In 2022, the Starmania businessman would not have wanted to be an artist, but… an influencer. His number, he would do it on LinkedIn. According to the professionals, the temptation is there: chaining colorful posts and rocket emojis on the favorite social network of the “start up nation”, young and dynamic executives deploy treasures of inventiveness to attract the attention of their community. A way to distinguish yourself from others, to be more original than your neighbor in a job market that is becoming ever more competitive. Editing of film clips for an alternation, CV submitted in the form of minutes on a boss’s windshield to land an internship, or transformed into a makeup palette to attract the attention of a cosmetics brand… In recent months, candidates have been competing in ingenuity to seduce.
In this world, humility and discretion have no place. To break through, you have to stand out. But not just anyhow: by proceeding in a thoughtful, organized and, above all, consistent manner. This is called “personal branding”. Self-promotion, by creating your “personal brand”, can we translate into French. Born across the Atlantic, the concept is gaining popularity among employees who want to always stand out… But also among recruiters, fond of original personalities who can be ambassadors for another brand: that of their company, this time. .
“Each individual must value themselves”
The idea of becoming a brand yourself does not date back to the creation of LinkedIn. It even finds its source in the old moons of American personal development. As early as 1936, in the midst of the Great Depression, writer and lecturer Dale Carnegie applied the techniques of a fledgling advertising industry to personal relationships in his book How to make friends and influence people. A few decades later, in 1981, the popes of American management Al Ries and Jack Trout coined the term “self-marketing”. And as early as the 90s, through essays like that of Tom Peters, “The Brand Called You“, “The brand is you”, the personal branding passes into the everyday language of young American urbanites. “The concept arrived with the explosion of the tertiary sector which has individualized the relationship that everyone has with their work, analyzes Daphnée Breton, work and organizational psychologist. Each individual must now value themselves, and therefore promote themselves ” .
The explosion of the Internet allows the trend to spread permanently. With social networks, everyone now has the opportunity to stage themselves, to reflect on who they are and how they want to present themselves to the world. To the point that in the United States, institutions as respectable as Columbia University devote entire courses to personal branding. In France, the public investment bank (BPI) is also involved, airing in October 2021 a “masterclass” of almost an hour dedicated to Linkedin. “We were already witnessing a rise in practice before the Covid, but it intensified in 2021, explains Laurence Breton-Kueny, vice-president of the national association of human resources directors (ANDRH). Companies are increasing internal training linked to the social network and there is now an insistence on how employees can develop their personal brand, control it”. Invisible executives stuck in their open space are no longer popular. Here they are even outdated, believes Christine Echelard, general director of human resources for the city of Le Havre: “A manager must now be a relay for the policies deployed in his professional environment, including on social networks. Obviously, when someone has these skills are appreciated”.
“It requires an investment”
These employees who know how to subtly push the collar attract more attention from recruiters than the others. Especially in certain sectors. According to Pierre Allain, a “talent” hunter for a recruitment start-up, “someone who practices a good personal branding in the world of tech, digital, will be more easily recruited. The same goes for the various commercial and communication professions.
Stand out, okay, but how? LinkedIn experts have mastered some attention-grabbing tricks. “Before I started, I thought about what I was, about the image I wanted to project”, assures Léa Michel, in charge of recruitment in a company. From the top of her 600 subscribers – for the moment – the young woman seeks to develop her “notoriety” in order to improve her “professional network”. “I thought about what my skills were, about the added value I could bring,” she explains. Then comes the presentation. “Your profile must be clear, structured”, explains Kelly, recruitment officer in Auvergne. The young woman has well informed her professional and student career, on this platform which remains above all an online CV place… But not only: “You have to be memorable! she insists. Having a recognizable element in your photo or in his spelling”. As with any good brand, design matters. “To be effective, we can even think about a physical element, or an accessory, such as large glasses for example”, underlines Léa Michel.
A requesting network
Everything to stand out in the jungle of profiles? Yes, but in truth, it doesn’t really work. At first glance, with their colorful background photos and wise smiles, the dynamic young executives all look more or less alike. So it’s up to everyone’s “skills” and “personality” to speak. “A personal branding that works is 50% professional and 50% personality, believes Pierre Allain. And a lot of work”. To “enhance their skills”, our witnesses concede spending a lot of time on the platform: “LinkedIn values posts from people much more than from companies, explains Léa Michel. This pushes us to personalize what we say”. On average, the young woman explains that it takes “three hours” to write a publication, once a week. “You have to be there regularly, otherwise you disappear, or we are less visible, she notes, confident spending an hour a day on LinkedIn. Writing publications is not enough: you also have to comment, interact with your community if you want it to work”. Because LinkedIn is a network with a capricious algorithm. “It took me 6 months to see the results in terms of visibility, notes Pierre Allain. And I have to continue to be curious and proactive in finding topics for posts.”
To build a character is obviously to simplify in broad strokes what one is. To succeed in your personal branding, you have to assume to caricature yourself a tad, which is not always easy. “This emphasis on personality can become complicated to manage, notes Alf Rehn, professor of design and management at the University of Southern Denmark. The concept of personal brand pushes us to create easily interpretable characters and stories: Mr. Crypto works alongside Mrs. Organisation.” For the specialist, author in 2013 of a critical post on the subject, the perpetual search for personal branding presents the risk of erasing the share of complexity, even doubts and uncertainties that are part of each of us: “This simplification of the personality is useful for making yourself known. But when you are stuck in this character, how get out ?”. By distancing itself from Linkedin, for example, but that would mean giving up the valuable exposure that this social network provides.