Developing your personal brand is a critical skill as a career woman because often, your reputation can lead to better opportunities. Your brand helps you show who you are and what skills you can bring to a potential employer. There are several ways you can start working on your brand.

Invest in Yourself

No matter your industry, you can likely benefit from keeping up with the trends in your industry. Learn how to draw your own conclusions from what’s happening around you. Investing in your knowledge makes your personal brand even more valuable to those in your workspace.

A few ways of broadening your knowledge are by attending trade shows, going to networking events, taking classes, or even getting your degree. While all these ways can benefit you, getting your degree can have the greatest impact on your career path. Even though it can be expensive to get your degree, you can apply for scholarships online to make higher education more affordable when it comes time to graduate.

Share Your Ideas

If you never share your ideas, only allowing your work to speak for itself, it is possible you will have a strong reputation among your coworkers. But that is likely not a very large audience. Your managers or leaders in other departments might not be aware of what you contribute to your team, and if there are changes in the number of employees, you will need to start over with reputation building. 

Women often find it difficult to promote themselves or talk about what they have accomplished. However, you can still show what you are good at to help your personal brand. Creating content can help you share ideas with others and form your reputation moving forward. Of course, this can depend on your industry, as some companies may limit the amount you can share on a blog or social media. Still, there are usually plenty of ways you can help others with your knowledge.

Control Your Own Narrative

One of the most important things to remember when building a brand is to be the voice. It’s too easy to assume that hard work will get you noticed, but this is often far from the truth. Many people are stretched to their limits already, and they may not pay enough attention for your hard work to make a difference to them, and they might not be able to form a correct narrative of who you are. They may incorrectly assume that you switched to another role because you couldn’t make it in your first one when you switched because of potential career development. Help others form a better narrative of you by creating a short pitch on who you are and how your skills connect to each other.

Network in Different Areas

Many career women focus only on building connections with others who are like them. However, if only a few people know what you are capable of, your career growth is at risk. There is not as diverse a group of people who can speak on your work ethic and contributions, and you won’t have as large a network to offer support. Consider creating a network of individuals both inside and outside your organization.