"Your brand is what other people say about you when you are not in the room" - Jeff Bezos (Founder, Amazon).

Developing a strong personal brand is important for career advancement. It projects you to the world as a summary or your skills, experience, personality and values. Constructing a brilliant resume might give a good impression about you. Usually, it is not enough for detailed employers to assume your brand based on your resume.

Attaining the basic required competencies is just a starting point as it only guarantees some comfort that one is at least basically knowledgeable in the field of study, but until skills are put into practice, they can only be imagined. Experience is the consistent application of skills in a particular job role or environment. It is the act of putting the skills to work. On a job, we might get some experience on several tasks either directly or indirectly. For example, an Information Systems Auditor would over time attain experience in tasks such as: Access control, Database Administration, Disaster recovery & Business continuity and Data center management. This series of "give and take" eventually makes one a jack of many trades, developing many competencies along the way.

As we ride along the career path, we are known for some behavioral traits. Some are gainful to the achievement of personal and/or organizational goals while some might be alienating or destructive. I term these as the progressive and repulsive traits. We start to gather these attributes from our formative years with socialization, learning, experiences and growth. Most of our values are determined by personality characteristics and as we become conscious in determining wright from wrong, we stick to what we are comfortable with.

Our personal brand is therefore an authentic combination of our skills, experience and values. It is best to most importantly, avoid the pit fall of being fake - be exactly what your resume resonates, be who you say you are. The spectre of 'impersonation' is frightening to employers and colleagues alike. In the era pf social media, it is quite easy to discover the man behind the mask and if one is lucky enough to evade discovery at entry point, it would be an agony to keep up an act.

By observing the under-listed points, you can acquire some habits towards building a great brand for yourself:

1. Be original, authentic and real. Don't wear the mask because one day, you might forget it at home.
2. Develop competencies or skill sets. Don't be known for nothing.
3. Control what goes out...especially on social media because Google never forgets.
4. Build a reputation for excellence. Nothing beats performing tasks completely and promptly.
5. Pursue personal development. Learning never ends.
6. Devote time for extra-curricular activities, build relationships with other professionals, contribute to discussions and be approachable.

Finally, your brand cannot be built in a day. Remember, it takes time to grow

Source: LinkedIn