HOW PERSONAL BRANDING CAN GIVE GRADUATES A COMPETITIVE EDGE

INTRODUCTION:
This report will first outline the basic principle of personal branding and the
background of it. It will then go on to explain current issues surrounding the
conditions of the job market for graduates and how, with the use of personal
branding, graduates can improve their employability chances. This report will
proceed to look at the implications of using personal branding as a graduate as
means of increasing their employability and what having a digital profile means
to employers. The report will then continue by making recommendations for
graduates and employers regarding using personal branding.
Laura Lake 2016 suggests that the brand you build around yourself is perhaps
the single most important way to stand out in your spheres of influence(Lake
2016) . Brands such as Apple and Coca-Cola have exceptional branding, and
although this kind of branding is on a much larger scale the same concept
applies to personal branding for the individual. They have developed lasting
logos, specific styles, slogans and themes which enable their customers to
recognise them easily.
BACKGROUND:
Information found online provides a digital footprint that implicitly brands
people (Labrecque, Markos and Milne 2011). The business world is beginning to
understand the impact of social media and how they can influence a persons
character in terms of branding themselves to employers. In the academic year of
2013/14, 60, 000 students found themselves in non-professional roles such as
secretarial and customer service work (Espinoza 2015) therefore, personal
branding is crucial this day and age. Increasingly, employers are looking at more
than just a paper CV, and will delve into the candidates social media such as
their Facebook account to determine whether the individual would fit in as it
where, within their company. Furthermore, increasingly employers in the UK are
using social media platforms such as LinkedIn, to recruit graduates, therefore,
again emphasising the need for graduates to use personal branding.
CURRENT ISSUES:
Personal branding, if done cautiously can be an effective way of getting
graduates into the job market. Personal branding can express the individuals
personality and character in a way that a paper CV wouldnt get across to the
employer. Although were not currently in a recession, the interview process can
be quite expensive for employers, such as finding someone skilled to carry out
the interview; however, social media is a cheap and easy way for employers to
recruit with social media being free and less time consuming than the interview
process, many employers may start finding this a better way of finding potential
employees. However, graduates need to be cautious when using social media
due to things such as confidentiality. It is important that graduates are aware of
their own confidentiality; things such as setting their accounts they use, solely to
share with their friends, to private and un-tagging themselves in pictures that
they may not necessarily want their employers to see. Therefore, it is important

that graduates take care of what goes on their social media accounts as in this
technological day and age, individuals are accountable for everything they do
and put online. It is also worth noting that once something is posted online,
although it may be deleted, everything that is put online, stays online. There is
high competition for graduate jobs, meaning the demand for personal branding
is higher than ever.
IMPLICATIONS:
Everything anyone does online, leaves a digital footprint. A digital footprint is

essentially information that exists about an individual based on their online

activities. Your digital footprint increases the amount of personal information
that an employer could potentially access, beyond whats on your CV (British
Airways 2011). Thus, there are implications surrounding personal branding when
it comes to graduates job hunting. As mentioned previously, a digital footprint is
information about an individual, based on what they post online. An individuals
digital footprint can be interpreted as that individuals online reputation,
something that can make up an employers mind about a potential candidate
straight away. For example, if a graduate applying for a job leaves their Facebook
profile public and has pictures of them with friends on nights out drinking alcohol
etc. this gives employers a certain impression about that persons character
which may not be the kind of image someone looking for a professional career
wants to portray to an employer. 51% employers have rejected a candidate after
such a search (CareerBuilder 2017).
CareerBuilders annual social media recruitment survey found that 60 percent of
employers in 2016 were using social networking sites to research job candidates
(CareerBuilder 2017). The survey also found that out of the 60% of employers
who used social media to research candidates, 6/10 of them were looking for
information that supports their qualifications for the job, as opposed to
searching for something negative (CareerBuilder 2017). So, while it may be in
the graduates best interest to keep the social media pages that they share with
their friends private, this is not necessarily true for other social media platforms.
Sites such as LinkedIn are useful when applying for jobs as it allows people to
share with employers a little more about themselves such as previous
experience, where they went to university etc. it also allows the individual to
connect with potential employers and gain access to opportunities they may not
otherwise have had. Consequently, graduates would have better success in
finding a job if they were aware of what types of social media platforms were
appropriate to share with employers and also if they knew how to use sites such
as LinkedIn effectively, so as to enhance their opportunities. Only a few
universities are beginning to develop an awareness of personal branding and
digital profiles amongst their students, for those students who are becoming
aware of personal branding, they are ahead of the game, developing their own
personal branding platforms and perfecting them with the guidance of their
university. More universities will start to develop this awareness as the years go
on, meaning using personal branding as a way to stand out in the job market will
inevitably become more popular, for businesses, this means that they too must
become aware of the different platforms available to them to make sure they
recruit the best possible staff in the most effective way. This means that they too

need to be trained in what social media platforms graduates will be using in

order to attract them, they also need to be aware of this so that they can
advertise their business and bring interest from graduates with relevant
experience.

Conclusion and recommendations:

To conclude, it is apparent from the findings of this report that having a digital
profile and branding oneself online can help you stand out as a graduate in this
day and age. Now that technology is ever advancing, and it appears everything
in this modern world is driven by technology, it seems relevant and possibly even
essential that graduates use the technological platforms which are so easily
available to them, to the best of their advantage. Using social media to gain a
competitive edge in the job market, seems to be the way forward, with the paper
CV no longer being enough, as employers now want to use what is also easily
available to them to gain insight into candidates characters and gain more
knowledge about an applicant than the paper CV can provide. Although having a
digital profile in order to give graduates a competitive edge is important, it is
equally important that they are aware of their digital footprint and what this says
about them. Graduates and employers should consider Online Reputation
Management (ORM) which are techniques and strategies that ensure people find
the right materials when they look for you on the internet (ReputationDefender
2016). In order to create a strong personal profile, graduates need to be aware of
what employers are looking for, they also need to be aware of their own skills
and achievements. It is recommended that universities help to identify the skills
and achievements of their students by offering the opportunity for expert advice
on CV writing and by teaching students the dos and donts of online personal
branding. This means students will be equipped with sufficient knowledge on
how to effectively brand themselves.

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