4 tips to rebrand your career: Pivoting your professional personal brand
Discover how to rebrand your career with four practical personal brand strategies. Shape your professional story with confidence and credibility.
Pursuing a new career path can feel like stepping into uncharted territory. But rarely are you navigating a new path from scratch. You’re likely wading in much more familiar waters than you might think. You’re reshaping and redefining what already exists in your personal brand: your skills, experiences and reputation. Think of it less as reinventing your career and more as rebranding.
Whether you’re chasing new opportunities or leveraging your strengths, position your professional personal brand as moving with purpose.
These four strategies will help you make the shift for your personal brand with credibility and confidence.
1. Pull on the thread
I was once in a workshop where the facilitator, in response to a participant's comment, said, “I want to pull on that thread for a minute”. Immediately, and for years on, the phrase stood out to me. Because it instantaneously filtered out all the noise in the room to cut through to the most important point.
Your career is like a rich tapestry of your skills, experiences, expertise, qualifications and achievements. Pivoting your personal brand is like finding the threads you want to pull on the most. It could be moving with what’s most in demand in the marketplace, doing what your values are most aligned with, what you’re most talented at, or all of the above. Remember, a rebrand for your professional brand is not starting from scratch; it’s building on the hard work you’ve already put in.
2. Connect the narrative
One of the most important takeaways I gained from Dorie Clark’s book Reinventing You is:
“You can take it with you.”
Your skills, knowledge and reputation follow you. You aren’t always starting from the bottom; you're pivoting. You're zooming in on a skill set that already exists and taking your story in a more focused direction.
My career began in marketing and communications backed by qualifications in business and marketing, including an MBA, plus some niche coaching certificates. When I pivoted into personal brand coaching and consulting, I was pulling on threads that had already been woven into my career, such as branding, leadership, communication, and professional development. Moving forward, instead of only selling household brands (and their executive leadership teams), I was helping everyday emerging leaders and executives sell themselves. More succinctly, I might say something like, “I used to market big brands, now I market people.”
Don’t start your story over; use strategic storytelling to give yourself the credibility you’ve already earned.
3. Package your related skills
Do the mental heavy lifting for your audience. Make your career move make sense to others. Connecting the narrative isn’t enough. You need to highlight your expertise and authority in your new field by explicitly linking your transferable skills. This gives you credibility for your career change.
For example:
What qualifies me to talk about personal branding? 15+ years of marketing experience in sport, entertainment, retail and education, communicating on behalf of well-known professional brands.
What do I know about business and leadership? Over a decade of collaborating closely with and communicating on behalf of CEOs and Board Presidents, plus being a former manager and MBA Alumni Network President.
What authority do I have to talk about writing? 15+ years of professional writing experience, including leading magazines distributed to tens of thousands of people.
Why can I talk about digital marketing and content creation? I have done both the technical work myself for big brands and headed these teams. Plus, I now manage my own YouTube, podcast and blog.
Identify the skills most pivotal to your career rebrand and audit your existing skills to map their credibility for these skills. For the purpose of your resume or LinkedIn profile, you’ll want to be more specific, including numbers and relevant examples. But, overall, make it make sense to the marketplace. Leave a recruiter, potential client or audience feeling like your career change isn’t a complete 180, but a pivot, the natural next step.
4. Shift your storytelling
Updating your resume or LinkedIn profile is not enough to rebrand your professional brand. You need to shift your conversations and start sharing more content related to your new career focus. You might start small, such as liking and sharing other people’s posts in this field before sharing original content. See this as planting seeds or dropping hints about what you have in store next for your career.
For real impact and to signal that you’re serious about your shift, start by eventually creating your own content. As Clark says:
“Every art student has a portfolio ready to be shown at a moment’s notice. It’s no different in the business world; no one will believe you’re serious unless you begin to create content that demonstrates your expertise.”
Power your career pivot
A career pivot doesn’t abandon your past professional history; it builds on it. With the right career branding strategy, you can build a personal brand positioning that feels confident and credible. Where your next chapter feels like the natural continuation of your professional story, not a detour. When done well, rebranding your career doesn’t just open doors; it positions you as the author of your own evolving story.
