Top 5 Personal Branding Tips for Recent Graduates

December 9, 2008 at 12:24 pm | In Articles, Career Development, Networking, Personal Branding, Success Strategies, eBrand, social media | 6 Comments

I know a lot of graduates who are very concerned with their chances as nabbing a job when they graduate. I decided to write a post to help guide you to the promise land, give you a load of confidence and hope, as well as point you in the right direction. Getting a job after college can be a terrible and annoying process, but I’ve been there, so I know how it feels and I want to help you. This post is for you college students! :)

This post also appears as a guest post on Gradspot.com.

1. Go through your Network Strength Pyramid

Networking is paramount for getting in-demand and desirable jobs throughout your career. It will also save you from months of labor intensive work submitting your resume to job boards and corporate websites. I developed the “Network Strength Pyramid” to show people that they need to start thinking of everyone they meet as a possible connection to a new opportunity.

Your family is your strongest connection, followed by friends and then acquaintances sit at the bottom.

When you have built rapport and a relationship, the chances someone would drop what they are doing to help you increases significantly. Most people won’t be compelled to go out of their way for you when you meet them for the first time.

Make your life one big networking event!

2. Change your mindset

Recent grads must understand that working conditions are rough right now. There have been 1.9 million layoffs since January and the job growth rate for entry-level graduating seniors is only at 1.3%. This means you need to do things differently. If you follow the same advice you’ve ever gotten in the past, then you will only have results equal to that, and in this economy, that means failure.

You need a “brand you” mindset to succeed, not just in acquiring a job, but keeping it and progressing in it. Think of yourself as the CEO of your own brand, much like Coca Cola and Nike. You get to name your colors, logo, and overall experience. How would you describe “brand you” to others?

Forget about getting a job title; make your own job title.

In a world where things are constantly changing, you need to be the commander of career, which means that at the end of the day, success lies in your hands!

3. Collect everything you’ve already done and put it to work

One of the sad parts of life is that people are obsessed with what you’ve done in the past. When I wanted to get a job, I leveraged every single project I did in the past as case studies for the future. For instance, I led a team to establish a business plan in college, created websites for companies and did cool projects in my internships at LoJack and Reebok. I was then able to use the results of the projects in a marketing pitch to get a job when I graduated.

I know you might want to forget about the past, but trust me, it’s worthwhile to catalog everything you do, just in case something you’ve done applies to a future job.

4. Are you an entrepreneur or a corporate employee?

This is a very important question to ask yourself because it depicts what you’ll be doing upon graduation. If you’re an entrepreneur, you may be looking to start a business immediately, continue a business you started in college or work for a company, until what you’re doing outside of work takes off. If you want to be a corporate employee, then you will want to get a job when you graduate, and possibly go to graduate school, so you can move up into management as soon as possible.

5. Use social media to build personal equity

Having trouble networking, getting your ideas out there and claiming a piece of the digital world? Look no further than social media to provide a channel by which you can accomplish all three. I would recommend starting a blog that relates to both your passion and expertise.

Next, I would ensure that you register your name on the top social networks and link from one to the next. Links build equity in your sites, leaving your sites ranking higher in Google, so people can find you. The reach of the internet using these tools is extraordinary and can help you connect with the right people at the right time.

Do You Have an Ethical Personal Brand?

December 9, 2008 at 12:18 am | In Book Reviews, Career Development, Interview, People, Personal Branding, Success Strategies | 3 Comments

Today, I spoke with Bruce Weinstein, who has successfully branded himself as “The Ethics Guy.” He has his own column for BusinessWeek.com and has written many books on this topics. Bruce reminds us how important it is to stay ethical in all that we do, online and offline. I think this is a really important topic, that isn’t discussed much on the web (copyright laws are mentioned everywhere, but not ethics), yet it’s crucial in business. Wouldn’t you want to deal with someone who has strong ethics, knowing the difference between right and wrong?

What is an ethical dilemma that occurs throughout people’s lives, and how should people respond to it?

Observing wrongdoing is one of the most common—and challenging—ethical problems we encounter throughout our lives. Whether the issue is seeing a fellow classmate cheating on a test when we’re in the fifth grade or learning that a colleague is cheating a client when we’re in the work force, we’re often faced with an ethical question simply by witnessing someone else doing something or she shouldn’t be doing.

Although it is understandable why one wouldn’t want to get involved (after all, who likes confrontations?), minding one’s own business in such situations is almost always the wrong thing to do. When we are in a position to prevent harm to others, to correct an injustice, or to be a force for good, and doing so won’t pose a serious threat to life or limb, we ought to take action. What that action is depends, of course, on the facts of the situation.

Is it smart to brand yourself as ethical? Why or why not?

Being ethical has professional and personal benefits in the long run. But the reason to do the right thing is simply because it is the right thing to do.

What are your famous five deceptively simple principles of ethics for careers?

  • Do No Harm
  • Make Things Better
  • Respect Others
  • Be Fair
  • Be Loving

These principles apply not just to our professional lives but in everything we do and everyone with whom we interact: friends, family, and strangers, too. Also, I wish I could take pride in ownership, but these principles are common to all cultures and religious traditions. See, for example, Jeffrey Moses, “Oneness: Great Principles Shared by All Religions” (New York: Ballantine Books, 2002). I adapted these principles from a classic text in bioethics by Tom L. Beauchamp and James F. Childress, “Principles of Biomedical Ethics,” Sixth Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008)

Can you name a few industry leaders (or standout examples) that have had career pitfalls due to lack of ethics behind their work? We all know what happened with Enron.

The dust hasn’t settled on the economic crisis, but there are some names emerging already that suggest a few CEO’s and economic “experts” have had serious lapses of ethical judgment. The recent testimony from Alan Greenspan, in which the former chair of the Federal Reserve admitted that he “made a mistake” hardly meets the minimal standards for a meaningful apology that I describe in a column I wrote for BusinessWeek.com.

Where does ethics fit in today’s business world?

Ethics shouldn’t be seen as something apart from the daily life of a business; it is, or should be, integrated into everything a business does. This includes, but is not limited to, how it advertises itself; how it deals with the competition; how it treats its employees (including wages, benefits, and perhaps most importantly, acknowledging and encouraging jobs well done); and how it relates to the community of which it is a part. All of this must begin with the CEO himself or herself.

This should be a person who is committed to doing the right thing all the time and who expects that everyone associated with the company will have a similar commitment. An ethical CEO isn’t a guarantee that everyone else in the firm will be so oriented, but an unethical CEO gives few people an incentive to take the high road and may even encourage just the opposite.

———
Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D., is the professional ethicist known as The Ethics Guy. He writes the ethics column for BusinessWeek.com and has appeared as an ethics analyst on NBC’s Today Show, ABC TV’s Good Morning America, and many other programs. His column, Ask the Ethics Guy, is distributed internationally by the McClatchy-Tribune Information Service.  Among those who have hired him to give keynote addresses and workshops are the National Football League, and over 300 other leading businesses, schools, and non-profit organizations.

His latest book, Life Principles: Feeling Good by Doing Good shows why all of us benefit professionally and personally when we live according to ethical principles. His next book, Is It Still Cheating if I don’t Get Caught?, debuts next March (2009).

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