Week 11: Personal branding and Real WORKS

12th August 2021

---

Personal brand and personal branding

A personal brand is defined as your character and authenticity. It is your personality, reputation, development and expertise (Chritton, 2014). Your personal brand is the objective and this is created through the process of personal branding.

Personal branding is how you will achieve the objective. It is your expression and your communication to people that need to know you in your professional career. It is about setting yourself apart from the competitors to make an impact on others to promote yourself in the market. It can be seen as a “marketing phenomenon” and people are interpreted as brands (Khedher, 2015).

Every individual has a personal brand, “the challenge is to manage that brand strategically” (Rangarajan et al., 2017). Creating a personal brand is similar to designing brand company guidelines in which you have a set of principles that you have to follow. However, your personal brand is bespoke to you and will evolve as you progress in your career.

Chritton explains four steps in creating your brand:

1. Define who you are

Defining who you are is about self-discovery and self-development. You need to identify what is important to you, your values, your passions and your strengths. The aim is to have self-actualisation which is striving towards your highest potential and to achieve this is knowing who you are (Chritton, 2014).

2. Identify your target audience

Understanding the audience to which you need to communicate your brand to, for example, potential employers. Research the companies that need to work with you. It is essential to understand the company culture and ensure your personality fits well with them.

3. Research your competitors

Researching competitors will give you an insight into who else has similar skills as you and how you can be unique and better than them. Figure out what is your niche and use that as your basis to stand out from the crowd.

4. Craft your profile

Compile your personality, understanding of your target audience and your niche to create your personal brand profile.

When measuring the effectiveness of personal brands, Rangarajan et al, research recommends having a balance of respect-building and relationship-building. It is crucial to show your competencies but also to create strong team relationships. Embracing flexibility will improve the connection between your personal brand and the corporate brand. Moreover, assessing the effectiveness of your personal brand and evolving it as you advance can improve them.

Social media has become a popular platform where people portray and manage their personal brand online. Platforms such as Linkedin allows you to connect with professionals globally to broaden your network or find a new job opportunity. Although there are many benefits to managing your personal brand online, there are some implications and risks that come with it. We need to consider professionals can search and view your information and photos for regulatory checks. Certain businesses have a strict policy and reputation and will not be associated with negative social behaviours. It is crucial to remove sensitive content from your profile that can jeopardise your personal brand that potential employers may see (Labrecque et al., 2011).

The art of the approach course

One of the elements of creating your brand is understanding the type of person you are and how you work professionally independently and within a team. I have discovered some of my personality traits from the assessment:

Introversion

• More reflective, comfortable working by myself

Helpful tip: Don’t rely on research and reading only, talk to different people around you.

Intuition

• Enjoy being creative and curious in possibilities

• Look forward to the future

• Enjoy learning new skills

Helpful tip: Make sure you plan for job searches and interviews.

Feeling

• Always consider other people’s feelings

Helpful tip: Learn to be more assertive.

Judging

• Highly organised and reliable

• Tidy, proficient at meeting deadlines

Helpful tip: Learn to be more flexible and open to opportunities.

My personal brand and aspirations for the future

Reflecting on this week, I have learnt the differences between personal brand and personal branding. I can honestly say I do not have a solid branding profile. Although I haven’t written a reflective blog before this module, it has become easier as the module progressed. It has helped me to identify elements of my personality and aspirations.

Real WORKS, the employability service, has opened opportunities to learn new skills and improve where I am lacking. I am hoping to use the system to figure out my self-development to help me become more employable. A list of potential jobs that are suitable for me was dependant on my assessment results. Design/Designer was on the list. It gives me some certainty that my current skills are aligned with my potential future career.

There are several steps I would like to take to aspire towards my future career:

• Use my blog to showcase my projects and use this as a portfolio

• Update my existing CV to focus on my relevant and new skills

• Continue to research and read peer-reviewed journals and articles to learn new concepts of UX

• Create an impactful cover letter/personal statement for potential future job applications

• Use Real WORKS to improve presentation and interview skills to boost my employability

• Step out of my comfort zone and continue to try new things

These next steps will help me to improve my personal brand and future employability. Although I am not quite ready to transition to a new career as a UI Designer, I will be sure to fulfil these steps as I progress deeper into the Masters. There is a lot more I need to learn and self-directing this course is beneficial for me to focus on my unique journey in the UX industry.

References

Chritton, S. 2014. Personal Branding for Dummies. 2nd Edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Personalbrand.com. 'Definition of a Personal Brand Vs. Personal Branding'. Available at: https://personalbrand.com/definition/ (Links to an external site.). [Accessed 06 August 2021].

Rangarajan, D., Gelb, B. D., Vandaveer, A. 2017. ‘Strategic Personal branding—And How It Pays Off’. Business horizons 60(5), 657–66.

Khedher, M. 2015. ‘A Brand for Everyone: Guidelines for Personal Brand Managing’. Journal of global business issues 9(1), 19–.

Labrecque, L.I., Markos, E., and Milne, G.R. 2011. ‘Online Personal Branding: Processes, Challenges, and Implications’. Journal of interactive marketing 25(1), 37–50.

Images

2017. The focus. [image] Available at: <https://unsplash.com/photos/fIq0tET6llw> [Accessed 10 August 2021].