What is a Personal Brand?
A personal brand is how you present yourself to the world to communicate your purpose and mission. What comes up when you "google" yourself? Those results are the first impression that people will have of you. What is the narrative you want to create?
Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, is famously quoted as saying, “Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
Why Develop Your Personal Brand?
We live in a digital world, now, more so then ever. Personal branding gives you the ability to not only tell your story in your own words. But it also gives you the control to ensure that employers see you as a professional, employable prospect.
Personal branding is really being able to articulate your story to others. You want to decide how others see you and what comes up when employers google you. - Valentina Aresmendi, Student UNC-Chapel Hill
How Do I Get Started?
Check your digital footprint..."google" yourself - what comes up?
- Consider your social media profiles - do you have any professional profiles on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn etc.?
- What narrative do those profiles convey?
- Envision what path you are considering - what is your dream job NOW?
- Think about how you want to present yourself to the world, and to future employers.
According to a 2018 CareerBuilder survey, 70% of employers use social media to screen candidates during the hiring process, and 43% of employers use social media to check on current employees.
Now, what?
This workshop will help you develop professional content to enhance your NEW or existing personal brand!
The purpose of these resources are to help you envision entering a successful career that builds from your studies in college. The experience will be rewarding for all students - in every major or specialization and at all levels, from first-year to post-graduate. It's never too early for you to begin developing your personal, professional, career brand, and Adobe Creative Cloud offers the ideal platform to develop, differentiate, and share your story.
We recommend that you start with FIVE core components:
- Logo
- Business Card
- Audio-Visual Narrative
- Headshot
- Portfolio
Get Inspired...
Here are three examples of student portfolios to help you get a good idea of what is possible. Everyone's approach will be different, consider your audience and the story you are trying to tell when creating your own.
EXAMPLES
Want to take things to the NEXT LEVEL?
Check out these additional resources to create even more:
Credits:
Created with images by Rymden - "Group of young people working together. Creative business people in modern office" • Georgia de Lotz - "untitled image" • Frederik Löwer - "Symmetrical image of a road in Morocco." • Brooke Lark - "Sponsored by Google Chromebooks" • Guillaume Briard - "Munken hike, all the way up, got my eye on the magnificent rock layers. You can’t see the end of this peaks it was like being lost in a mountain maze, breathtaking feeling in Lofoten"