Building Your Personal Brand

August 23, 2021

Emilee Shuler | Marketing Assistant | Published by Crow Shields Bailey PC

Personal branding is vital for professionals of every age and stage in their career to understand. Professionals should consider branding to be an outward representation to the world of the sum of their values, goals, interests, and skills.

While, in essence, building your personal brand is about selling yourself, it is very important to be genuine and organic in your efforts. The process of learning and developing your personal brand involves an element of self-analysis that will also lead to a great deal of personal growth along the way. Your personal brand is the combination of your own unique identity and your reputation. Intentional and thoughtful personal branding will help you to stand out in a sea of other highly qualified peers.

 

Looking Inward

The first step is to ask yourself, “Who am I?”

  • What are your skills?
    • These should include both technical and soft skills.
  • What are your interests?
    • This should include your professional interests and your personal interests.
  • What are your values?
    • These should also include both your personal values and your professional values. If these conflict with each other, then branding is not the biggest project you need to be tackling right now.

Next ask your friends, family, and peers, “Who am I?”

  • What do they think your skills are?
  • What do they most enjoy discussing with you on a personal or professional level?
  • What do they believe are some of your values?

Finally, ask yourself what it is you would like to achieve.

  • What are your personal and professional goals?
  • Do they align with your values, interests, and skills?

It may seem daunting to explore these ideas, but it is a critical step towards building your authentic brand. Personal and professional goals are constantly changing and values and skills evolve as people grow in their lives and careers. You will need to revisit this process often in order to make sure your brand is still an accurate reflection of all of these things.

Building Your Brand

Once you have answered these more introspective questions, it’s time to start building your brand. It is at this point that you will put to work what you gleaned in the beginning of the process. What knowledge, experiences, goals, skills, and passions can you use to promote yourself to employers and peers?

What will be your main avenues of promotion?

  • Which social media platforms should you utilize?
    • Typically, LinkedIn is the platform that has the most focus on professional achievements and accolades, sharing best practices, and networking and interacting with peers in your industry and others. LinkedIn should be a priority for all professionals.
      • Make a point to follow and interact with other leaders in your industry. Share, like, comment, and take part in their conversations. This will give you visibility and help you gain followers organically.
    • Even on more casual platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, you should always consider whether the image you are conveying aligns with the values and goals presented by your brand.
  • Should you consider writing a blog?
    • If you feel that you have useful insights to share, a blog is a great way to promote and establish yourself as an industry leader while also sharing helpful knowledge with others.
  • What networking opportunities should you utilize?
    • Always be on the lookout for continuing education courses, networking events, and any opportunities to have conversations with people. Never underestimate the power of networking. Not only are you gaining and sharing valuable knowledge and making meaningful connections, but your network of peers is also part of your brand and should be a reflection of your values and interests.

How will you stand out from the crowd?

  • What makes you unique?
    • Use your unique personality, talents, passions, experiences, and abilities to connect with people to differentiate yourself.
  • Do you have any professional specializations or certifications that you should highlight?
  • How will you stay up-to-date on industry trends?
    • Subscribe to reputable sources of information for your particular industry. Use continuing education to bolster your knowledge and stay current with best practices, trends, innovations, etc. This will ensure that your content and conversations are always relevant.

The beginning stages of introspection will guide you in the process of building your brand while simultaneously helping you get to know yourself and your goals better. By defining your identity, developing a strategy for promotion, and letting your personality shine, you can build a very effective personal brand for your personal and professional life.

The Most Misunderstood Phrase In Accounting

November 19, 2019

Andrew Finnorn | Staff Accountant | Published by Crow Shields Bailey

Throughout the recruitment process, you will hear firms speak of their dedication to a work-life balance. They are referring to the ability to balance the demanding work load of public accounting and life outside the office. It is used as a way to overcome the common belief that public accountants work 24/7. The most important thing to understand is that this challenge must first be overcome at the employee level, then assisted by the firm. This can be accomplished by answering three easy questions.

What are you balancing? The things that you value evolve as you progress through life. When you first enter the workforce as a young adult, time with friends and participating in hobbies are often your main focus. As changes happen, such as marriage or having children, you will find that your priorities and interest will also change. Discovering what is important to you is the first step in creating your ideal work-life balance.

When is the deadline? You will learn very quickly in public accounting that everything revolves around deadlines. There is always another deadline waiting around the corner, and understanding the workload is a key to success. Once you understand the “work” ahead, it allows you to build a schedule that can tackle the sometimes overwhelming workload, and allows for “life.” The anxiety that is felt with approaching deadlines can be mitigated by attacking the work load early. The more work that can be completed on the front end allows you to maintain your desired work-life balance.

Does this firm understand me? With the diversity of the workforce, firms must have an understanding of what is important to each employee. As addressed with the first question, each individual will have different priorities in life. You should search for a firm that aligns with your values. This requires getting to know the firm beyond an interview, and not getting caught up in a recruiting pitch. Current employees and their experiences can often give you an insight into the firm’s values. Look for an opportunity during recruiting events to interview the employees.

As a result of the public’s perception of accountants working 80-hour weeks, the work-life balance has become a point of emphasis for recruitment platforms. Is a work-life balance truly accomplished at the firm level? Yes, they play an important role, but they are only part of the equation. Your understanding of the balancing act and the ability to schedule ahead will allow for the ideal work-life balance in your career.

 

 

Six Cliches That Are Still Relevant For Today’s Business Students

September 26, 2019

Abby Roveda, CPA | Senior Accountant | Published by Crow Shields Bailey

Has the statement clichés are clichés for a reason reached cliché status yet? Did that question hurt your brain just a little bit?

At some point in your life, clichés become perceived as the professional equivalent of dad jokes—they’re cheesy and you can hardly ever say them with a straight face. There is still more than an ounce of wisdom to them. In my time in public accounting and working the recruiting circuit, I’ve found that these clichés are still relevant for today’s students.

The Early Bird Catches the Worm

This is NOT about showing up early for interviews and work. This IS about starting to plan for your career now and setting yourself up for the best shot at success. If you don’t know what you want to do yet, you’re not alone. That doesn’t mean that there’s nothing you can do now to prepare for the unknown. Take every opportunity you have to go and hear speakers, attend career fairs, and shadow in different industries until something piques your interest.

If you do know what you want to do, why would you wait for an invitation to start pursuing it? Maybe you’re not at a point academically where it makes sense to do an internship; however, there is no bad time during your college career to attend socials with potential employers, take advantage of job shadowing opportunities, get your resume out there, attend leadership events to add to your resume, or participate in on-campus recruiting. The more a potential employer gets to know you, the less of a hiring risk you become for them.

Fail to prepare, prepare to fail

I do some work on the board of a not-for-profit, and this is the director’s favorite phrase when we have an upcoming event. We spend a lot of time planning for potential mishaps, such as inclement weather or IT problems, and preparing backup plans should any of them actually occur on the day of the event.

How does this apply to students looking for jobs? Have you ever been interviewing for a job and the interviewer asks if you have any questions for them and you replied, “No, I don’t think so?” For many employers, that indicates to them a certain level of disinterest in their company, and even in your own career. Having questions ready for your potential employer is one of the most important steps you can take to prepare for an interview – besides popping a breath mint if you had extra garlic and onions on your pizza at lunch. When you are competing with multiple students for the same job or internship slot, who do you think will have the edge when all other things are considered equal – the one with zero questions for the interviewer or the one with a couple of well-prepared questions?

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger

Did you just imagine Kelly Clarkson belting that line? Who knew that Kelly was actually singing to business students when she recorded that power ballad?

Being a professional requires you to get out of your comfort zone. There are many aspects of the recruiting process that are just plain unenjoyable. For instance, getting dressed in an uncomfortable suit in the sweltering heat of Alabama, making sweaty handshakes with strangers, repeating the same small talk over and over again…I feel you. I hated career fairs when I was in college. There was not a single aspect of them that I found enjoyable, except that during the height of recruiting season I could usually count on being provided free dinner for 3 of the 5 nights of the week, which was a big help with the old budget. However, by forcing myself to continue to attend these functions, I found that I had actually grown comfortable talking to potential employers. I had become more confident in a room full of strangers and I had actually semi-mastered small talk that didn’t solely revolve around the weather.

Dress for the job you want, not the job you have

Speaking of getting dressed in uncomfortable suits…

Lots of employers have more relaxed dress policies in this day and age. Gone are the days (at most places) of dressing in full suit and tie every day for the office. However, until you know what that dress policy is and until you are actually employed there, you should err on the side of being overdressed. Except for a few exceptions—like showing up for your shift at Habitat for Humanity in a three-piece suit—you will never regret being overdressed in a professional setting. And, even more importantly, your potential employer is not going to note you being overdressed as much as they will if you are underdressed.

You are what you do, not what you say you do

This is really important for when you start working at your first job. However, there is another important spin on this for business students applying for jobs.

My husband has been giving advice to fourth year medical students applying for residency this fall since he just finished the process last year. One of the things we have talked about is the temptation to stack your resume with things that you think make you look good, but don’t necessarily reflect how you actually spend your time or what you value. His advice to fourth year students was, “If you can’t talk about it for 5 minutes, it should not be on your resume.”

What does that mean? You should prepare a 5-minute speech based on everything on your resume? No. If you list a community service activity and it was something you did just to fulfill service hour requirements and not something you actually believed in, do you think you could talk intelligently and passionately about it for 5 minutes if asked about it in an interview? Unless you’re minoring in drama, you probably can’t, and that will lead the employer to question the authenticity of other things listed on your resume as well.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going

If you haven’t experienced a setback at this point in your life, then you probably aren’t challenging yourself. Do you know why employers ask you in interviews to tell them about a time that you failed? Not because they are trying to expose you, but because if you failed, learned something from the experience, and bounced back from it, then you can guarantee that will stand out to them and give you an advantage.

Being a professional in any kind of industry is challenging and you will make mistakes and fail at things multiple times throughout your career. We are counting on it. Not because we like watching you squirm, but because it is absolutely the best way to learn. And if you can’t learn from failure, then there is a limit to what we can teach you.

If you have any questions about career development, recruiting, or any other topic, please feel free to reach out to us. We are always here to help!