Do you have multiple professional identities? If so, you have a hybrid professional identity, which is how you would name yourself for the work that you do.

You may get paid for this hybrid identity work, or you may be an unpaid volunteer, but these work identities would appear on your resume and your LinkedIn profile.

In a previous article, How Do You Share Your Personal Story Brand on LinkedIn as a Multipotemtialite? I shared what it meant to be a mutipotenialite who explores many interests one after another or simultaneously.

A multipotentialite is different from having a hybrid professional identity. Exploring many interests is not the same thing as what you call yourself in your work. It’s your unique value proposition and helps you to define your personal brand,

If you are wondering how I discovered this, I give credit to Sarabeth Berk, Ph.D., who wrote her doctoral dissertation on the topic, and then published a book called More Than My Title: The Power of Hybrid Professionals in a Workplace of Experts and Generalists. She also has a workbook and offers courses on her website. Catch her TEDx talk also.

Sarabeth had an AHA! moment looking at an art book that had surreal images as she was doing her research. 

She found no specific name or title of the image she saw and realized this concept of combining and blending identities could also apply to humans.

We don’t have to compartmentalize ourselves with a conventional title but can connect our identities together and build relationships between different things.

You may have a favorite restaurant you go to that has unique names for certain dishes that they developed. Why not invent or reinvent yourself with a new title, and you can be your own new dish? Hybridity is where you integrate into the intersection and use your different abilities.

After you generate a title of what you want to call yourself, you can develop a value proposition and an elevator pitch to build your brand.

I currently note on my LinkedIn profile that I am a techie boomer cheerleader, but I have also called myself a teacherpreneur more times than I can count.

Sarabeth notes that hybrids are often called “Connectors, Translators, Barrier crossers, Silo Busters, Boundary spanners, Integrators, Code switchers, or Chameleons.” You can highlight your talents as a hybrid professional by bringing multiple identities together.

So, what will you call yourself in your LinkedIn headline, and will it make an impact?

How do you know if your headline is engaging? You can have up to 220 characters in your headline, so include keywords and your hybrid identity and analyze it with Sharethrough Headline Analyzer. Keep tweaking it until you are satisfied!

Have fun with developing your hybrid identity!

Missed last week’s article Keeping Up with LinkedIn Updates?

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• 6/17 Fri – Interview Techniques
• 6/17 Fri – How to Stop Your Inner Saboteur from Your Next Great Opportunity
• 6/18 Sat – LinkedIn Part 1 of 3
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• 6/24 Fri – Interview Techniques
• 6/24 Fri – Discover Your Hybrid Professional Value, Become More Than a Jack-of-All-Trades
• 6/27 Mon – How to Tell Fear in Your Career that You’re the Boss