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Building Your Personal Brand as a Life-Sciences Professional

The bad news: the life-sciences industry is ultra-competitive when it comes to careers. The good news: it’s a candidate-driven market, meaning that there are pharma, biotech and CRO companies looking for you! This gives you, as a life-sciences professional, the opportunity to wait for the right one, to find your “dream job” and work for truly awesome organizations with innovative company cultures.

Put yourself in the path of a good pharma-recruitment expert or hiring manager. One of the most effective ways is to make your online presence stronger. This is why your personal brand is so important!  Developing your own personal brand in the life sciences is the key to truly standing out and getting the job and career path that you want.

We asked Gina Dunn (the brains behind our brand) for her tips and tricks on creating an awesome personal brand.

What’s a Personal Brand?

The components of your personal brand can be summed up by your online profile(s) as well as your personal interactions. It is how you present your online CV, your presence on social media and the way you present yourself in person. It’s not only what you say, but how you say it. To maximize on your branding you’ll want to figure out what the best components are and amplify them – for instance, by sharing or writing blog posts about your area(s) of expertise in line with your personal branding.

Your Personal Branding 

You can assess your personal branding by taking a step back and thinking about yourself:

  • Who are you?
  • What do you offer?
  • In what areas are you unique?

From there you can further develop your personal brand persona. This includes five primary factors:

1) Personality

2) Capabilities

3) Interaction

4) Application

5) Amplification

Pick your selling points

Start with thinking about your personality… Are you humorous, engaging, down-to-earth, friendly, reliable, etc.? Think about what makes you “you.” Think about your qualities across several categories: like sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication and persistence. You don’t need to excel in or represent all of these categories. Just choose the ones that best describe you and that you are most proud of.

Next focus on your qualities and capabilities. What is it about your abilities make you the most attractive person for the job you want? Are you stronger in certain abilities, or more strategic, decisive, industrious, results-driven, etc.? Better certified? In this stage, take the time to define what you do and add details about your specialty and expertise. It’s important here to think about what employers and recruiters, in your niche pharma or biotech area, are looking for. Yet, always make sure that it is true…there is nothing more devastating to building a relationship than when a candidate says in their CV or social media that they are passionate and engaging when this just does not ring true after a conversation. If it’s not, focus instead on the strengths that are – the stuff you can back up.

The combination (and focusing power) of these two lists will help you uncover your unique value proposition. Remember you only need two to three strong characteristics that truly exemplify your personal brand.

Spread the News!

You can tie this information together with how you interact with the people in your work environment. How do people find working with you, or how do they see you? Challenge your conclusions by asking your loved ones for their feedback. This information will confirm (or not) if your proposition (that you think is unique) has real value in others’ eyes. Or if others see things about you (good or bad) that you don’t.

 Next, you can take this further by thinking about what recruiters are looking for and looking for ways to apply this. For example, if they are looking for engagement and someone who keeps up to date, you can think about sharing or writing content about recent developments on LinkedIn. After you brand yourself, you can create a website or a strong LinkedIn profile to digitally showcase your CV. Share articles and/or even writing your own blog posts that present your unique focus. This will also open a gateway to start becoming a thought leader in your area, which will add value, if that’s on your list of desires.

Say it louder and prouder!

Lastly, think about how you can amplify the certain aspects that will project how worthy your personal brand is. One key to brand success in any situation is consistency. Once you have an idea of who you are as a brand, you need to make sure to remain consistent from the very start. It is important that the content you share or write fits with your brand and that your social-media presence reflects your personal brand.

What makes your personal brand is YOU. Don’t shy away from a brand refresh if needed – even if you think you already have your personal brand nailed down, it’s worth considering. For example, if your unique values are your high expertise and a strong sense of humor, combine the two and turn that into your tone of voice. Whatever your strengths, let that voice shine!

Special thanks to fun and fabulous Gina Dunn, brand-obsessed Chief Marketing Jedi at iGina Marketing. If you need more help to maximize your brand, we strongly suggest you give Gina a call!