My friend lost his job. He had a family including an eight-year-old daughter with cancer so he needed income. He did the noble thing: started reaching out to his network, updated his resume, searched for job requisitions, tailored his application to different opportunities, and interviewed. He’s a people person with some great skills so it didn’t take him long to land a job … one for which he was completely unqualified. He had misrepresented his experience on his application, studied like mad to try to get up to speed, faked his way through the interview process, and figured he could pick up the rest of what he needed to know once he was on the job, if anyone was confident enough to hire him.
Personal branding is so much more than a resume and an interview. It involves bringing oneself into full alignment and then marketing oneself (Deshpandé & Keinan, 2019). It has been shown to have a strong positive association with success in career (Gorbatov, Khapova, & Lysova, 2019). Everyone has a personal brand, intentional or not (Castrillon, 2019), which can be affected by everything you do (lewsauder, 2017). Like it or not, “personal branding is pervasive and likely here to stay” (Deshpandé & Keinan, 2019), and it has never been more important due to recruiters’ use of social media and the benefits employers gain from their employees’ branding (Castrillon, 2019). Now is a great time to focus on your own personal brand because economic uncertainty is actually a certainty. In this time, you can either embrace or voluntarily succumb to documenting your personal brand, or you can wait until your hand is forced due to economic turmoil (Lair, Sullivan, & Cheney, 2004).
But the jury is out on whether personal branding should be realistic or aspirational. Erskine (20) states that honesty and authenticity are necessary. Kalson-Sperandio (2019) asserts that “the best personal brands reflect the authentic you — not a 180-degree diversion from it” (para. 8). Gasca (2016) states “being dishonest … leads you down the road of living a lie, which can create an inconsistent message to others and leaves you vulnerable” (para. 10). On the other hand, Bilanich (2008) contends that personal branding involves “deciding how you want people to think about you, and then doing whatever it takes to get them to think this way” (para. 2) as long as you’re working to grow in the aspirational areas.
My friend has now been at his job for three years and has risen to every challenge because he’s resourceful. Do you consider his actions in obtaining his position unethical? Where do you draw the line of ethically aspirational versus unethical? How do your own personal branding actions stack up?
References
Bilanich, B. (2018, July 1). Authenticity, aspiration and your personal brand. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/911739/authenticity-aspiration-and-your-personal-brand
Castrillon, C. (2019, February 12). Why personal branding is more important than ever. Retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinecastrillon/2019/02/12/why-personal-branding-is-more-important-than-ever/#11040bdf2408
Deshpandé, R. & Keinan, A. (2019, December 19). Brands and brand equity. Harvard Business Review, 1-49. Retrieved from https://hbsp.harvard.edu/
Erskine, R. (2016, July 7). How to define your personal brand in 5 simple steps. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/278480
Gasca, P. (2016, April 7). A strong personal brand will enhance your life, no matter what you do for a living. Retrieved from https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/273589
Gorbatov, S., Khapova, S. N., & Lysova, E. I. (2019). Get noticed to get ahead: The impact of personal branding on career success. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 1-13. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02662
Kalson-Sperandio, A. (2019, May 30). Aspirational personal branding shouldn’t be a thing. Retrieved from https://medium.com/@aryn_45770/aspirational-personal-branding-shouldnt-be-a-thing-9e546843e168
Lair, D. J., Sullivan, K., & Cheney, G. (2004). Marketization and the recasting of the professional self: The rhetoric and ethics of personal branding. Management Communication Quarterly, 18, 307-343. DOI: 10.1177/0893318904270744
lewsauder. (2017, November 24). Ethics of personal branding. Retrieved from http://blog.consulting101book.com/personal-branding/
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