This blog post is WEEK ONE of the personal branding strategies series.   

I will warn you in the beginning, some of the recommendations in the series take time, effort & sometimes money to do it.

You need to be comfortable to get in there, roll up your sleeves, and get your hands dirty.

I can assure you that it only takes the time you spend watching a single Netflix series.

So let’s start WEEK ONE tasks now

It’s essential to lay a solid foundation before you even start thinking of personal branding.

Where do you expect to see the results of your work on personal branding?

A notification or a call on your personal mobile for interview?

How alert will you be when something important comes up in the list of 100 notifications?

Don’t you think setting up a separate mobile for your job search-related branding work is a good idea?

All the work you will do on personal branding in subsequent weeks will reflect on one device & that is not your personal mobile.

Advantages of having a separate phone for branding & job search.

I am sure that every home has at least one spare phone in complete working condition. 

It’s probably unused just because it can’t hold enough charge for a day.

You don’t need a battery that lasts three days to use it for job search. 

You know that you can always plug into your wall if you are at home (or) plug into your car if you are out. 

Let’s use the spare phone to setup as a work phone. 

If you don’t have any spare phone, consider getting a used phone. The number one priority should be signal reception. 

Go to device racks, search for the phone you decide to get & check the connectivity score. Blindly choose any phone with a connectivity score above 9 points.

A 3-year-old OnePlus phone that you can get for $50 has a fantastic signal reception. 

If you decided to use an old phone, use an app like (TMK Battery Alarm) to remind you to charge when the battery falls below 20%.

(If you are gifted enough to get a new phone for work, that’s awesome. This post is focused to minimize the financial burden to people who already struggling to find a job)

It’s essential to set the ringtone & the alert tone to sound different from your personal phone—something loud enough & pleasant. 

This ringtone will get registered as something important in your subconscious mind.

As time goes by, you’ll be able to recognize it inside your soundproof car in heavy traffic, even if it rings in a vehicle next to you.  

It holds power to wake you up even if you are in a sound sleep.

And when you land your dream job after so much struggle, this ringtone becomes the most beautiful music of your life. 

Your brain works that way. It correlates the sound to a phase of your life that has intense emotion. 

I had been there. Sometimes I feel happy for no reason, just because I hear the Oneplus tone unexpectedly. I used an OnePlus phone during a job search. 

I switched to an iPhone now, but the one plus ring tone still makes me alert & happy after three years.

Ok, now you have might have decided to search for that unused device on your home to keep track of your personal branding work. What if I tell you, It’s equally important to get a separate number.

Why you need a separate number?

You never miss calls because no two mobile carriers will be unreachable at the same time, no matter where you are in the country. 

So we suggest choosing a different carrier itself for your new number.

Just set up a call divert from work number to personal number if it is not reachable & voila you reduced the risk of missing calls by 100%.

The two carriers you have (for personal & work) should be top carriers with wide coverage in your country.

Example: AT & T and Verizon in US, Jio & Airtel in India

Also, choose a number that you can easily spell so that people can not guess it’s a recently acquired number. 

What are the Advantages? 

Subconsciously, you acknowledge any call received to this number is essential to your job search.

Even if your work number is not reachable, you still get the call to your personal mobile number through call divert. 

You can create new accounts essential to your job search with your newly acquired number. 

The information linked to your personal mobile number is not researchable by your recruiters when you give a different number to them. 

Summary

• Get a separate phone with good signal reception.
• Get a different carrier plan for your work phone.
• Set up your professional email on this new phone (email app on iPhone, outlook on Android)
• Update resume with your professional email on the job portal & LinkedIn
• Update your resume with your new work number on job portals & LinkedIn
• Setup different ringtone & message tone on your new phone
• Divert calls from your work number to your personal number when not reachable.
• Set up an alarm on the work phone to remind you to charge it when the battery reaches 30%. (Use TMK Battery Alarm App)
• Install Linkedin App
• Install ResponsiveCV App
• Download quick links of your CV to edit whenever you get the IDEA.
• Install all the apps related to your Job Search.

All the work you will do in the subsequent weeks for brand building gets reflected on this phone. You’ll see results coming slowly and steadily.

If this phone rings, it’s a result of what you have done to improve your brand.

It would be best if you had your foundation strong before you even start building your brand.

We know it’s a lot of work to do. But being unique and different from the crowd is not easy either.

These little things make a significant difference in building a personal brand. 

If you have a Platinum plan & see no results after following all the recommendations you receive for the next 8 weeks, ask us for 20% back by the end of the year. We’ll be happy to give it back to you.

Once you complete this week recommendations, you’ll have the following

Dedicated Work Device – WEEK ONE
Dedicated Work Number – WEEK ONE

Disclaimer:

This blog post is just ONE of the series of recommendations we offer to our platinum users to establish their brand. 

You need to complete all exercises & wait for a month to see the results.

You can implement this recommendation even if you don’t have a platinum account

Paint our recommendations with your personality, passion & purpose, and be creative in your own way.