What is your career story?

One of the most important investments you can make to further your brand, whether it’s to establish credibility with people you meet, or get noticed for great new roles, is to develop a story around who you are.

While it’s fun to have a ‘tag line brand’ as I like to call it, on places like Twitter (see Hillary Clinton’s Twitter account for a great one).  What I’m really talking about is a short pitch on who you are professionally.

Often, that’s a difficult story to tell because of our career choices.  You may have jumped industries, taken some substantial time off, not progressed as fast as you would have liked or taken some roles with vague or obscure titles.

Your Story – Your Tagline

A good story hangs together, makes sense and furthers your brand by highlighting what’s important.

I like to say, for example, that I started my career as an engineer, which gives me technical credibility.  When I talk about how I went from running Alliances and Business Development at HP to executive recruiting, I try to make sense of that for people.  I had a deep network of connections and wanted to leverage that.  I also knew I wanted to consult, to pull away from the big company environment and start another company.  That also helps position me as someone who has launched two companies, important for the entrepreneurs that I want to establish a credibility with.

One of the most challenging and yet biggest opportunities for us in the business world is to have a compelling answer to ‘Tell me about yourself’.

Spend some time with someone with great marketing chops to help you get it right.

Then, parlay that into a great LinkedIn bio.  You’ll find that you will be using that pitch more often than you ever thought.