Guest post by D³: LIVE & INTERACTIVE guest Sue Varty.

Developers are often personally identified by the technology they use (or don't use). Also, people make assumptions about their skills and abilities based on their employer's brand. Whether you are full-time or on a contract, don't let people make assumptions about your skill-set. Start “positioning yourself” within your organization to influence how others describe your skills and the problems you solve for others. This is known as personal branding and it can work well as a long-term strategy to reach your career and life goals.

Use the table below to define your interests and strengths (2 sets per category). Examples have been included but you can download the original worksheet. Your homework is to fill this out before next week when we evaluate and “position” these interests and strengths to implement your personal brand message.

Define what you are passionate about

Category

Topic

Write down two topics per category.

Personal Interest

A

Hiking, Biking, Sailing, Cricket

B

Mad Men, Game of Thrones, CBC Podcasts

Career/Business Focused

C

Windows Azure, ASP.NET, PHP, JavaScript

D

Project Management, Team Leadership, Agile, Extreme Programming, Pair Programming

Events/Workshops

/Speaking Engagements

E

ConFoo, JavaScript Conference, Demo for Lunch and Learn

F

Start-up or Developer Social Event,
@devsdevsdevs Lighting Talk

Tune in next week for Part 2!

Comments? Questions?
Share them with myself, Sue, and the larger Canadian developer community – start a conversation in the Canadian Developer Connection group on LinkedIn.

Sue Varty
Susan Varty, Director of Digital Strategy for HeadStart Solutions, is a social media and career development educator, non-traditional marketer, and an established blogger. She spoke recently about Personal Branding at ConFoo, a developer’s conference in Montreal and is the co-founder of HeadStart Social.