Personal Brand for the developers. Why it is important to build it.

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Why do I need a personal brand? Because times are changing and to keep up with new trends, building a personal brand is more important than ever for developers too.

Lets go to discuss this issue.

2023 is a year of change, a recession, massive layoffs around the world, closure of projects and departments. Recruitment goes into a less active phase. Responses to vacancies reach hundreds and sometimes thousands. Sometimes candidates' resumes don't even make it to the pre-screening round.

let's say - "I am a candidate and I want a new, good job. I want to join a company with cool technology, a professional team, decent pay, and great career opportunities".

Imagine how long it took for the business to get to the point where you are now sitting here dreaming of being a part of it. How much effort has been put into making the employer brand so well-known and desirable to you.

Have you ever wondered what someone can learn about you by looking at your profile? What impression does your resume make? Have you built your brand in a way that makes you seem like you're not one of the candidates, but the first one on the recruiter's list?

These are important questions when a recruiter is searching in person or reviewing resumes. Will your activity attract attention and make you stand out? And if you don't work on your personal brand, if you don't stand out from the crowd, you may simply go unnoticed and reduce your chances of getting the desired offer.

What does building your personal brand give a developer?

• confidence in you as a strong and talented developer
• visibility of your activities
• influence among the audience
• ability to demonstrate your skills and credibility
• more chances to find customers
• positioning of your soft skills
• increase the chances for offers

Today, recruiting is different, there is a hunt for talent. Development, learning new things, moving forward - this is all that attracts attention if you share it with the whole world. Work on your personal brand, help yourself not to get lost in the crowd.

Top experts in personal and employer branding share their advice for you so that you can start acting today. Get advice from experts and don't miss the chance to use it 👇 

James Ellis - Bestselling Amazon author and leading authority on employer branding for smaller businesses. He is the principal of Employer Brand Labs , a bestselling author, keynote speaker, practitioner, and podcaster with a wealth of experience across multiple industries for almost a decade, Chicago, Illinois, United States 🇺🇸

There are 4.4MM software developers in the US alone. Every one of them knows multiple languages (or says they do on their resume). Every one of them has launched something (or says they did on their resume). Every one of them has commits on GitHub (or says they do on their resume).

So the question is: are you a commoditized bag of skills looking to convert your time into a paycheck? Or are you an interesting person who can support the company or organization in surprising ways using code?

Getting a new job isn't showing you have skills, it's all about showing the ways in which you aren't like 4,399,999 other developers. It is about giving people a reason to choose you over millions of people who (to the recruiter and many hiring managers) can't tell you apart.

This means building a resume that isn't just keywords and languages but says something they will remember in an ocean of resumes that look, read, and act exactly the same

Michelle Marquardt   - Chief Marketing and Brand Officer at FlexC and seasoned Employer Branding leader, Colchester, Vermont, United States 🇺🇸

As a consultant, you are the product. You need to commoditize your skills and communicate what you offer clearly and consistently. Below are five steps to help you create your own unique brand.

1.   Have a point of view. Whatever your specialty, be opinionated about it. Be passionate and vocal about the strategies that you feel work best in your focus area.

2.   Talk about what you do. Share your personal experiences and successes. Story telling is a fantastic way to share your brand.

Actors have a phrase, “HOW you do WHAT you do is WHO you are.” Your answer to this statement defines the experience of working with you.

3.   Be findable. If you’ve been dragging your feet to get on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram or Snapchat, now is the time. You need a platform to share your POV, and the best way is to be active and engaged on social media. You also need to make sure all of your online profiles complement each other and that each is “on brand”. If you’re a killer UX Designer, that should be a common thread across all of your profiles and posts.

4.   Build a brand strategy based on your five year plan. (If you don’t have one – you need one.) If you want to be a CMO five years from now, your brand should start reflecting a case for that NOW, not five years from now. Determine what accomplishments you have achieved and what you still need to do in order to reach your goals. Then you can communicate the highlights of that journey.

5.   Create a brand-specific content strategy. Keep in mind that you are not only the product, you’re also the marketing and PR departments. That means delivering relevant and timely messaging that can help you sell yourself while aligning to your brand strategy. Answer questions on forums, write articles and reviews and curate visuals that drive recognition of your brand.

Benjamin Kesler 🧶 - is the Founder of Local Glimpse , a global video agency building epic people brand. He’s helping leading companies to build employee advocacy programs and personal brand for leaders. He’s based out of Stockholm, Sweden 🇸🇪

Building a personal brand effectively is about understanding why you are building one and who is your audience.

As a developer, building a personal brand can be an amazing way to find a new job for example. You should then build a strong LinkedIn presence (by publishing your learnings from your experience) and contribute to open source projects. This will help engineering managers identify you as a top talent.

If your goal is to find customers as a freelancer, try to get invited on business podcasts and talk about your understanding of building products.

Ultimately, there is a tremendous opportunity right now to build a brand, especially as a developer because most haven’t yet. While overcrowded in the marketing industry, there is still plenty of space to stand out as tech professionals.

 As about my journey I started getting results from building my personal brand within 1 month already in the form of valuable connections. And within 3 months I could attribute an actual business deal to what I was publishing online.

You can follow and subscribe to the pages of the participants of the article just click on the link to their profiles and do not miss the opportunity to get the best advice and build your brand together with professionals.