Focusing on the Pitch

This week the Algonquin PR students and I focused on understanding product branding, personal branding and developing their ‘Positioning Pitch’.  In a WhyHire.me profile, students have 350 characters to develop their clear concise message which sets the tone of their personal brand. It should highlight their keywords which could include personality traits, skills, strengths, or values which they discovered in Dig Deep.  Additional ingredients for their pitch include a ’splash’ of proof to provide validity and a target which could be a position, industry, value system, or location they have in mind.

At first it seems easy to write a paragraph but soon into the process I start hearing: ‘this is hard’, ‘I don’t feel comfortable writing about myself this way’ and ‘I really don’t know what makes me unique’.  These are initial thoughts that many people have when they start this process. However, it’s so important to put in the time to craft a message that is clear, unique and strong for not only your profile but your overall personal brand which will be used in meetings, interviews, emails, career fairs, resumes and more.  Employers want to know what grads have to offer, what makes them different and how they can solve the organization’s business problems.

I look forward to reading their pitches as they start to pop up in our social network and I hope a few of these students will get a chance to use their pitches at the upcoming Algonquin College Career Week (Feb 8-12).  Career Week features a job fair and a series of information session and networking opportunities for past and present students to connect with industry.

The Four D’s of Online Personal Branding: Dig Deep, Declare Your Brand, Display Yourself and Deploy Your Brand

When we set out to build our program, we knew it was much more than just an online portal for the world to use. The early feedback we received from students suggested education, coaching and incentives were integral components to online personal branding. Many were unclear about their strengths or how to exploit their passions. Others were fearful of blogging and not certain how Twitter could enhance their job prospects. In many cases, students were not seeing how a school assignment can be more valuable than a summer job painting houses or slinging brew. Professors where throwing up their arms and wondering, “why are students posting THOSE PHOTOS on Facebook?”

For these reasons, we elected to develop a program, not simply a web 2.0 portal. We drew on several experiences and formal education from each of our partners. Patti for her depth in coaching, teaching and product branding. Rob for his engineering, creativity and passion and finally, Andy for his vision, depth of online marketing skills and many lessons learned. The program calls on decades of experience in mentoring, branding and building Internet software.

The foundation of WhyHire.me includes:

• Career Coaching – we challenge our students to ask themselves key questions and gather essential data about themselves
• Branding – we call on 35 years of cumulative marketing experiences in large brands and small upstarts companies
• Social Media Tools – we call on our own social media experiences and lessons from today’s social media Brand Masters

The program curriculum rolls up to the four D’s of Online Personal Branding. They are as follows:

• Dig Deep – Key questions and exercises aimed at understanding ones personal characteristics that define ones positioning and overall theme of ones brand
• Declare Your Brand – Defining one’s positioning statement and overall strategy to close the gap on one’s brand image versus brand identity
• Display Yourself – Develop the underline story and linkages to put ones best professional foot forward on the web. After all, the Internet is your resume!
• Deploy Your Brand – Learn how to embrace industry issues using social media to demonstrate passion, show initiative and leadership.

Online personal branding for post-secondary students is all about revealing one’s potential. We hope you will follow us on Twitter to keep up to date. For those that like the plain old phone, hit our home page to reach us on the blower or by email.