It Takes Time: Developing and
Maintaining Your Personal Brand
Kelly Fisher
Senior Honors Thesis
Personal Branding – Recap
Definition
• Personal branding is how we market ourselves to others.
•“What you bring to the table”
•A Unique Value Proposition is the attributes particular to an
individual that makes them uniquely valuable to an institution or
organization.
YOUR STRATEGY
Discover
In order to really understand who
you are and create a career path
moving forward you need to do
some self-discovery
Maintain
As you grow,
mature, and
accelerate in your
career, everything
you've created has
to be updated and
accurately represent
your current brand
YOUR Personal
BRAND
Create
Your personal
branding toolkit
may consist of a
blog, Web site,
résumé, portfolio,
and a LinkedIn
profile.
Communicate
Start attending
networking events,
writing articles,
and putting on
your "personal PR
hat," to start
gaining attention
Me 3.0 – Creating a New Me: A How-To Build a Personal Brand for College Students
What we will be doing…
Step 1
•Discover
Step 2
•Create
Step 3
•Maintain
Step 4
•Evaluation
Step 5
•Judging of the
two best Personal
Branders
Step 6
•The FINAL
Product
•Personal
Branding Toolkit
•Career
Assessment
•Brand Check
•Expand Your
Brand
•Goal Check
•Winner!
•Goals Exercise
•Best mediums to
showcase your
brand
•Networking
Exercise
•Evaluation
Survey
•Winner!
•YourUnique
Value Proposition
•Finished Portfolio
& Resume
WINNER WINNER!
• Incentives: at the end, the 2 groups will judge
2 people who have developed their personal
brand
Struggles with Portfolios
• What struggles are you having?
Whose in Your Network?
• What type of people?
• Who do you wish were in your network?
Exercise 1
• Pair off
• List everything the two of them have in
common.
• The winning team is the one with the longest
list.
What We Learned
• What did you get out of this exercise?
• You should be learning about developing a
relationship with a stranger and the various
kinds of things they can have in common
Expanding Your Network
• The essence of networking:
– talking to old contacts to get leads and following
up on those leads
– meeting new people and striking up a
conversation
– joining new organizations and becoming active
• And this is where most people fail.
• What are some ways to extend your existing
network?
Expanding Your Network, Cont’d
• Ways to extend your existing network:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Phone calls
Letters or newsletter
Join a professional society or civic organization
Internet newsgroups
Consultants and consultants' networks
Technical conferences, workshops
Someone at a company you'd like to work for
Recruiters, headhunters
Exercise 2
• The winner is the person who fills in the most blanks. NOTE: a
person can't sign for more than one item on a form. (By the way,
the numeric series in the last item on the hunt are the values for 5%
standard resistors.)
• For groups that might not contain a significant number of EE's, you
might want to substitute:
• Has a golf handicap of 10 or less, or Has met a US President.)
• What you should learn from this exercise: Ask participants what
they learned about
• You should be learning that if you know what you are looking for,
you can find it; and there are valuable contacts all around us.
Networking Scavenger Hunt
Instructions: Read the items listed below; then find someone in the group who fits the bill for each
item. Ask him/her to sign the blank next to the item which applies. (Any one individual may sign for
only one item on your list.) Your goal is to find a match for each item. Good luck!
1.______ Shares your first initial
2.______ Serves as an officer in a non-IEEE association
3.______ Played a musical instrument in a band
4.______ Worked outside the US
5.______ Has worked for a company while it went public
6.______ Has more than two graduate degrees
7.______ Has been to the White House on official business
8.______ Has published a book
9.______ Has gotten a job using Internet
10.______ Has traveled to more than three continents
11.______ Has worked for one company more than 15 years
12.______ Speaks a foreign language fluently
13.______ Has worked on a political campaign
14.______ Has more than 4 children
15.______ Can fill in the blanks in this series:
10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, 39, 43, 47, 51, 56, 62, ---, ---, ---, ---, 100
Job hunting tactics
Tap Into Your Network
Use to your advantage
•References (people most
familiar with you and your
work)
•Present/former managers and
colleagues
•Old school friends and alumni
association members
•Friends, family, neighbors, etc
Networking Techniques
•Elevator Pitch (60
second biography
or description)
•Ask for
information, not a
job or internship
•Pass along
information
•Don’t pressure your
network for more
than it can easil
supply
•Don’t use pressure
tatics
•Always carry
business cards or
portfolio to a
networking function
•Follow up
Conclusions
• Networking can be a powerful tool
• You have more opportunities to make
contacts while you are working
• In the future, networking skills will be even
more important
Build a Personal Branding Toolkit
• Personal Statement - Unique Value
Proposition
• Resume
• E-Portfolio
• Website or blog
• Social Media Outlets
– LinkedIn
– Facebook
The Strategy
1
GOOGLE yourself
2
Create a LinkedIn account
3
Manage your Facebook page
4
Create a blog or website
5
Create your resume / e-portfolio
6
Career Development / Networking
Me 3.0 Timeline
Part 1 of Me 3.0
The Beginning:
Discovering Your
Personal Brand
Part 3 of Me 3.0
Exploration & Evaluation:
What Impact Have You
Made?
!FINAL JUDGING!
Sep
Oct
Part 2 of Me 3.0
It Takes Time: Developing
and Maintaining Your
Personal Brand
Nov
Dec
FINAL Personal
branding tool kit
(E-Portfolio for
honors)
Me 3.0 Creating a New Me: A How-To Build a Personal Brand for College Students