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What is a personal brand, and why do I need one?
I'm a new software developer who works for a big company. I am constantly being told, by friends and colleagues alike, that I have to have a personal brand. Why? Why can't I let my work speak for itself? Why do I have to have a 'personal brand' as if I'm some sort of celebrity or influencer? I hate social media, I hate the Instagram/TikTok culture, the Twitter pontification, and I would much rather have nothing to do with any of that.
Maybe I completely misunderstand what a personal brand is - I was always under the impression that that was something you did if you wanted to become famous, something that was just for narcissists. So - what is a personal brand, and why do I need one?
- tjr 6y agoI can't speak for your colleagues of course, but I find this line of thinking very reasonable: A big salary can evaporate quickly. Between March 2001 and April 2004 roughly 400,000 American jobs in information technology were eliminated. Many of those who had coded Java in obscurity ended up as cab drivers or greeters at Walmart. A personal professional reputation, by contrast, is a bit harder to build than the big salary but also harder to lose. If you don't invest some time in writing (prose, not code), however, you'll never have any reputation outside your immediate circle of colleagues, who themselves may end up working at McDonald's and be unable to help you get an engineering job during a recession. http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/writeup http://philip.greenspun.com/seia/writeup
- ironstrike 6y agoThanks for replying. A personal professional reputation, by contrast, is a bit harder to build than the big salary but also harder to lose. I think perhaps it's a question of semantics - when it's put like this, to me it sounds much more reasonable and even a good idea. I think it's just the phrase 'personal brand' that has some sort of mental block around it for me - it just sounds so... pretentious.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]