Building Credibility in the GiG Economy: The Role of Personal Branding (A Conceptual Framework)

With the advent of rising Internet penetration worldwide, there has been a paradigm shift in the ways people work, share knowledge, and supply their services in the economy. Due to the global economic downturn and poor financial performance of many businesses, there has been a massive downsizing of a competent workforce in several organizations across the globe. The proliferation of the ‘GiG economy’ globally has provided companies with an opportunity to source competent and talented professionals, possessing specific skills, for short-term projects and engagements. However, in practical scenarios, most companies face difficulty in selecting the right candidate due to an exorbitant number of applications for a particular opportunity. Also, there are a lot of unauthentic accounts/profiles created on these platforms, thereby increasing the redundancies and inefficiencies in the selection process. Hence, ‘personal branding’ undoubtedly plays a significant role in making one’s candidacy reliable, authentic, relevant, and identifiable among the cluttered pool of applicants in the ‘GiG economy.’ This paper aims at highlighting ways to create a strong personal brand and frame self-marketing strategies for the existing/prospective GiG workers through building a conceptual framework based on an extensive literature review.