Dustin Siggins
Dustin Siggins

If there’s one common comms story lately, it’s that senior-level jobs are harder to come by. I’ve spoken with dozens of comms leaders who’ve led crisis responses, shaped executive messaging and built brands who say they’ve been ghosted by companies or seen their resumes buried.

It’s a dynamic built on a perfect storm that began in 2022, as inflation created years of recession fears. 2024 brought election uncertainty that tightened corporate budgets, and tariffs in 2025 added new doubts about growth. On top of that came AI, fooling executives into thinking that strategic communications continues to be a “nice to have” instead of a “need to have.”

The irony is that companies are looking to hire. But as two communications industry recruiters and an economist told me on a recent panel, companies are moving slowly, and executives want “unicorns” who can do it all and stay forever. Additionally, many comms pros have spent their entire careers helping others build personal and professional brands while keeping themselves in the shadows. But in 2025, that invisibility isn’t a strength. Comms professionals are unemployed, companies struggle to navigate crises and non-profits are scrambling to keep donors engaged.

If you want to thrive in this market, it’s time to treat your own brand with the same mindset that you would bring to clients or to a company. Here’s a 30-day personal branding strategy that I developed after learning from senior communications executives about their job search struggles.

Week 1: create your message

Start where every good campaign begins: a message that stands out to a target audience, in this case, senior executives of agencies, mid-level companies looking to scale and major corporations. Narrow your search by answering six key questions.

  • What are your three best “hard” skills (like “training AI systems to reduce costs and increase productivity”) and “soft” skills (like “using psychological profiling to keep stakeholders focused during a crisis”?
  • Don’t waste your message’s value. What are the kinds of organizations that benefit most from your strengths.
  • Which problems do you solve with those strengths, and how can you demonstrate results from the past that apply to the problems today’s interviewers seek to solve?
  • What are the personal pain points of the executives you’ll work with and how can your organization-wide solutions solve those problems?
  • Which formats best highlight your value? (This is less important for the application and interview part of the process and more for the pre-interview personal branding steps laid out below.) For example, if you hate being on camera, don’t force yourself onto a video. Maybe you’re a great writer—so put your time into that talent and get those forward-looking op-eds published.
  • Where can you be counterintuitive or challenge conventional wisdom to stand out?

By putting in this work, you’ll crystallize for yourself and for everyone else what you do, why you do it and why they should pay you a lot of money to do it for them.

Weeks 2–4: activate your network

Once your message is defined, test it—and refine it—through your relationships.

Identify two groups of contacts: 10 people whose organizations could hire or partner with you within three months and 30 more who might do so in the next six months once they fully understand your value.

If 40 people sounds intimidating, that’s the point. You might think there are only 20 people in your network because that’s who you communicated with in the past year. But my company grew 70 percent in 2022, after I reconnected with people I hadn’t spoken to in a decade. We generated months of business and a referral that led to more business the following year.

I challenge you to go back years into your personal and professional history. Find the people who you know are dynamic and amazing—and would be happy to reconnect with you.

Once you have your list, ask them for an informational interview. Let them know you have a plan and would like their professional insights into it. You’re not asking for a job or a referral— merely for their insights, frustrations and successes.

And by the end of those virtual or in-person meetings, you’ll have a much clearer idea of both where you fit in the market—and how to prove it.

LinkedIn 101

It’s time to jump into the biggest and most important virtual coffeehouse around: LinkedIn. It’s no longer just a job posting platform or a billboard; instead, it’s the place to hang around with those who live hundreds of miles and a few keystrokes away.

With the foundation built by the previous steps, accelerate your job search journey with the following six steps:

Post three to four times a week. Start by thinking through concepts: What’s something you’ve always wanted to say but never have? What does the industry need to know that nobody else is saying? What’s something you can show is valuable … that’s also counter-intuitive to your target executives?

Then, make sure to bring your audience along on a journey. Don’t just state a lesson; show how you’ve navigated the challenge in the past. Discuss how something in the news can teach others how to think and do better.

In other words, your posts should show the value people will get by hiring you.

Engage meaningfully. You don’t want to be seen as someone who only takes from your valuable connections, so help build them up. Ask questions, challenge norms—respectfully—and share your useful perspective on their posts. LinkedIn is all about connections and community, and you’ll become a valuable member of the community by participating in everyone else’s corner of the virtual coffeehouse.

Expand deliberately. Each week, request connections with decision-makers and influencers who fit your target personas. And skip the form letters when reaching out; personalize every request.

Follow up quickly. Send a brief, genuine note within 24 hours of connecting, ideally referencing something specific from their work, the relevant marketplace or your engagement with them somewhere in the past.

Move strong connections offline. A quick call or coffee chat still builds great rapport.

Set boundaries. Block dedicated time for posting and engagement, so LinkedIn supports your goals instead of distracting you.

The key to LinkedIn is to stay focused on the outcome you want. Don’t get distracted by people who exaggerate their accomplishments or others’ vanity engagement. Nerd out where it makes sense—as part of your business outcome, to show that you’re a real person with real feelings. But don’t get caught up in irrelevant debates or discussions or showing what you had for lunch.

By applying a business discipline to your LinkedIn strategy, your presence becomes a living portfolio of how you lead and think.

By day 30: build your rhythm and your reputation

Within a month, the process will start to feel natural. You’ll have a clear message, visible traction and a reliable cadence—roughly an hour a day posting and engaging, another hour establishing relationships and one to two hours strengthening deeper connections or collaborations.

These small, deliberate actions compound quickly. You’ll begin to see stronger engagement, better introductions and more relationships that will result in referrals and other opportunities that will move you towards getting an interview with the organizations that want you on board.

Communications has always rewarded those who make others look good. But the era of quiet excellence is over. And building your personal brand isn’t self-promotion. It’s showing your leadership so that potential hires know that you understand that comms is a business investment, not a “nice to have” when the cash is available.

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Dustin Siggins is a former Capitol Hill journalist and Founder of the public affairs and PR firm Proven Media Solutions.