In the world of free agency, marketing has become a key component to making a successful transition. Implicit in the marketing conversation is career branding. Transitioners must answer the question: "What is your career brand?", which in laymen's terms means: "What do you do?", "What are your capabilities?", or "What is your subject matter expertise?".

If you don't consider yourself a marketing or sales person, the prospect of marketing is probably not a welcome idea. Once you accept it, you will quickly discover that as consumers we are all marketing experts. The concept of clear, consistent branding is easy to understand, yet not always so easy to adopt. For one thing, your title or function may have one name at one company, but something completely different at another. You may find that the words you’ve been using to describe what you do are meaningless out in the world, so it may take some occupational research to figure out which brand title works best for you.