Grad

Own Your Narrative: Strengthen Your Personal Brand

Image of students lounging around and collaborating on an assignment with their laptops.

Written by Serigne Thiam, Graduate Assistant for the Graduate College

So, you want to stand out to potential employers. You plan to have the best resume, a robust portfolio of work experience, a large network, and the perfect interview outfit. These and many more professional tenets are imperative to differentiate yourself from the crowd of eager job seekers. However, there is another side to professional development you’ll need to cultivate with care during your graduate school experience: your personal brand.  

Gasp! Whatever do you mean, newsletter writer? Your personal brand is the combination of your values, abilities, and the impression you leave on others. Believe it or not, you build your personal brand all the time with professors, classmates, interviewers, and even with the next-door neighbor. When you interact with someone, they gain a certain perception of the kind of person you are, what you’re adept at, and whether you’re a pleasant person or not. It’s easy for many graduate students to forget to concentrate on their professional brand. Which makes sense, as tangible components like work experience and academic accolades are crucial to get a potential employer to consider your application. Then again, why only take a piece of the pie, when you can have it all? You came to UC to discover new possibilities and grow as a professional, so here’s the Graduate College’s guide to personal brand development.

Define your brand: It’s important for you to have a strong understanding of who you are as a person, your skills, and how you think others perceive you. Your personal brand will fluctuate over time, so keeping track of your progress can help you better articulate what you have to offer to people. It serves as your “north star” of sorts, helping you decide what to do and what not to do during your academic and professional journeys. We all have limited time, so sometimes the best decision is deciding what opportunities to not take on. With a solid understanding of your personal brand, you'll be able to find jobs or opportunities that better align with your goals and values, ensuring that you build a good framework of conduct over the course of your graduate school journey.

Stellar Communication: Communication is a vital component of the professional world, and it’s important for people to have a proper understanding of your thoughts and ideas.   Always keep in mind that not everyone is an expert in your field, and you’ll interact with a slew of people with different educational backgrounds during your career. As such, you should avoid defaulting to field-specific jargon when addressing a general audience.  Be clear and confident when you communicate with people, as exceptional communication is one of the major transferable skills employers crave in an applicant.  

Interested in showcasing your communication skills?  Consider participating in  UC's Three Minute Thesis (3MT) Competition for a chance to win $1,000! 3MT challenges students to summarize their research or scholarship for a non-specialist audience using only three minutes of speech and a single PowerPoint slide. Please contact the Graduate College 3MT organizers (3mt@uc.edu) with questions.

Proper Networking: Networking can seem straightforward, but there’s a deeper level to it. When building your personal brand, operate with the mindset that you have something to offer to someone else. Too often we as grad students think we should network so people can do something for us. However, creating memorable and personal relationships in or out of your field based on mutual benefit is a great way to create opportunities. You should be ready to give or ask for help when the opportunity arises. Keeping in touch with your connections helps them help you! It’s much easier for a connection to aid you when they are up to date with your accomplishments and current trajectory. Be sure to research the state of your field, ask questions, and stay up to date with trends and opportunities to build your network.

Emotional and Behavioral Intelligence: Focus on maintaining empathy and cordial interpersonal engagement with anyone you interact with, as these components of the personal brand influence how other people perceive you. By practicing self-awareness, you can create authentic and memorable interactions that resonate with people. Remember, people will inherently make assumptions or judgements based their first impression with you, so it’s important to derail negative assumptions with your interpersonal conduct. When you understand the feelings of others, you’ll be better equipped to navigate social situations with care and establish a personal brand of credibility and respect.

Keep on the Accountability: People wish to work with people they trust and can rely on. When you reflect on the personal brand you’ve built, do people know you as a team player, a respectful contributor, and as someone who builds people up? As a general rule, people tend to put you in a box based on their interactions with you, and the last thing you want is for someone to feel as though you’re unreliable. While you move through grad school, keep this accountability perception in mind, as connections are more likely to share oportunities with you if you're reliable. Keep following through and do your best to have people remember you in the best light!

Developing and maintaining a strong personal brand is a critical professional skill. We can either take control of our brand, or let others determine it for us. By crafting a personal brand that accurately reflects you and your values, you’ll give yourself the best chance to meet your career goals.  

For more information and resources to strengthen your personal and professional brands, please visit our Career and Work overview.