As “personal branding” turns 20, it’s time for a makeover

As an executive recruiter, I know a lot about the pervasiveness of personal branding. In the twenty years since Tom Peters introduced the concept in his iconic Fast Company article, “The Brand Called You,” we have all become experts at strategically positioning ourselves to the employers, colleagues and friends who make up our various “markets.” Social media accelerates this trend, as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snap and Twitter converge to form a single massive personal branding showcase and laboratory.

But given that my job is to look beneath the surface of both organizations and executives to help determine who best fits where, I can’t help but notice that we all have become so good at branding that it is losing its meaning. Yes, there are those who understand that personal branding, if done right, is a powerful exercise in self-discovery. But for most people, their brand doesn’t convey who they are, but how they wish to be seen.

The irony is that while personal brands are becoming more artfully packaged and managed — that is, more “corporate” — corporate brands are becoming more personal. People that manage brands for a living understand that “traditional” branding and marketing now is just more noise to a skeptical audience trained from birth on how to decode messages. Instead, they’ll have more success attracting followers if they build their brand around real, human values and let those values show through in how they conduct their business. Patagonia is an example of a brand that is a category standout because it is driven by a larger and authentic purpose. Indeed, authenticity now is a key driver of a successful brand.

The best corporate branding, in other words, has moved past marketing’s horn-blowing era, and personal branding must do the same if it is to remain relevant. But this isn’t just a pivot — it’s a genuine shift in how we value our life experiences. The default position in personal branding is to make everything conform to societal ideals: The perfect educational pedigree, a linear career path defined by successes and increasingly impressive titles, a persona without rough edges or contradictions. More often than not, however, projecting this gold-plated image involves a significant amount of editing and curating.

When personal branding is anchored in authenticity, however, that editing is replaced with context. Stepping down a few rungs to make a mid-life career shift or losing a job after getting caught in the crossfire between two rival business unit heads — the important thing here is not to minimize that these things happened but rather what was learned in the process and how those experiences shaped who you are today. Authenticity, it turns out, often requires vulnerability.

This principle of celebrating rather than obscuring rough edges applies to how you depict other parts of your life that might seem contradictory on the surface. Are you a general counsel who is also gourmet chef, or an accounting partner who plays bass in a rock band? Own that. It isn’t so much that the extracurriculars themselves are important — although they do make excellent conversation starters — but what they suggest about you: That you are aware of yourself as a multifaceted being. That you have a wider range of conceptual tools from which to draw. And that you have a higher comfort level with complexity and ambiguity, both in situations and in other people.

Personal branding, then, needs to evolve from telling perfect stories to telling genuine ones. This mandate is good for both of us. The fact is that anchoring your brand in your authentic self is the surest way to differentiate yourself from the crowd. And as a recruiter, it doesn’t get better than connecting authentic people with authentic companies. Even if those people have competency gaps or other imperfections (and who doesn’t?), these are placements that transform organizations and spur innovation. But you can’t show your authentic self — and I can’t see it — if it’s covered in layers of polish.

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