At our Annual Conference held in New Orleans this year, a charismatic and energized speaker named Peggy Parks, professional career coach, gave a talk on personal branding and how to determine whether yours is “plugged or unplugged”. If you missed her presentation this year at HIMSS13, it was all about branding yourself to create an image for others to recognize and acknowledge. This boosts your professional presence and helps to define who you are and how you are perceived by others in the workplace. Here is just a quick recap of some of the career coaching pearls to consider in the workplace and how your brand can be impactful to your career path.
From Peggy’s perspective, a person’s brand is as unique as a person’s signature. But building both is quite different. A person’s signature develops innately, as you grow as a person and a professional. A person’s brand is something that must be consciously established. Additionally, a personal brand can radically propel a career or deter a person and the organization with respect to presence and market share.
Often times we overlook details in our professional presence and that lack of detail can actually curtail an otherwise promising career. For example, having the appropriate attire and impeccable grooming will convey to the outside world how you value yourself and everyone with whom you come into contact with in your environment. Also, looking good and feeling good to the public shows confidence and an ability to be recognized as a professional in the work environment. Next comes behavior, which plays a key role in career success; how you behave and how you are perceived behaving in the environment has a great deal to do with your acceptance in the workplace. Finally, strong emotions need to be avoided in the work environment. No matter how low you may feel on a given day, you must “zip up your professional suit”.
These career pearls of wisdom can also be used in all career levels. What were the career take-aways? Each of us is personally responsible for our own personal brand; it’s the small things that matter at times and you never get a second chance to make a great first impression.
Personal branding is all encompassing and supports our soft and transferable skills often identified as career deterrents. These skills are often times overlooked and not considered when seeking employment, securing it or even maintaining employment. And stay tuned as we continue to build out our HIMSS career services offerings; more programs and presentations of this caliber are on their way to our members in support of their career goals and efforts!
Be passionate about your career path and strive to make a difference and learn, learn…learn. Technology is only the enabler; individuals will be the “transformers” of health IT in the years to come!
