Just what are your personal branding attributes, for example? Are you caring, dependable, creative, fun-loving, intelligent, energetic, optimistic, reserved, or quirky? Is your personal brand so strong that adjectives describing you immediately leap into the minds of those who know you or see you? Are the majority of those adjectives positive and similar? Then you have succeeded in being clear, consistent, and constant in expressing your unique brand through word and action. If not, you have a bit of brand-building to do.

Are you a confident and savvy job seeker with personal branding pizzaz? Take this short Job Search Quiz – Part 1 about the initial stages of your job search. In Part 2 of this series to follow, interviewing will be addressed.

Directions: Ask yourself which behavior or quote is most like what you would do or say for each question, and keep track of your answers.

1. You have built a LinkedIn Profile because you have heard it is important to have one. Your LI Profile:
a. Is short and sparse, listing the bare minimum facts, OR
b. Starts with a career focus and your personal branding attributes and strengths, OR
c. Describes your academic career and work history in minute detail.

2. You are networking for a job at a professional association meeting, and have just had a conversation with someone who has promised to keep you in mind for job leads or referrals. What do you do next?
a. Quickly move to another person so you can maximize your time at the event, OR
b. Offer your branded personal business card and express your gratitude, OR
c. Ask how soon you can expect to hear back, as you will be waiting.

3. You are putting together what you believe is a “killer resume”. You start with your name and contact information and follow with:
a. A reverse chronological listing of all your jobs, job titles, and dates of employment, OR
b. Your career focus and a branded summary with key accomplishments, OR
c. A general summary that covers several possible job targets and lists all your skills.

4. You are not fond of writing cover letters but know that submitting a letter is required in addition to a resume. You:
a. write a brief, generic cover letter that you can use for any job opening, OR
b. research the employer and write a targeted cover letter that shows your personal brand, OR
c. write a two-page cover letter that includes every aspect of what you have to offer for several different types of jobs.

5. You are an avid Twitter user, especially during your job search. Your tweets include:
a. stream of consciousness comments about how search is going (mostly bad), OR
b. on-brand, positive statements/retweets and links to resources, OR
c. constant re-tweets of what others have to say, including their offensive language.

In all these questions, answer (b) demonstrates your professionalism AND allows you to demonstrate your distinctive and positive personal brand. Answers (a) and (c) may also reveal a lot about your brand, but not necessarily what a potential employer wants to hire.

What is your personal brand? Take the complimentary 360Reach personal branding assessment to obtain honest feedback from those who know you well. Then contact Susan@AssessmentGoddess.com for coaching so your personal brand can become a differentiating asset in your job search.

About Susan Guarneri
Known as the Career Assessment Goddess, Susan Guarneri has a Master’s Degree in Counseling from The Johns Hopkins University and 24 years of experience in career counseling and career coaching. With 13 career-industry certifications, she is the only National Certified Career Counselor worldwide who is also certified as a Master Personal Branding Strategist and Online Identity Management Strategist. In addition, she has won recognition as a Master Resume Writer with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

Susan has assisted thousands of professionals and executives with career transitions and job changes. She has also provided Fortune 500 companies, colleges, non-profits, and government agencies with management development, team building, career consulting, training, and workforce development. Susan is co-author of Job Search Bloopers (2008 Career Press).

Phone: 866-881-4055 Toll-free
Email: Susan@AssessmentGoddess.com
Websites: www.AssessmentGoddess.com and www.Resume-Magic.com
Blog: http://blog.careergoddess.com/
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/assessmentgoddess
Twitter: @susanguarneri

We know how to dress, act and get a promotion.

But do we know how to stand? This may seem like a silly question, but consider this. Your posture sends a strong message to your coworkers about your ability to be a respected professional. Here are some examples of how women can sabotage their professional image with poor posture.

The Weak May Inherit the Earth, but Not the CEO Position

Susan walks into a conference room. Her hair and makeup are intact. She is, as they say, dressed for success. However, her entrance goes unnoticed. When she steps up to the podium, people look at her in surprise. She’s doing the presentation?

Susan senses this. Her posture tells us that she doesn’t think that she has the right to be here. Her shoulders hunch forward, her back is rounded, and her head is bowed, as if she is trying to avoid eye contact. In a very small voice, she begins her talk. When asked a question, she seems to physically shrink, as if she was afraid of an attack. Her presentation is less than impressive. This is unfortunate, since Susan is a knowledgeable professional. She’s also quite attractive, and pretty fit. However, her posture betrays her professionalism.

A woman’s posture portrays her attitude about herself, as well as her comfort level in a given situation. In Susan’s case, her hunched shoulders and downward focus made her seem meek, vulnerable, insecure and uncomfortable with her audience. Additionally, her posture has probably influenced her vocal capacity. Tight shoulders, neck and pectoral muscles restrict the ability to breath from the diaphragm. As a result, Susan speaks with a small, childlike voice, which often cannot be heard.

You Talkin’ to Me?

Donna is also a brilliant professional. However, as a teenager growing up in a tough neighborhood, she adopted a posture that is characterized by leaning into one hip. Thus, when she speaks to a group, she gives the impression of being off center, or perhaps uninvolved. Others may interpret this as a You talkin’ to me? type of posture which is funny in the movies, but not quite so humorous in the corporate world. There’s a good chance that Donna doesn’t even realize that she is doing this. However, she has been standing this way for so many years that she might possibly have a muscular imbalance in her legs or hips, which causes her to stand in a way that presents an unprofessional image.

Donna also has a tendency to cock her head to one side when she is talking to a man. Is she flirting, or is she presenting important information? It’s hard to tell. She never does this when she talks to women. As such, some of her co-workers consider her a flirt, and don’t take her seriously.

The Wavering Economist

Peggy has a PhD in economics. While she obviously knows her subject, when speaking to a group, she has a tendency to shift her weight from foot to foot. Not only is this distracting, it portrays a subtle message that her ideas are unstable. When talking about economics, this can be rather frightening.

Aligned for Success

There are four factors that influence postural alignment:

1. Habit
2. Injury
3. Emotions
4. Your Workout

Habitual postures are often the result of unconsciously mimicking the posture of a parent. In other cases, your workstation might create a habitual posture. For example, if you consistently keep your computer on one side of the desk, you might be creating a muscular overuse on one side of your body, while the other side will have muscle weaknesses. This might cause you to lean to one side, which may create an image of being off-center. While habitual postures are relatively easy to correct, misalignments that are caused by physical or emotional injury pose a different sort of problem.

Somatic psychotherapists tell us that our physical and emotional equilibrium can be influenced and altered by physical, as well as emotional injury. The resulting trauma creates a negativity that causes a disconnection between mind and body, thereby creating an imbalance in our physical and psychological structure. This is reflected in our standing, sitting and moving posture.

Just as a less than ergonomic workstation can cause muscular imbalance, physical and emotional injury can cause physical and emotional imbalances. On the physical level, we may adopt postural and movement patterns that served to protect us and compensate for the areas that have been injured. Sometimes, these patterns become habitual even after the injury has healed.

The Language of Posture

A defensive woman may raise up her shoulders, hold her breath, tighten the muscles in her arms and clench her jaw. These gals seem to be perpetually at war with the forces of gravity. In contrast, if someone is dejected, you might see shoulders that are rolled forward and a head that is lowered, as if expressing defeat. Instead of negotiating with the forces of gravity, this person has allowed the force of gravity to bring her down. Neither of these postural alignments will put you on the road to corporate success.

Now, let’s take a look at a confident woman. Her shoulders are held broadly, her eyes are focused straight ahead and her upper body is firmly supported by her pelvis. Her confident posture is indicative of woman who is at peace with gravity. She is neither at war nor in a state of defeat. Gravity is her dancing partner. This is the type of woman we would want as a leader.

Emotions: Change Your Posture, Change Your Mind

If our posture is indicative of our emotional status, can we alter our emotional well being by changing our posture? Neuro-physiological research suggests that this is possible. Professional actors have known about this for a long time. Many work on a theory known as acting from the inside out or acting from the outside in.

An actor working from the inside out may use a particular experience they’ve had in the past to find the emotion suitable for the role. When actors can’t find an emotional catalyst from inside themselves, they may create the physical qualities associated with that particular emotion. That’s called acting from the outside in.

Here in the Colorado Rockies, hikers are quite aware of this concept. If we have an unfortunate encounter with a bear or mountain lion, we are told to make ourselves look big and tall. Here’s a simple exercise you can perform to practice growing taller.

• Stand against a wall.
• Imagine that the wall is the world’s highest mountain.
• Now, imagine that you are taller than this mountain.
• Use this image the next time you walk into the lion’s den, AKA the corporate business presentation.

Your Workout/Your Posture

Ironically, your workout may have a negative effect on your postural alignment. Most of us tend to be very focused on our “beach muscles” which include the abdominals and pectorals. However, these muscles are involved in forward flexion. If you consider the fact that we tend to sit hunched forward at our computers, accentuating this muscular imbalance might not be the best idea. Consider adding some extension exercise, such as the yoga cobra to your routine. During our weight training workout, adding extra sets on the lat pulldown machine and a few extra sets of reverse flies will correct the muscular imbalance between the chest and back. Visualization exercise can also help improve your posture. For example, to eliminate a hunched shoulders habit, imagine that there is a curtain rod going across your chest. Gradually open the curtain rod. Now look in the mirror. Suddenly, you look more confident.

You’ve worked hard to get where you are today. Don’t let your posture lie about your accomplishments. Stand tall, stand proud and go forth to prosperity!