Creating Your Personal Brand

People are always talking about the importance of selling yourself but there’s an aspect to that a lot of people don’t take into account - marketing yourself.

Business cards 

The first step to marketing yourself is business cards. Even if you’ve just graduated, business cards are well worth the investment. Spend the money to get a good cardstock and make sure everything looks professional. If you know someone with an artistic bent ask them to help you make them look good.

Business cards are an invaluable tool for networking. When you meet someone you’d like to work with, or you think might be willing or able to help you, a business card is the easiest way to make sure they have your information. It also lets them know you are professional person, serious about your goals, whether you’ve been in the workforce for years or days.

Personal website

Make a website for yourself – an online portfolio of your work. And make it look good. If people Google you, and you know they will, this elegantly designed web page with a showcase of why you are amazing will at the top of the things they find.

Don’t forget, if you don’t do a great job and the website looks unprofessional it will create the opposite impression you’re looking for!

Testimonials

If you can get employers or former professors to provide testimonials about you and/or your work that will make the website even more inviting. Post positive character and work reviews that will catch the attention of those nice people who checked out the website they saw on your professional business card. Those people may be willing to hire you on to do all those things you're boasting about.

Work to impress potential employers or contacts at every opportunity and you’ll soon reap the rewards. It takes work in the short term, but the long-term gains are absolutely worth the effort!