Personal brand? ::eye roll::

We kicked off the career accelerator with a session on personal brand. If you had asked me about my personal brand a few months ago, my response would have been something like “ugh, personal brand, ::eye roll::”. But my experiences at the WEST Leadership Summit had already started to change my perspective.

One of my main takeaways from the “Beyond the Career Ladder: Defining Success on Your Own Terms” panel was: after early career we are selling ourselves as products rather than commodities. This aligns with something I had already found true and helpful in my personal career journey: understanding what makes you energized and motivated at work is the most important step in career success. As you mature in your career you need to develop and apply self knowledge to find opportunities that will allow you to be successful. (Anyone that I have talked to while they were on a job search has heard one of my favorite sayings: “every job sucks in some way, you are trying to find the job that sucks in the ways that don’t bother you.”) This self knowledge is the foundation of your personal brand.

I credit the panel “How to Define a Personal Brand that Sets You Apart” with the realization that self knowledge is the required foundation of a personal brand. “Establishing your personal brand” simply means making sure those around you are aware of your strengths and preferences. Managers, potential sponsors, and recruiters are not mind readers. The easier you can make their jobs, the more likely it is for the right opportunities to find you. By developing a clear and memorable personal brand you help ensure people will think of you when relevant opportunities arise.

Doing the Work

Once I understood that personal brand is not the same thing as regularly posting on LinkedIn, I was able to approach the work of developing my personal brand with a much more open and positive mindset.

We began the process with a handful of written self reflection exercises to help start the process.

  • What are your strengths and weaknesses? What would your coworkers/managers say are your strengths and weaknesses? How do these two realities align?
  • What are you passionate about? What does long term success look like to you?

After spending some time writing our responses to these questions, we turned to drafting a personal vision statement.

The vision statement is a short, aspirational statement that will form the foundation of our personal brands. We were given a handful of criteria that make a good vision statement. Most of the criteria were somewhat obvious:1-2 sentences and it should align with the values you brainstormed earlier.

But two criteria stood out to me as challenging: it should be unique to you and it should be ambitious enough to be exciting but not so ambitious that it seems unachievable.

Once we had a draft vision statements we turned to stress testing them. Do they feel true? Do they align with how we are spending our time?

My Personal Brand

My answers to the initial reflection questions left me with a couple of clear ideas to incorporate.

In both personal and professional life, I enjoy problem solving and building things.

I also realized I am even more motivated by creating under constraints, whether that’s building software quickly at a startup, or cooking a meal with only the ingredients on hand in my kitchen. For me, the act of creating a solution is more exciting when you have to do it within constraints.

Another theme I found was that I enjoy the process of problem solving when operating as part of an engaged and highly performing team. While it can be fun to be in a focused state of personal flow, I gain energy when I can bounce ideas off other people.

Combining these themes gave me a rough starting point: solving challenging problems with other people.

In an effort to add some additional color to this start, I decided to further refine the statement by including: what type of problems do I want to solve? How did I want to solve them? And what was important to me about the way in which I work with people?

What types of problems do I want to solve? In both my personal and professional life, the types of problems that motivate me are those where I can see an immediate impact. While many software engineers I know love solving problems at scale. I find the scale disconnecting. I am motivated when I can see a solution have an impact on actual human beings.

When I think about how I want to solve problems two things come to mind. I have come to firmly believe in the power of working iteratively. And when solving any problem, the most important thing is to pause and understand the issue before charging ahead on a solution. At work, I pride myself on finding quick and easy wins by taking the time to understand what is actually needed rather than what is being asked for.

Pulling together all these pieces I have come to a version of my personal vision statement that feels true for me at the moment:

Iteratively deliver thoughtful solutions to challenging, impactful problems as part of a high performing team.

I am sure I will find ways to tweak this, especially over the next few months, but for now I think it captures what I am looking for in my career.

Reflections On The Process

As I was honing my vision statement I was struck by the similarities between crafting a thoughtful sentence and writing software. Each word ideally serves a specific purpose. You need to understand what you are optimizing for in your communication just like you do with software. Writing is another form of problem solving.

Throughout the process I needed to remind myself that it was ok to be “wrong” and that I was not stuck with a single vision statement for the rest of my life. I tried to listen to my own advice and work iteratively, knowing that I can evolve my vision statement. As I try new things, learn and grow, my vision statement will inevitably evolve as well.

All in all this was a great kick off to the career accelerator. I have a feeling of both confidence and potential as I think about examining my career through the lens of my vision statement.