What Would It Be Like To Work Next To You For 8 Hours?

Join Isaiah as he discusses the importance of building a professional brand and how that affects your chances of getting an industry job

Here’s a quick rundown of this week’s episode…

• First, Isaiah explains why you should work on your likability if you want to get an industry job.
• Next, Isaiah gives you pointers on how to identify your professional brand and use it to get hired
• Finally, Isaiah discloses how your professional brand impacts the way employers perceive you as a job candidate

From This Week’s Show… 

Why You Need To Increase Your Likability Right Now

If invisibility, or obscurity, is the number one reason employers aren’t hiring you.

Your ignorance of likability, personality, and your own professional brand is the number second reason.

When I say likability, I don’t mean winning a popularity contest. I don’t mean trying to be nicer, funnier, or more agreeable.

The truth is that some people hate all of those qualities, while others value them. That’s the problem with likability – everybody likes something different.

When I say personality, I don’t mean you have to change your personality but I do mean you have to put the best qualities of your personality forward through proper communication, both verbal and nonverbal.

But which qualities should you put forward in the first place? That’s for you to decide. And once you do decide, either actively or passively, those qualities make up your professional brand.

How To Pin Point Your Professional Brand

Imagine giving everyone you know in addition to a handful of strangers a post-it note and asking them to write down three things they can always count on you for as well as three things they can never count on you for.

What are the people who know you best going to write down? What are the people who barely know you going to write down?

The sum pattern of their answers is a strong indication of your professional brand, or how you will come off to employers prior to being hired and certainly after being hired.

Once you understand this, all you have to do is either find an employer who is aligned with your professional brand or adjust your professional brand to align with an employer whose brand you value. You will likely end up doing some combination of the two.

Why You Should Know How Others Perceive You

As a PhD though, I’m guessing you didn’t spend much thinking about how you were perceived by others behaviorally, at least not in academia. Instead, you obsessed with how logical your arguments were.

Does your professional brand say I care more about competency than likability, or the other way around?

Does it say that you are technically superior in a niche field but are underdeveloped in core transferable skills?

Does it say that you’re management material and should be put in a Senior, Principal, or executive-level position?

Most importantly, do you know who you are? Or, are you willing to be anything to everyone as long as you get hired ?

Either you decide your professional brand for yourself or someone else will decide it for you. You don’t have to wait until you reach the highest levels of success in business to make this decision. You can make it now.

If you’re ready to start your transition into industry, you can apply to book a free Transition Call with our founder Isaiah Hankel, PhD or one of our Transition Specialists. Apply to book a Transition Call here.