Personal Branding Statements, or How to Tell Your Story in Three Sentences!

Leveraging her publishing expertise, NWNY volunteer Diane Oshin helped NWNY community members craft personal branding statements that spoke to their professional purpose, core values, and uniqueness.

On Thursday, May 13, a small group of NWNY community members attended a unique Community Education Workshop, learning how to craft true-to-self yet attention-grabbing personal branding statements. Lucky for us, Diane Oshin, a devoted NWNY volunteer and career coach, acted as our steadfast facilitator. Wielding her 30 years of experience in the publishing industry, Diane shined a light on how personal branding statements help us tell our story to prospective employers in as little as three sentences. By the end of our session, many of us had personal branding statements worth adding to our job search toolkit, serving as an extension of our elevator pitches and essential documents like resumes, cover letters, and portfolios!

Joining Diane, Michela Demelas, NWNY’s Interim Community & Storytelling Officer, set the stage for our time together through an icebreaker activity. Participants shared their secret skills ranging from drum playing, wooden spoon-making, to the ability to communicate with anyone and everyone wherever and whenever. While learning that there is value in sharing these secret skills with others, we also recognized that personal joy often is something we seek to protect. I say this, having noted the laughter, smiles, and nodding heads as each of us took turns sharing. Somehow someway (without necessarily knowing one another), we intuited how much each skill belonged to its speaker. 

Examining our secret skills helped prepare us for Diane’s breakdown of a personal branding statement’s moving parts. She explained that this statement “should be relatively short,” anywhere from one to three sentences. Although brief, this statement should speak volumes “about what your expertise is […] how it manifests itself, and [how] you bring it forward in a unique way.” Part of employability is knowing yourself, which is why, according to Diane, this statement “should sum up what you stand for. It should leverage what your values are.” While also providing employers with a “quick glance into what you can do for them.” 

Before sending us off into breakout rooms, Diane shared three questions that one needs to answer when developing a personal branding statement: 1. Who am I? 2. What do I do? 3. How does it help others? Helping us answer these questions, Diane presented us with the building blocks for our statements. A personal branding statement includes one’s purpose, core values, strengths, and skills. It is also the first step in building a professional persona. Internalizing the importance of knowing ourselves first before curating our personal brand, we were ready to take a stab at drafting the first rendition of our personal branding statements. 

In small groups, participants encouraged one another first to identify the building blocks of their statements. We shared our professional goals, fundamental beliefs, and skills that set us apart from our peers. We then took time to write! Personal branding statements are doubly valuable as verbal statements (you can incorporate them into your elevator pitch) and written statements (you can incorporate them into your cover letter). After crafting working statements, to be polished further at home, we returned to the main room, reading aloud our drafts and providing balanced feedback. Reading aloud your personal statement is an essential part of the process when preparing for interviews. Diane reminded us that “your ability to present yourself in a concise, clear, efficient way in a very short sequence of sentences can be very powerful,” especially during the early stages of interviewing. We wholeheartedly thank Diane for utilizing her branding management skills, her know-how as a career coach, and her passion for giving back in this meaningful way.

NWNY’s Community Education Workshops offer our program participants the chance to connect beyond our workforce development programs. Through these workshops, we build a network of knowledge and empowerment, equipping our community members with resources and facts concerning their rights while demystifying the US job market and workplace culture in a safe and encouraging space. We hope you, too, will be inspired to pick up your pen, crafting the three sentences that might get your foot in the door as you develop your personal brand.