Your reputation determines how others perceive you, which can impact the trajectory of your career.
Companies need to manage their reputation, and so do individual professionals. Companies have to manage the reputation of their products, and when it comes to your career, you are the product. Here are three things to help you manage your professional reputation:Whether it is your work product or online content, everything you say and write shapes how people perceive you. That is, your reputation is based on the content you produce.
Be thoughtful with the information you project, from what you write in internal memos to your LinkedIn posts online. The formal and social content you produce influences people’s perceptions.The actions you take or don’t take also influence how people see you. For example, taking opportunities to work at a startup, in a volatile industry or start you own business may give people the impression that you are comfortable with risk.
Neither approach is right or wrong. In fact, some who have been at a particular organization for many years are itching to enter an emerging space that may be riskier and vice versa. When people see these experiences on your resume, words on the page may not convey the whole story. Your job is to communicate what you want out of your career to manage how people see you and where you want your career to go.