Back when I was at the agency, a new Account Director, let's call her Ms. X, joined. I was informed beforehand that Ms. X would lead the project I was planning, and I was thrilled because my boss had been temporarily filling in for the Account role.
Right after onboarding, Ms. X met with me. Her first words about the plan I was working on were, "I don't think this is stable," and before I could even ask why, she cut me off and continued to "ask," "Can I ask why you did it this way? Where did this come from?" and a series of similar questions. These questions wouldn't be worth mentioning if she hadn't been standing RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE OFFICE, and her VOICE WAS LOUD AND CHALLENGING, making everyone turn and stare.
I don't think she needed an answer; she needed to assert her power. I was young and naive then, so I immediately retorted because I didn't want to be seen as weak—a sign of my own insecurity at the time.
This made me curious about who she was, and my inner Conan came out. I checked her LinkedIn and saw a fantastic profile: years at international agencies, a few years client-side, and then back to another reputable international agency. At the company, she also maintained a personal brand as someone who had everything under control.
After a little research, I reassured myself and thought it would be great to work with someone like her, and that I'd get used to her working style over time.
By now, you can probably guess the second half of the story: the personal brand was great, but the work was terrible. The current project was already experiencing many snags, and other projects also ran into issues because of her project management—especially a fundamental Account skill like timeline management. Everything was late, and she didn't seem to take any action, to the point where I, the planner, had to speak up and get my boss involved to fix it. I won't detail the other issues, but I'll give you one example.
At this point, my intuition told the boss to re-examine this person. HR was asked to double-check her profile, and their professional investigation found that she had faked her CV! Immediately, my boss called her in, talked to her, and fired her ⁉️😃⁉️
This story is not new, and the message isn't new, but since I experienced it myself, I understand that personal branding is important for your career. However, you need to build a genuine personal brand, and hiring managers need to look beyond the candidate's personal brand instead of only prioritizing what "looks good."
