While career advice is awash with phrases such as ‘Earning Potential’, ‘Future-focused’, and ‘Valued Investment’, most vocational mentors will rally around the fundamental concept, even traditional or old-fashioned ideas, of building a reputation in an industry, market or workplace.

For business owners, there is no business without reputation and this is the same reason small-medium-sized businesses are extremely careful about those they recruit to the team.  It is critical to any busiiness that they project the company ethos in every facet of contact, performance, or representation.

For large businesses, it may be the business unit or division that operates to focus its reputation as part of the whole.  It might be useful for teams, or individuals, to analyse how clients and competitors view the organisation.   For individuals, this process is relatively easy but can be confronting.

Consider your workplace or industry reputation, and ask yourself two questions:

  1. Is my reputation as well-regarded and consistent as I’d like it to be?
  2. What is one thing that I can do this week to improve that situtation?

If you don’t like the answer to 1. ask yourself: 3. Is my reputation deserved?

For those looking for a new role: add this consideration to your job-search process and when producing references for applications, make sure that your referee can honestly validate the assertions in your CV.

For those in roles, avoid complacency and attend to your reputation.  By doing so, it could change your career, your division, and your company bottom-line.