Guest Blogger Hannah Wolfe
As the CUPID class transitions into creating professional portfolios, one of the most important aspects of doing so is creating a personal brand. A personal brand is important in establishing oneself online. Potential employers will follow this online presence and use it to learn more about you, your skills, and your experiences.
It is critical that your personal brand is consistent across all mediums. Fonts, photos, skills, and experiences should all project a consistent image and say the same things about you. Use these platforms to tell your audience things they wouldn’t know from reading just your resume and cover letter.
The brand should be targeted to a specific audience. This could be more general depending on your interests, or it could be targeted to specific audience in a specific industry. Your tone and voice should speak directly to the audience. A more professional or a more conversational tone could be used based on the expectations of the audience.
The skills and experiences that you want to share should be supported by your brand. Demonstrate these skills in your portfolio, both through the work that you’re showcasing, as well as in your written text.
As the class began to explore our own personal brands, we simply “Googled” ourselves to determine what sort of online presence we already had. This is a great place to start in understanding what you’re doing well, how you can improve, and whether or not you need to audit your presence.
From here, the class brainstormed ways to ensure brand consistency. Demonstrating the same skills and experiences for the same audience is a great place to start. Using the consistent colors, fonts, and photos on each medium will reinforce the brand image and develop a personality.
Finally, the class spent time deciding each of our individual skills. The class brainstormed their hard and soft skills. Hard skills are skills you’ve learned and that can be applied to a situation. Soft skills are characteristics. Understanding our own skills and the brand we want to create is important as we move forward in beginning to actually create our portfolios.
Check out some examples to help you create your own personal brand!
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