The average student doesn’t start their degree thinking about building a personal brand. In most cases, that’s probably the last thing on their mind. Securing a job after graduation is harder than ever, one of the reasons for this is that employers are looking for business minded employees who will push the company forward. One of the most effective ways of demonstrating this is by developing a personal brand when you’re in college. However, although it’s possible, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to achieve. Here are five challenges to overcome building a personal brand as a college student.
1) A Lack of Discipline
College life is awesome, and with all the partying and events that take place, its easy to forget you’re there to study and focus too much on having a good time. Whether in or out of college, it takes discipline to build a personal brand. It may mean saying no to some of those nights out and instead of spending money on alcohol, hire someone to help get things started.
2) Putting it Off Until Graduation
Putting off building your personal brand until after graduation is like waiting to apply for jobs until after graduation, it’s not a good idea! First, it takes a while to build a personal brand and during a four year college course, you can develop a solid foundation and continue building on it after graduation. What most students don’t know is that employers start looking for employees long before graduation. Therefore, by developing your brand while you’re in college, you make it easier for them to find you.
3) Unsure of Your Career Direction
Unsure of your career direction? Be honest about it, tell your audience you’re a vibrant and hard working student but you’re unsure of what you want to do when you graduate. Employers will appreciate your honesty and may decide to keep you on their radar to see where the chips fall by the end of your course. Some of the most successful people in the world didn’t know what they wanted to do when they were in college; in fact, many of them dropped out. Former vice president of the United States Dick Cheney dropped out of Yale University twice. Founder of Twitter Jack Dorsey also dropped out of university twice, and popular talk show host Ellen DeGeneres dropped out of the University of New Orleans. As the aforementioned people did, you will find your way eventually.
4) A Lack of Finances
Although it does take money to build a personal brand, social media has made it a lot easier to do so without a financial investment. It’s a catch 22, if you say you want to wait until you finish college to get a job and save money so you can start working on your personal brand, you’re selling yourself short. You’ll miss out on plenty of job opportunities because you don’t have a personal brand. The solution is to work with what you’ve got and build a foundation, and you can improve it once you start earning enough money.
5) How to be Authentic
Some students choose generic subjects to study because they’re unsure of their career direction. That’s fine, it might take you years before you find your true passion and start living out your purpose. The good news is that although you don’t know what career direction you want to take, you can still be authentic and build a personal brand by focusing on your strengths. For example, you may be studying business management but you’ve discovered you’re good at marketing. Focus on this skill at the same time as showcasing your personality and the right people will gravitate towards you.
Building a personal brand as a college student is a worthwhile investment. As mentioned, most students are not thinking about this. Instead, after graduation, they invest copious amounts of time on job applications hoping and praying for an interview. You can avoid this by developing a personal brand which will put you ten steps ahead of the game and help you attract the companies you want to work for instead of going out looking for them.
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