Technology has been a game-changer in the past 10 years, and you better believe it is transforming career development
by Chris Kulbaba
3. Personal branding
Personal branding is one of the most important trends that is happening today. It is not, however, a universal process. Not all professionals are undertaking this process, for instance front-line staff, labourers, skilled trades or non-technical workers. Those that do see the importance of personal branding do not have to begin on their own, but can simply look at the gurus. Gary Vaynerchuk, author of Crush It!, is one of those people. Gary took a small family-owned wine store in New Jersey that was earning about $2 million a year and, using free social media tools, that store began earning over $25 million a year. You can find more about him at garyvaynerchuk.com; another well-known personal branding guru and best-selling author, Dan Schawbel, can be found at danschawbel.com. Creating a long “tail” of information on the Internet that an employer can easily find and evaluate before they spend time on an interview can make a significantly positive difference for a candidate.
Chris Kulbaba is an Employment Counselor with the London Employment Help Centre in London, ON. Chris regularly delivers webinars for Conestoga College in the CDP program, offers his services as an expert speaker, facilitator and coach on social media topics, and is creating a new career development tool “Career Card Sort” – but takes the greatest pride in being a dad and a loyal family man. You can find Chris on Twitter, LinkedIn, Skype, Facebook and at his new website/blog launching in January 2014 better-together.ca.
