Lesson 1 – Joel Mohrs’ self-branding beyond the classroom

The Technique

To help my students apply some of the fundamental marketing topics I cover in my course, I have them develop their own personal “brand.” This self-branding technique helps my students optimize how they are presenting themselves to potential employers on job markets related to the career they are interested in after graduation.

Self-branding involves several strategic elements that students can use to beneficially differentiate themselves, regardless of the industry or career area they are interested in. These elements include the following:

• Creating a unique value proposition that highlights their most differentiated set of abilities and accomplishments
• Aligning who they are with the career they want in terms of job requirements and industry-relevant terminology
• Developing a comprehensive set of documents that consistently portray their self-brand (e.g., resume, cover letter, project portfolio, personal website, professional social media).

Any classroom topic that would benefit from students making real-world connections to industry could benefit from this self-branding technique. The application of this technique can vary from course to course, but, at its core, it helps students build a bridge from the classroom to their future careers. For example, a landscape architecture student may be asked to develop a portfolio of their design projects.

Creating continuity between this self-branding assignment and other aspects of a learner’s brand, such as their LinkedIn, further extends its practical utility for students.

How I use It

Although expert services pertaining to resumes and other job-market documents remain an invaluable resource, injecting your own topic-area expertise into that process provides students with a valuable competitive advantage and knowledge source that may otherwise be unavailable to them.

I use this technique in the MBA course I teach on “Communication and Persuasion.” Throughout this course, students are introduced to important aspects of marketing and branding. The course then takes a “180”: the students are asked to apply these concepts to themselves as a brand within a marketplace. We learn about this concept over three lecture/activity sessions on self-marketing and branding.

As the culmination of these classes, students create a strategic self-brand by crafting their resumes and LinkedIn profiles based on the branding elements they learned and aligning them to their careers of interest.

Here is a step-by-step guide for implementing this technique in your class:

1. Introduce participants to concepts that would be relevant to self-branding for a job in that given field (i.e., the topic you are teaching).
2. Supplement the concept with a discussion about potential career opportunities/relevant fields related to the topic.
3. Ask participants to create and submit an assignment that builds a practical element of their personal brand within the identified field.
4. Provide constructive feedback on how to improve the assignment and its usability for the job market, if the student wishes to pursue such an opportunity.

Given that this technique integrates and synthesizes student learning, I suggest it is best implemented towards the end of a course schedule.

Feedback from Learners

This technique has been easy to implement and well received as my students are eager to learn about branding and positioning themselves for success on the job market.

Comments from my students about this technique:

“Thank you for having this session on personal branding. At this stage. it was much needed.”

“Thank you professor, this class helped make my resume better.”

“This self-branding practice is quite useful for us to prepare for our future jobs.”

A Short Task to Challenge You!

A useful challenge as we are about to start a brand new year is to examine and refine your own brand’s value proposition. This value proposition may show up in the top [profile summary] of your CV, your bio on your faculty’s course website, and the “about” section of your LinkedIn or professional Twitter account. Ask yourself these questions:

• Does the data and information that you have included in your value proposition align with the brand you want to communicate?
• Is your value proposition consistent with your career goals, and is it consistent across all your professional documents and profiles?
• Does your value proposition include your most unique abilities, experiences, and accomplishments?

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, plan a bit of time (maybe over the holiday!) to refine your own personal brand.

One Final Task

Is this something you can use in your classroom? How might you utilize it? If you share your results somewhere on social media, link to this lesson for context.