BOOK LOOK: Dan Schawbel’s Me 2.0 (on personal branding)
If you’re interested in personal branding, self-marketing, preparing for the job market or propelling your career using the Web as your main vehicle, chances are you’ve heard of Dan Schawbel. You might even read his blog, or may have seen one of his syndicated columns. Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success is a starter guide to, as you might expect, building your personal brand. I had the chance to pick up the book over winter break, and reviewed it this past weekend as a refresher course as I begin preparing for the job search (I graduate in May).
It wasn’t long ago (since the book was written) that Schawbel was looking at jobs himself, and as he came to the realizations that he presents in the book about the importance of a personal brand in terms of presenting yourself to a potential employer. The book feels significantly more genuine because of this, and while books/articles/etc on “personal branding” can often feel obnoxious, this one makes sense. If nothing else, you leave after reading knowing that you need to at least think about what kind of personal brand you’ve intentionally or unintentionally created, and from that point you can decide how important you think it is.
I read this book right before reading What Color is your Parachute, a classic job-seeker’s guide, and it was interesting to see how they compared in terms of advice. Me 2.0 is a lot more focused on the digital, but a lot of the same values and suggestions shone through (I’ll be posting a review of What Color is your Parachute next Monday!). This book is intended for someone at any stage of their career- there’s an emphasis on the fact that even if you’re happily employed, you need to leverage your personal brand in improve upon that career as well as in other areas of your life.
The book was, overall, pretty easy to understand and user-friendly, though I would have liked to have seen more bullet-points/lists/thing broken up in that way. It is organized well, though- it starts with a section of four chapters explaining the rise of personal branding and why, essentially, it’s important; then, it moves into how to discover, create, communicate and maintain your brand; before finally finishing with how you can move forward.
It was interesting to read this in a book format; for something that praises the abilities of “digital,” it’s weird to see it on paper. Plus, the book was published (maybe re-published) in 2009, but a lot of intricacies of portraying your personal brand have already changed. However, the main ideas, suggestions and topics are less of step-by-step technical instructions and more-so overall self-marketing concepts.
If you feel as if you already know all there is to know about personal branding, this book might not be the best for you. The concepts and suggestions are pretty basic. But if you’re looking to propel your career and aren’t familiar with the idea of “personal branding,” this is a must-read. It’s a great overview of basic personal branding concepts, and will open your mind to different ways to market yourself. Check it out!
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Thanks for the kind review Erica. The 2nd edition will be out in September.