Customer Reviews

Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand

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I've been contemplating switching jobs and industries. A friend recommended this book to me and I just finished it. This book will change the way you think about yourself and how to approach your career. In a world where employers can "google" any prospect, everyone needs to think about their career identity as they climb the corporate ladder. This book allows you to create and control your business identity and will teach you how to : brand yourself, build your online business identity; create your own story and goals. A must read for anyone looking for a new job-- or improving the way their current employer views them.

This is a must read book for all executives! Personal branding takes executives to a higher level where they are projecting an authentic, unique, compelling brand that sets them apart from the competition.

As an executive coach, I use Career Distinction's fabulous branding process of Extract (chapters 4-7), Express (chapters 8-11) and Exude (chapters 12-14) with all of my clients.

Here's what Carlos, one of my executive clients in Minneapolis, MN says about his experience with Career Distinction's 3-step branding process: "I have a much clearer view of what I do, how I do it, and why it works for me. Instead of just being successful professionally and making money, I have a much better understanding of how to attain fulfillment, happiness, and balance. Today my work is still a fundamental part of my life but is no longer the center of my life. My branding statement is: `A passionate, multicultural, and enterprising leader who recognizes and seizes opportunities, exhibits savvy in relating to others, and achieves dramatic results by orchestrating, negotiating, and closing win-win deals.' And, my tagline is `Strategy-Orchestration-Negotiation.'"

This book was very informative and helped me shift from my last "job title" to a more deeper understanding of my unique value to an organization. This knowledge about myself improved with each chapter. You can download a free workbook which serves as a great self-coaching tool with well-designed written exercises. I completed this workbook and appreciated having this as I read the book. The book is well organized and easy to follow. The 360 tool is a nice offer..very interesting activity to discover how other people view your talents and attributes. I used to do similiar 360 processes when I coached senior managers. However, I wasen't able to get it done in the 15 day time limit. You can retake for a minimal fee of $15...You can also conduct an informal "360" of your attributes by asking friends and colleagues. The three "C's" clarity,consistency, and constancy are what you need to be when you "show up" to your target audience or customer. These concepts are reinforced throughout the book and are very useful when you are designing your business cards, networking, or preparing for a job interview. I recommend all job seekers to design their personal branding as they prepare to compete in this very
tough job market.

Career Distinction is really the bible of career branding for today's increasingly portable worker. I love the focus on proactivity -- and the step-by-step instructions on how to build a brand presence in one's niche (and how to niche!) Understanding and leveraging personal branding and value is going to be the difference between panic and power in today's job market -- where stability is gone and we're more likely to become serial freelancers than long-term hires. And heck, it lets us have more fun at work because the clarity of branding gives us a great shot at getting hired to do what we love to do, with people we love to do it with. Not bad!

Quick, name the most important brand in the world.

Now imagine you are solely in charge of managing everything about that brand -- from marketing brand value and story to managing public perception and identity. Get it wrong and your brand suffers. Build and manage it correctly and you win.

Whatever your response was to the above question, unless you've read the book (read on), odds are you were probably thinking of a corporate brand. Possibly the brand you currently work for or some multi-national, mega-corp perhaps. Maybe a soft-drink company, fast food chain or computer giant entered your head when you read through the question.

Think closer to home.

The most important brand in the world of course is (insert your name here). "You" are the most important brand out there and that is precisely why you would read Career Distinction by William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson.

"One thing that links the most successful professionals at all levels is that they take a proactive approach to managing their careers. People who are ahead of the game don't wait for a career emergency to activate their network or update their resume. As Arruda and Dixson explain, you have to make career management a habit." ~ Martin Yate, Author of Knock `em Dead: The Ultimate Job Search Guide

The book takes the reader through a three-step process to evaluate and take control of his/her personal brand, both online and off.

STEP ONE: EXTRACT -- UNEARTH YOUR UNIQUE PROMISE OF VALUE

During this section, the reader goes through extensive, but easy to accomplish exercises that are designed to figure out what his/her current brand looks like and what his/her current strengths and weaknesses are.

It's easy to fool ourselves during these types of self-evaluating exercises to arrive on paper who we want to be or who we think we are, thus rendering the entire exercise useless in any real-world self-extracting process. The Career Distinction book along with the accompanying workbook and Web site knows this -- so the authors have set up an automated system for you to get real-world feedback from your friends, family, peers, colleagues, etc. In conjunction with the Web site, part of the exercise is to send via e-mail an evaluation allowing your peer group to anonymously rate, describe and evaluate you as a brand.

The Career Distinction site houses and tabulates all of the returned data from your peer group and it allows you to get an accurate assessment of the brand you are giving off as apposed to the brand image you want to be giving off. This extraction process is worth the cost of the book alone.

STEP TWO: EXPRESS -- COMMUNICATE YOUR BRAND TO YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

Now that the book has carefully walked you through the process of discovering the brand you want to be known as and the brand you have been giving off to others (this can be the same image or surprisingly different), it is now time to express the on-brand image you will be in control of going forward. Is the world ready for your new brand?

In this stage the authors help you to build your offline marketing tools (resume, cover letters, printed bios, etc.) Keeping everything on-brand is now easier, manageable, and in focus thanks to the extract process in earlier chapters.

If you didn't already realize how seriously important your online brand is already, you will by chapter 10 and 11. Enough to make you regret any drunken college pictures you have floating around online. No worries though. By then end of step two (Express) you will have both your offline and online branding strategies in place and on-message. Hopefully you won't have too much repair work to do from past "digital dirt" as the book calls it.

With a firm understanding of your brand, your target audience and a strategy to reach your audience, all that is left is the final step.

STEP THREE: EXUDE -- MANAGE YOUR BRAND ENVIRONMENT

Step three is by far the most common sense of the three steps and should be a quick read. There is nothing to figure out or evaluate here -- all of the heavy-lifting has been done already. Step three is in place to hammer home the concepts of staying on message and delivering your brand in everything you do.

There is also a chapter on creating a "visual identity" (which I didn't find that helpful) and finally the book wraps up with a lite chapter on professional networking and building what the authors call good "career karma."

Career karma, in terms of professional networking, is the act of giving out more than what you take in the line of helping others professionally. The book is absolutely correct in the fact that if all you worry about is giving to others, you will eventually end up with far more in return than if you were to keep score and always be looking to take professionally from others.

And that's it in a nutshell. Published in 2007 originally, the book hadn't made it across my desk until a few months ago. If you haven't heard of it and you are at all concerned about building and maintaining a personal brand for career management sake, Career Distinction: Stand Out by Building Your Brand is a must read. Find one used on Amazon and the knowledge it brings to you over the life of your career will pay for itself thousands of time over.

A lunchtime conversation led me to google ways to do a 360-degree assessment of how others perceive my personal and professional skills and attributes. This book was the only first-page result that provided a concise, clear summary of a theory and approach to determine "who I am" in the eyes of others. Within an hour, I had read the first few chapters and sent out a survey to 140 people in my personal and professional network. Within 5 minutes, I got the first few results.

My only complaint is that the survey tool does not integrate with social media platforms such as Facebook or LinkedIn.

However, the brevity, simplicity and focused message of this book makes up for the burden of manually uploading a CSV file then deleting email addresses.

Overall, I highly recommend that all executives take the time (and risk) to survey those whom you have had good and bad relationships.

I look forward to learning more about my weaknesses so that I address them while I increase focus on my strengths.

This book does not emphasize climbing the corporate ladder. Instead, it focuses on increasing one's chance of getting that dream job by improving one's personal brand (mostly through better resume, cover letters, and networking).

Although this book would be a good job search book, that is not what this book is branded as. It is branded as a book which allows you to "stand out" by building an effective personal brand. This seemed like climbing the corporate ladder to me. I didn't realize this meant writing an effective resume, cover letter, and contacts.

The authors disgresses for a chapter or two into the subject of life coaching. They have generic advices such as understanding one's passion...how boring... It is almost as if they ran out of things to write about.

If you are interested in a job search, this book should be helpful. If you want to improve your corporate personal brand to climb the corporate ladder, look elsewhere.

Way back in 2001, when I and other career professionals were conducing career workshops for outplaced individuals, it was often a useful exercise to ask participants to consider themselves as their own unique "Brand You." Taking tips from Tom Peters' work, we found ways to enhance traditional job search approaches and tools to help our clients stand out. Still, we lacked a comprehensive system to make personal branding a completely effective career management strategy.

Interestingly, in that same year, William Arruda founded Reach Communications Consulting, and got to work establishing a highly-effective personal branding process called 1-2-3 Success! In this new book, after dispelling branding myths, the authors discuss the phases of this process, offering practical advice on extracting, expressing, and exuding one's brand. As well, the authors support using the process with a downloadable workbook, and with access to the online 360Reach Personal Branding Assessment.

The value of having access to this process and these tools easily exceeds the price of the book. Yet, there is so much more in this remarkable volume. First, the authors make a compelling case for the role of branding in their examination of radical changes in the world of work. They then go on to establish four principles of the career distinction mindset. Taken together, these principles further support the case for personal branding as the most effective approach to career management and success...

... but wait, there's more!

Given recruiters' increasing use of Google to identify prospective talent or to make decisions on job candidates, the authors leverage Kirsten Dixson's expertise to help the reader begin to take steps to manage his or her career online. "Assessing Your Online Identity" walks the reader through the steps of determining his or her digital profile. Then, "Building Your Brand in Bits and Bytes" discusses practical and accessible ways to create an on-brand, online presence using blogs, web portfolios, and online networking.

Overall, I believe this book will become the career management standard. Everything in it is fresh, relevant, and thought provoking. Best of all: it works! Whether you begin applying its lessons on your own, or (ideally) invest in working with a certified Personal Branding Strategist, you will put yourself squarely on the path to more career distinction and to owning your success!

The authors have a very dynamic way of presenting concepts that made the book a very "active" read. Not only did the book encourage me to evaluate my own career history (and future!) in new light, it caused me to examine the people whom I most respect from the perspective of career branding. Indeed, when I look around to see the most powerful contributors in my field and among my circle of friends ALL of them are actively managing their brands in some way or another. But what Career Distinction offers is a methodology for managing one's career brand - proactively and from all perspectives.

Through stories and analogies, the authors encourage the reader to adopt a "proactive branding mindset" and ensure that every effort made in one's career is supportive of his/her brand. I found the workbook invaluable in turning the enthusiasm I had around the authors' content into very tangible steps that I could implement immediately.

Highly recommended.

"Career Distinction" is a must-read for any forward-thinking person who is even considering a career move. Personal branding has become an essential part of any job search and a key element of successful lifelong career management. Most anyone will benefit from all the useful information in the book.

As a Master Résumé Writer with 20 years experience crafting power executive résumés, I had already embraced personal branding as a cutting-edge trend in strategic résumé writing. After reading the book I improved my résumé development process to better uncover the critical brand-focused information from my clients that I need to craft a compelling résumé for them. The book reinforced for me that weaving their key brand attributes throughout their résumés differentiates them from the crowd and positions them above others competing for the same jobs.

In the first few pages, a powerful quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson sets the stage, "Insist on yourself; never imitate . . . Every great man is unique." This speaks to the essence of personal branding. Embrace what is unique about yourself - your personal brand - and communicate it throughout every aspect of your career. What makes you unique drives and reinforces your workplace value.

I also learned how to better identify my own brand and translate my passion for résumé writing and helping my clients succeed into a more clearly defined professional/personal brand. This helps potential clients distinguish the value and quality I offer from other executive résumé services. Developing my own brand was confidence-boosting and energizing.

Guidance is also given for assessing, correcting, and building your online identity, which is so important today given that more and more hiring decision makers are Googling job candidates before even considering them.

This is enlightening and powerful step by step intelligence that will improve any job seekers chances for landing a dream job.

Meg Guiseppi
www.ExecutiveResumeBranding.com