Guest Post by Taylor Logeman ’15
In our CUPID Studio course, we’ve dove into the topic of developing our portfolios as rising young professionals and soon-to-be college graduates. In today’s increasingly competitive employment environment, having a well-developed and strategically targeted portfolio and résumé are more valuable than ever before. That extra edge allows us, as future members of the labor force, to showcase our skills, create a personal brand unique to our personalities, and express our unique personalities as individuals. Doing so allows us to stand out among countless black-and-white résumés and bland, monotone portfolios.
What I’ve enjoyed and benefited from the most is our coursework addressing personal branding. Our professor began this lesson with providing us several links to read to get a clearer perspective on what personal branding is. Some examples of our pre-topic reading assignments include Personal Branding 101 on Mashable and Personal Branding is a Leadership Requirement, Not a Self Promotion Campaign on Forbes.
Through these, we further learned how it is both relevant and valuable to have this as an additional advantage in your portfolio to offer to employers. It’s becoming increasingly vital to position yourself apart from the sea of other applicants competing for the same positions and job openings – all while maintaining your professional image. A fun way to do so is by creating your own logo, perhaps of your initials, in a design format that reflects your interests, personality traits, and other characteristics that employers might find interesting about you.
I loved experimenting with my personal brand opportunities! There are many ways to do this online (LinkedIn, Digication, a personal web site, to name a few), and developing a personal website might be my next option for putting myself out there for employers to explore who I am, what my qualifications are, and how well I’d fit into their company dynamic.
For my résumé personal brand, and as a student of Marketing, I wanted to focus on appealing toward fashion marketing employers. After some trial and error, I decided on a black banner stretching across the top of the document. In an eye-catching hot pink font, I have my name across the center of the black, with my initials flanking each other in the far right corner. On the far left corner, I inserted a shape of a high-heeled shoe, in a matching hot pink color – a great aesthetic addition attractive to employers in the fashion industry. The pink contrasts well with the black, and is the only pop of color in the résumé. These personal branding exercises helped me focus on what sort of employers I want to target as a graduate, and tailoring my résumé and other portfolio contents toward that specific company. It’s been a tremendous help in my education of professional portfolio composition.
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