1. What are your thoughts on personal branding as someone who may soon be looking for a professional position in libraries? (Tags = blogpostwk2, blogp

I’m sitting here in my overly warm house with a cold and meditating on what it would be like to pursue a job in the virtual world with only my reputation to precede me. And not really my reputation, but one I’ve made up by signing up for groups and blogs and twitters that have to do with issues connected to the places I want to work for. So what I'd really be doing is creating a person, based of course on some realities, but maybe many more activities than I have. Sorry, cough medicine causes alliteration. Now I’m not saying I wouldn’t connect to these places anyway but I’m an introvert. I like being part of the faceless crowd. In fact the minute I visualize myself at an interview, I view that horrible moment when I notice I’ve got a spot or a stain or a green thing on my tooth and everybody in the room is aware of it… Whoa, went off into a nightmare there. For more on this see a video referred by a teacher last semester where the interviewee has a large greasy spot on his shirt.

Where was I? Oh yes, destroying my chances for a job.

I’ve worked in several fields as a certified introvert and had few if any noticeable problems. I’ve always been considered a team player, worked hard, seldom complained, and when I was frustrated with a job, quit and found work somewhere else. And these were not simple jobs – I worked as a counselor for years and in the library for the last four years as well as a painter. So when it comes to polishing up a resume, I do have job skills and a few connections I’ve made from groups that I joined under the cover of Harry Potter’s invisibility cloak.

I believe in personal branding. I just wouldn’t think of it in many of the jobs prior to this degree because I don't believe anyone would look me up. But in a business that works in the world of information, that stuff is important. It’s important to make a personal statement much as it is to wear a blouse without stains. Only I have a natural, obstinate need to stay away from all groups and branding and to believe that no one is looking at me. Now how to go about it in a business that requires information at a public level?

But I like the flip side to this. I love connecting to blogs. I mean, really love it. I love reading the writing style of others, the short takes on the world, and I love responding to it and making my own space. So if I were to use connecting to others through blogging and maybe twitter, I could create that space for me that interacts with others on my own time rather than real time and it would be more about me than the girl who worries about the stain that isn’t there. I could use the new tools as a slightly more polished version of me, the one that interviewers should see in the room anyway. Thumbs up for personal branding. Perhaps the tool was designed by an introvert?