or ask a couple of your casual acquaintances to give their first impression of you. This is your presence that you are putting out to the world and therefore you wanted to be as positive and professional as possible. If it’s not, then it can be a sign that you need to work on your personal brand a little bit more to make sure it’s authentic and consistent with what type of ethics you’re trying to project.

About Staffing Resources

Staffing Resources, established in 1985, is one of the leading temp agencies in Atlanta and a certified Female Business Enterprise. We provide a wide range of full and part-time employees to businesses, associations, government and non-profit organizations in the metro Atlanta area. Looking for a new employment opportunity? Contact our team today!