UMass Students Are Sucked Into the World of Personal Branding

March 13, 2008 at 11:50 pm | In Personal Branding, Podcasts, workshop | 13 Comments

UMass Dartmouth

Yesterday I had the opportunity to speak to an entire group at The University of Massachusetts (Dartmouth). The class had little to no knowledge about personal branding, social media or how to manage their careers. I was actually very surprised when I asked them to raise their hands if they were on Facebook or LinkedIn. About 70% were on Facebook and almost none of them had heard of LinkedIn. I made an effort to explain the importance of their participation on both networks and how to leverage them for career success. I mentioned other popular tools, but since this was so new to them, I really wanted to concentrate my efforts on the main ones. My presentation was divided into a few sections, with the objective of giving them an overview of the topic and then diving into key subtopics that they need to focus on as they apply for jobs.

The first point I made was that in February there were 63,000 job cuts, which was an increase over January and the most in the past 4.5 years. Next, I made the point that students don’t learn how to get a job during school. They learn about philosophy, psychology, math, science and history, but there is a huge gap for personal branding. As with all of my presentations, I have a slide dedicated to the origins of personal branding, where I talk about Tom Peters’ famous article and then hammer in that “starting today you are a brand!”

Since it was a sports marketing class, I brought up a picture of Tiger Woods and asked them to describe him and the first word that came to mind was a corporate brand (Nike). Then I explained how your brand is “self-impression = perception.” The goal being to match what you think of yourself to what others think of you.

Other topics I spoke about were “your brand is searchable,” a definition and a breakdown of personal branding into 3 elements (value proposition, differentiation & marketability). We got into eBranding, blogs, social networks, reputation management and seven success stories from young individuals who I have encountered on the web. Overall, I felt like I opened their eyes and at a minimum, made them think twice about their resume and their approach to the job hunt.

Here is a 10 minute clip (out of an hour or so):

My entire presentation:

13 Comments »

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  1. Good presentation. It’s funny, last night I was thinking about how college students and recent college grads have no idea about social media or web 2.0 at all. Even having a basic knowledge of things like linkedin and digg and important IMO. BTW I have a great SEO white paper type thing I need to send to you. Take care

    Comment by Brando — March 14, 2008 #

  2. Hey everyone. Slideshare came back and I updated this post with my slide deck from my presentation. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

    @Brando – let me know about the SEO white paper. Sounds interesting!

    Comment by Dan Schawbel — March 14, 2008 #

  3. I can’t get the sound to work. I just watched another video, so I know it’s not me… strange.

    Comment by Rebecca — March 14, 2008 #

  4. Rebecca, please try and turn up your sound. If that doesn’t work, I’ll try to amplify it.

    Comment by Dan Schawbel — March 14, 2008 #

  5. Dan,

    You do a great job presenting! Short, sweet and to the point!

    Comment by Scott Bradley — March 14, 2008 #

  6. I got it to work! I did just have to turn the volume up way higher. It was great. This is just the kind of thing I would have loved in college and no one ever told us!

    Comment by Rebecca — March 15, 2008 #

  7. @Rebecca – Success! You got it to work. I make those mistakes sometimes too.

    Comment by Dan Schawbel — March 15, 2008 #

  8. UMass Students Are Sucked Into the World of Personal Branding

    A great post by Dan Schwabel of Personal Branding, sharing his presentation on personal branding to college students.

    Trackback by bizsugar.com — March 16, 2008 #

  9. Yes! Educating students on this topic is key to their success! I graduated in August, and had no idea about social media, Web 2.0, and had to teach myself. Great post, and i”m glad to hear you’re educating students!

    Comment by Erica DeWolf — March 16, 2008 #

  10. [...] UMass Students Are Sucked Into the World of Personal Branding « Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawb…: “Blog About Dan Schawbel Publications Press [...]

    Pingback by Personal Branding Knowledge Is Still Just Beginning… | Jonathan Coffman - Convergence Journalism Specialist and New-Media Evangelist — March 16, 2008 #

  11. [...] University. Most of the concepts and thoughts I mentioned during my talk where reflected in my previous presentation at the University of Massachusetts last week. The difference this time is that I decided to focus [...]

    Pingback by Boston University Students Open Their Eyes To a Brand You World « Personal Branding Blog - Dan Schawbel — March 19, 2008 #

  12. I love the articles on your site, it has me want to have my own brand and market myself to others

    Comment by Kiel — November 2, 2008 #

  13. [...] UMass Students Are Sucked Into the World of Personal Branding « Personal Branding Blog – Dan Schawb…: “Blog About Dan Schawbel Publications Press [...]

    Pingback by Jonathan Coffman — January 5, 2009 #


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