“Self-Branding”
According to Ilana Gershon’s Down and Out in the New Economy, “Figuring out your personal brand involves deciding on the three or four words that capture your essence, that describe what personal-branding aficionados will call your authentic self” (24). In terms of the career that I want, it is extremely important to have a serious yet personable personality while showing my endless determination and particularity. In this day and age, it is very competitive and difficult to be the best of the best, but it is something that most of us aim for. A quote that I enjoyed from the reading was, “If people now need to manage themselves as though they are businesses, then it isn’t that far of a stretch to think that a person can have a marketable image” (Gershon, 26). While reading this, I was reminded of a sociology class that I am currently taking; we discussed how we all perform roles every day whether that is at work, in the classroom, or within our family. We all have an image in our head of what we need to be to achieve our goals. This correlates directly to getting a job in the career field that I want.
While I do not have complete specificity of the job that I want, I do have a general focus which is communications within economically based businesses. Because of the economic side of things that I am interested in, I must be aware of the commerce world as well as how best to tie communications into what sells and what does not. In order to fulfill my dream, it is important to self-brand myself as being both educated and cooperative with others. In reference to this, I can build off of my experience as a student athlete. Gershon stated that, “You are not supposed to be hardworking only when you are in a workplace where you like your coworkers a lot and you have a task to do that you find fascinating” (27). I can relate to this strongly as being a student athlete is not all fun and games. There are tough times whether that be dealing with failure or accepting an injury. However, I have never once given up. I have never once quit. This is what builds my character and proves my self brand.
Although my ‘brand’ is something created to market myself in the best way possible, I also feel that it is true to my character. In order to navigate who I ‘am’ versus what my ‘brand’ is, I would have to fail in the work place to live up to what I promised I am capable of. However, like I said before, I am not a quitter. I live up to my expectations and I work hard in everything that I do. My determination is so strong that I hope to exceed my brand rather than be short of who I said I could be. “Personal branding developed to solve a market-specific problem for job seekers,” and with that being said, I think that self-branding is a positive concept in that it gives people a chance to express who they are and what they value within just a few words (32).
Gershon, Ilana. Down and out in the New Economy: How People Find (or Don’t Find) Work Today. The University of Chicago Press, 2017.
