This is BS: Savvy Personal Branding, or Egos Run Amok?

What happens when personal branding goes too far? When it leaves others (aka “me”) with the impression that you think you’re MORE THAN AWESOME; YOU’RE A PIVOTAL PLAYER ON THE MOST PHENOMENAL, BESTEST, MOST PERFECTEST TEAM EVER CONCEIVED IN SOMEONE’S WHOLE BRAIN.

EVER.

That’s how I felt when I read Brill Street‘s About Us page—I got that, “Yep, they’re the best… just ask them!” feeling inside. [UPDATE: The page was removed just a few days after this post ran.]

Their CEO—not the company, mind you, just the CEO—is “redefining Gen Y’s role in the workplace.” Does that imply he’s doing it single-handedly? Does Lance Haun know about this? Where’s Penelope Trunk?

Their CTO, meanwhile, is a “brilliant critical thinker.” Awesome. “Brilliant” is very, very hard to come by.

And there’s their wunderkind Talent Manager, who makes me want to hang it all up and go fetal in the corner. Armed with a Bachelor’s in cognitive science, she “thoroughly understands the mind” and “has become an expert in the areas of Talent Acquisition, Career Coaching and Organizational Development.” Wow. If there’s one thing I’ve learned after 6 years of studying management at the world’s foremost business institutions, nearly 2 decades in and around entrepreneurs, executives, managers, recruiters, coaches, and OD professionals, and hours upon hours reading papers by guys like this and meeting guys like that, it’s that I could never master all three of those areas in my entire lifetime, even if I tried.

So clearly, I’m cooked.

Or maybe not.

Maybe the issue isn’t me at all. Maybe, Brill Street has taken personal branding too far, and has lost control of the ever-critical hyperbole-to-fact ratio. I don’t know.

What I do know is, individuals have different limits for the number of self-important adjective clauses they can tolerate at one time. Like my friends at Brill Street have done with me, I’ve done with others. With my bio, no less. Do yourself a favor: don’t follow in our footsteps. Here’s why:

1. Self-flattering hyperbole makes you sound like a douche. Factoid: No one wants to work with a douche. I have discovered, from personal experience, an inverse relationship between my sales close rate and the amount of puffery in my bio. Yeah, I’ll likely tighten it up later today, after you’ve had a chance to snicker at it.
2. It makes it hard to identify mistakes. When you call yourself brilliant, others are often slow to call you out on your mistakes—especially if they take you at your word and assume you know what you’re doing even when they have questions. So if you don’t catch it yourself, no one else will.
3. It makes it hard to correct mistakes. Once a mistake is identified, how does a super-smart person correct it? Now you might claim “We’re smart and we’re comfortable admitting when we’re wrong,” but then I’d say, “Truly brilliant people shouldn’t be wrong in the first place,” and I’d have a point.
4. It makes sales difficult. When you’re smart, you ask good questions. When you’re too smart, you make assumptions and jump to conclusions that stop you from getting to the heart of the matter.
5. Hyperbole can make it hard for me—focus group of 1 here—to take you seriously. 15 years turning start-ups into “market leaders”? What, you don’t trust me to know market leading companies by name?

Brill Street, I like your company. I’ve worked with your temps, and have sent you temps. I’ve even had lunch with your CEO. (I don’t think he liked me very much… though if I was wrong about that, I bet I’m not anymore!) At the end of the day, I want you to win. Your success would be good for you, good for the talent space, and good for Chicago, almost all of which is good for me, too.

Which is why I strongly encourage you to revisit your About page.

In fact, everyone reading this should go check their About page bios right now. (If you come across a winner, share it in the comments!)

Like I said before, my views come from my having been on the receiving end of this complaint myself. My life got better when I started to get in front of my ego, and I think yours will, too.

All my best!

Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.