Build your Boss Image: 7 tips on how to sell & brand yourself as a Cloud Professional
On Friday 23rd February 2024, I had the amazing opportunity to speak on selling and branding yourself as a Cloud Professional.
Speaking to over 250 Cloud Enthusiasts in one session was surreal and this could not be possible without the love of the community (I love you back 10x over).
The session was filled with positive feedback at the end of the session with a promise to build on it further with a LinkedIn Optimization session at a future date.
So what did we discuss? I started by sharing Seven tips that I have curated from my years of experience in my Cloud Career Journey.
Let’s dive into each with a reminder that they were not in any particular order of importance. However, some tips are dependent on one another as we are going to see.
Create and share content
Brand yourself by letting us know what you do as a cloud professional. Build in public and document it by creating and sharing technical content. This shows proof of lifelong learning and goes a long way in building your portfolio.
I started with creating technical content on YouTube then moved on to blog articles on Medium, Hashnode and LinkedIn. I can attest that creating and sharing content provides an opportunity to understand concepts better and add your unique voice to pertinent technical topics in the community.
Be active in tech communities
It’s very important to overcome the fear and anxiety that come with imposter syndrome in order to fully participate and demonstrate what you can do. You can be active in a number of ways, some that are low-hanging fruits and worked for me when I started out and can work for you are:
Suggest topics to be discussed in the next meetup
Offer to volunteer at the event through serving where there is need e.g. Registering participants, running the presentations, moderating etc
Offer help when members post challenges they are facing when deploying solutions or learning a particular technical concept.
You can then move on to high-stakes participation such as:
Offering to speak at community meetups.
Offer your expertise and business skills to better the member experiences.
Demonstrate these TWO power traits
(a) Authenticity
We are humans and we can sense fakeness from afar. We can tell when someone is doing something with an ulterior motive or with strings attached. In a world where everyone is portraying themselves as either perfect or flawless, authenticity means not hiding your challenges or failures along your cloud journey.
This does not mean oversharing everything about your life and putting yourself in a vulnerable state. It means ensuring who you are online is in tandem with who you actually are.
(b) Commitment to lifelong learning
In tech, there is no faster way to being redundant or irrelevant than deciding that learning end with earning that academic credential.
You can decide to demonstrate your commitment to lifelong learning by pursuing industry certifications which help structure your learning.
You an also build a portfolio of projects which play a key role in building your Cloud Resume. Remember it’s not certs vs projects or vice-versa. I know there has been a lingering debate around that in the industry and in my opinion they complement each other if done right.
Seek feedback and iterate
Most of the time we either overlook feedback or deliberately ignore opportunities of gaining feedback. After understanding the Radical Candor concept by Kim Scott I came to realize that all feedback i important and the most valuable feedback is one that challenges you to be a better person.
When you create content, seek and iterate on feedback, when you speak at an event, seek and iterate on feedback. At any point of your Cloud Career Journey, never pass up any opportunity to seek improvement feedback and if you can structure it in form of satisfaction surveys or interviews well and good. Iterate by reviewing the feedback, implementing valuable suggestions and iteratively seek more feedback.
Apply for community programs
One of the mistakes I have heard from Cloud enthusiasts when it comes to applying for Community Programs such as the AWS Community Builer program is having a personal motivation that is not sustainable (e.g. the perks and swag), applying when you know very well that you don’t meet the program requirements with the key one usually being the tip on Create and Share Content and the main one being afraid of rejection.
What I can assure you is that these programs have enough opportunities for builders however the reality is that most builders are not branding themselves properly and are not genuinely and consistently contributing to the growth of fellow builders in the community. This bring me to a fundamental tip…
Welcome and support others
It’s always the hardest at the start of your journey as a Cloud Professional. That means if you get any opportunity to ease the burden for someone starting in the cloud then by all means do it. You may ask how does this sell and brand you as a Professional and i can tell you that there are many gatekeepers in the industry and unfortunately they don’t rise that much because we grow by lifting others. And to our final tip…
Optimize your social presence
Doing the simple things when it comes to having a consistent brand across all online platforms goes a long way in developing your personal brand.
Have a consistent and professional headshot on all socials, have a unique headline (that represents who you truly are or aspire to be) and posting things that support you and your career.
You can delve deeper and optimize your profile especially on LinkedIn and remove the ‘weeds’ as I call them under your Licenses and Certifications where every Tom, Dick and Harry of a Certificate/Credential is dumped there. Trust me when I tell you that it does not help your cause.
My three-fold ask to you…
- Prioritize these tips starting with the one you are weakest or have done nothing about (don’t forget to check dependencies e.g. You can’t apply to community programs without Being Active in Communities)
- Transform them into SMART Goals (You can check examples and get a template to get started right away here; https://www.atlassian.com/blog/productivity/how-to-write-smart-goals)
- Get someone you will be accountable every week for 12 Weeks (I know I can be the ideal person but sadly I am not scalable so a peer would do a better job)
I look forward to seeing you grow in your journey as a Cloud Professional.
Special appreciation to Anthony Nzuki for the brilliant moderation and the Ajira Digital Program team for the invite.
