By: Madison Medlen
In today’s competitive job market, setting yourself apart from other candidates can feel challenging. College is the perfect opportunity to establish your personal brand and show your strengths to employers, professors and peers. This goes beyond your grades and extends to what sets you apart outside of the classroom.
As a first-generation college student, I often felt behind and lost when it came to building my personal brand. I did not have any guidance or input from those around me, so I was left to navigate this process on my own. Though it was challenging at times, the experience pushed me to take initiative and be resilient in unfamiliar situations.
Building your brand in college is not just about your experiences, it’s about what you take away from those opportunities.
1. Define your brand & personal narrative
When building your brand, you want it to reflect your goals and aspirations. Start by understanding your strengths and passions and reflecting on what makes you unique and valuable. Then, you should be able to build a personal statement that embodies you. While each person’s statement will be different, it should include your passions and what you hope to do with them.
While having passions and goals is amazing, showing people how you hope to obtain those goals is even more important. Emphasizing the actions you have taken in the past to reach your goals and how you will specifically continue to grow will give you an advantage in any professional atmosphere.
2. Establish your online presence
Your online presence is often someone’s first impression of you, which makes it important to present yourself in the way you want to be remembered. Social media is such a prevalent part of our society in many different instances.
From a professional perspective, it is especially important to establish your social media with how you want to present yourself to employers. This coincides with your personal brand as it is a reflection of what you bring to the table.
- LinkedIn: Creating a LinkedIn profile is important in any professional career because it gives you direct access to networking opportunities. LinkedIn is similar to an online resume where you can showcase your skills, education, jobs, projects and more.
It also allows you to connect with other professionals in your industry or outside of it. Simple details like a clean headshot, a compelling personal statement and thoughtful descriptions of your work can make you stand out as a professional.
- Portfolio or Personal Website: I recently discovered how useful a portfolio could be in my career. At first, I made a basic Google Drive with all of my writing samples, content and projects. This was a simple way to give employers easy access to my academic and professional work.
Recently, I decided I wanted to make a more professional portfolio, so I decided to create a website on Canva. Building a website to show other professionals your portfolio demonstrates your ability to go above and beyond by putting in the extra effort and time.
- Social Media: A lot of employers look at your social media during the hiring process. After putting so much time and hard work into the interview process, you don’t want the reason that you don’t get hired to be because of your negative social media presence. Keep your social media consistent with the image that you want to portray professionally and positively highlight your life through your content.
3. Gain experience & develop leadership opportunities
A pivotal part of learning is hands-on experiences that push you to grow. There are many ways to gain experience such as internships, student organizations, volunteering or research. These opportunities will allow you to apply everything you learn in the classroom to real-life projects.
Student organizations on campus are a great way to take on leadership roles and network with other future professionals. These on-campus experiences are a chance to demonstrate your leadership skills and drive outside of your normal school work.
Each of these experiences will make you more confident in your work. Every role will teach you how to adapt to different situations and manage unique responsibilities.
4. Network
Beyond the skills that you develop, each involvement is an opportunity to network and create relationships. These relationships could be extremely impactful and set you apart when searching for a job in the future.
An opportunity that I recently took advantage of at Ohio State was the spring career fair. Due to it being my first career fair, I was nervous not knowing what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised to be introduced to so many different employers. It was so interesting to see all of the different options and hear about people’s passions within their company.
I was also able to speak with some amazing companies and tell them about my own work and passions. This experience led me to learn about some opportunities that I didn’t know existed prior to attending.
Each professional development opportunity is a stepping stone toward your professional goals. Attend different workshops and career fairs that align with your goals to stay motivated. When you show your support for others and stay connected, you create a professional network that can positively impact your success in the future.
5. Stay Consistent
Your personal brand should be consistent and authentic. While it is important to be professional, it is also important to be genuine. You want your brand to reflect who you are, not just who you think you’re supposed to be.
Being kind and genuine can go a long way in someone remembering your name. While many people don’t remember specific interactions, they remember how you treated them and how you made them feel.
Building your brand in college is more than getting the perfect internship or boosting your resume. It’s about the influential experiences that will continue to shape you in the future. Each experience is an opportunity to grow and learn about yourself professionally and personally.
This is very well written! I’ll keep these tips in mind.