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The employee as a brand? Marketing plays an increasingly important role in all aspects of business. The job market is nowadays complex and there is a shortage of employees with expertise in many areas. It is high time for employees to display their abilities to advantage in job applications and in their own companies.
Marketing oneself is therefore important from the beginning of a career, already during one’s education: “Only people who position themselves well and present themselves appropriately will be fittingly recognized and their performance acknowledged” explains career coach Jürn-F. Konitzer from Düsseldorf.

Your own characteristics determine salary

The professional term “individual branding“ describes this procedure, by which individual and unique characteristics are formulated and communicated. That the effects of individual characteristics are more important for pay levels than the actual performance was recently demonstrated in research by IBM on career development within the company: only 10 percent of the evaluation is determined by performance, while the degree of awareness of a person (60 percent) and the personal appearance (30 percent) are much more important. 

“Employees and in particular managers who are aware of their motivation, capabilities and effect on others and know the opinions of the department for which they are responsible, the environment, the risks and potentials are accordingly able to improve their chances of a successful career enormously”, explains Jürn-F. Konitzer. Also from the point of view of the company there would be substantial advantages, particularly in personnel development and management: “by means of a dialogue active employees can be coached and developed according to their unique characteristics and given the optimal tasks or the right jobs” declares the career coach. Branding in the terminology of company communication means the building of a brand and ‘individual branding’ stands correspondingly for the self-marketing of an employee.

Individual branding is now well established

‘Basically it indicates the conscious reflection about one’s own abilities, coupled with the knowledge for which target group these are useful’ says Konitzer.  ‘One must be aware that a talent is only an advantage when it can be connected with some advantage for the company’. What is decisive is the self-presentation: a feature must be openly shown in order to be recognized, that is to say it must be actively and clearly communicated, particularly to decision takers and managers. A realistic approach to one’s own resources saves one from mistakes and limits the risk of failure. On the other hand it helps companies and decision takers to recognize the abilities of managers. ‘In the best cases a win-win situation is created, as the employee uses his abilities in the relevant area in an optimal way for his employer’ says the coach.

Individuals as a brand

• How can one create an own brand? An experienced trainer can be helpful, who looks after the whole process and gives advice.
• The foundation is laid with an analysis of personal attributes, basic life patterns and peculiarities as well as of particular professional knowledge and abilities.
• The formulation of the resulting unique characteristics determines the relevant target group of people for whom the individual strengths are useful.

Der gesamte Artikel zum Download (in German).

Erschienen am 18.09.2010 in der Westdeutschen Allgemeinen Zeitung.