Personal Branding Your Way Through a Career Pivot

Personal Branding Your Way Through a Career PivotPersonal Branding Your Way Through a Career Pivot4 steps to help you hone your authentic story.Do you know the most important part of making a career pivot?Its not learning about your new path or building a new network. Its not developing a strong plan or honing new skills.Its your story.Dont believe me? A director of people operations at Google stated I want to hear the plan they had in mind I liked what I was doing, but I didnt have the depth in konzept that I needed, so I consciously took this next job with a small design firm.It is about you, you, youYour story is the way you sell yourself. It is your motivation and the logic behind your choices. Your story plays a part in how you build your network, how you learn skills and why you make the plans.Your personal brand is the purposeful molding of your choices into a captivating story that explains why you are the perfect fit for your audience.And stories have never been more importa nt than in careers defined by change and punctuated with randomnessThe key is to purposefully mold your own story, even if you dont think you made such conscious choices at a particular time. You can still connect the dots looking backwards4 steps to a career pivot storyStep 1 Identify Your AudienceAs always, abflug by identifying your audience. After all, if you dont know who they are and what they want, youll rarely be successful in crafting a story that will captivate them.Step 2 Look Back at Your ExperiencesIts time to take stock of your experiences. Make a list of your major professional and personal milestones. Brainstorm a list with 2-4 ways each experience has brought you closer to reaching the goal your audience is also after.Step 3 Identify Learning and TrendsThe highlights of your story will focus on decisions that enabled you to learn new skills or industries as well as trends that have followed you for a long time. Write down your 2-4 biggest learning curves and two tre nds that have followed you throughout your career. Feel free to be creative Learning can be a trend, change can be a trend, growth can be a trend - as can any specific industry, type of boss or type of work.Step 4 Captivate with WordsYou have all the components of your story written down, now its time to make the magic. You can either start by writing the story of each of your career moves (as the Google director explained above), or you can start off with your overall career and how your experiences and choices make you the perfect candidate for your audience.Either way, youll come out armed with a host of stories that will sell your ability effectively and authentically, enabling you to pivot your career with ease.Reposted with permission from Personal Branding Blog