This week I was honored to take part in the American Advertising Foundation / Draftfcb panel, “Building Your Personal Brand for Career Success”. The moderator was the lovely Carol Watson, founder of Tangerine-Watson, a cross cultural talent consultancy. I was joined by a handful of my amazing colleagues in a talk that generated a great deal of thoughtful questions from the audience of students and recent graduates. Here some main themes for building your personal brand:

Craft your Vision Statement
I went through an exercise where I looked at my early childhood in chunks from age 1 to 6, 7 to 13 and 14 to 18. I wrote out the moments from each period where I felt the happiest and most proud. I found that I was always the happiest when I was teaching others, working as part of a supportive team, and being creative (no matter what the medium is). I decided to seek out roles and professions that would foster those types of environments.

Beautiful Failures
This was a talk by Susan Dybbs of Cooper at Interaction 13 last week, and this theme of failing being a great thing came up again with many of the panelists at the AAF talk. If you’re failing it means that you’re pushing yourself beyond your boundaries, and that’s a good thing. I used the example of very early in my career accepting a job that required Photoshop and not even knowing the program. I taught myself Photoshop in a week and ended up excelling at my first fully digital job, coming from a mostly print background.

Networking Naturally
Being naturally introverted, I’ve always struggled with networking. It can feel really scary. But you start by just contacting folks you feel really comfortable with, and then broaden it to folks a bit outside your circle. That’s how I landed my current position. And it helps to lend a certain “friendliness” to all of your communications. Tell the person what you’re up to, and you can even offer a link to an article you loved to offer something in exchange that is valuable to them.

By Hook or by Crook
A lot of the folks in the audience were really interested in becoming Digital Strategists, but it’s a role that is very senior and seasoned. We talked about the fact that it’s O.K. to take a similar role to your “Dream Job” and just keep working towards your ideal. Find ways to start doing the job before you actually have the title. You can approach a non-profit and see if they need help, or help friends with their websites, just to get your portfolio started.

On my walk to work every morning I feel so lucky to enjoy every minute of my job, and I wish the same for everyone reading this.