The Information and Knowledge Professional's Career Handbook

4

Developing your brand: the professional image

We hear you thinking, ‘what, I have a brand?’, and we answer, ‘everyone does!’ Of course we don’t mean to imply an information professional’s brand is the equivalent of brands associated with global consumer products. We are persons and not watches or vehicles, so our brands do not carry associations of, say, status or wealth the way a Rolex or a Rolls-Royce would; instead our brands are entirely tied to our value at work. We all possess a collection of qualities making us uniquely recognizable, employable, and valuable. The critical mass of knowledge or perceptions others have about what we do and how well we do it adds up to a brand.

In developing our brands and selling ourselves to employers ...