UNIVERSITY OF NORTHAMPTON FOREIGN TRADE UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF BUSINESS HO CHI MINH CITY CAMPUS

----------***---------- ----------***---------

FINAL ASSIGNMENT

PLANNING CAREERS AND EMPLOYABILITY

SUBJECT CODE: BSS030-2

Student: NGUYỄN HOÀI ĐOAN

Student’s Code: 2245519116

Cohort: K60NO-B

Semester: I

Academic year: 2023-2024

Lecturer: Nguyen Thi Minh Ha

Submission date: 17th May, 2024

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 STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

Except where reference is made in the text of the final-module

assignment, this assignment contains no material published elsewhere or
extracted in whole or in part from an assignment which I have submitted
or qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma.

No other person’s work has been used without acknowledgment of

the end-module assignment.

This end-module assignment has not been submitted for the

evaluation of any other modules or the award of any degree or diploma
in other tertiary institutions.

Ho Chi Minh City, May 2024

(Signature and full name)

Nguyen Hoai Doan

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Contents
I. INTRODUCTION............................................................................6

II. MAIN BODY.....................................................................................7

1. Defenition of Personal brand...........................................................7

2. Personal audit....................................................................................8

2.1. Ikigai test.....................................................................................8

2.2. MBTI test......................................................................................11

2.3. SWOT matrix...............................................................................18

2.4. Internal verification.....................................................................20

2.5. External verification....................................................................22

2.6. Personal brand definition............................................................24

3. Reflections on my Personal Brand................................................24

3.1. Gibbs' Reflective Cycle............................................................24

3.2. Reflection on learning experience using Gibbs' Reflective

Cycle....................................................................................................25

4. Personal development plan............................................................25

4.1. Market research of jobs outlook................................................25

4.2. Personal skills evaluation and action plan.................................29

III. CONCLUSION...............................................................................30

IV. REFERENCES............................................................................30

V. APPENDIX......................................................................................31

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LIST OF FIGURE

Figure 1. Ikigai test result........................................................................10

Figure 2. MBTI test.................................................................................12
Figure 3. Turbulent Campaigners (ENFP-T)..........................................13
Figure 4. 15 adjective to use in survey to describe my self....................23
Figure 5. Result of survey.......................................................................23
Figure 6. Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle...........................................................25

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1. Jobs that I should try and should avoid.....................................17

Table 2. SWOT matrix............................................................................18
Table 3. Job discriptions of KOL manager.............................................26
Table 4. SMART goal analysis...............................................................29

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 I. INTRODUCTION

Identity a personal brand and determine a career path is necessary

for all student, especially for last-year students. A career path can stick
with a person for more than years while a personal brand

The objective of this assignment is to create a detailed Personal

Action Plan to achieve the career path according to result of multiple
personal audit and evaluation of my strength and weakness. Beside
skills, knowledge and opportunities I already have, there are still some
missing skills gap I need to improve and a detailed plan was made for
me to overcome it. I found my dream job as a KOL manager and I set up
a schedule plan to be that position after graduation.

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II. MAIN BODY
1. Defenition of Personal brand

Personal brand is what you stand for as an individual person in

other people’s mind. Personal branding is the process of defining and
promoting your value to be remembered. A personal brand is a
culmination of the presence, skills, knowledge and values of your own.
Personal brand can be recognized by interacting with other people.

According to Forbes, a strong personal brand is defined by a

criteria of 10 C’s as below:

 Competent
 Clear
 Credible
 Consistent
 Constant
 Compelling
 Connected
 Committed
 Confident
 Current

There are 5 steps of a process to build a personal brand:

 Define personal brand: A personal brand builder should

firstly define who his or her name stands for. Then, based
on his or her your passions and the areas of expertise there
are popular for.
 Create Social Media account: Social media platforms such
as Facebook, Instagram or Tweeter are useful tools for

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 personal branding. Then every content created will receive
feedback and interact with audience who are searching for
the individual brand.
 Engage with Your Audience: A personal brand is required
to stick with relationships building to reach new
opportunities. By showing value and benefit for others, it is
easier to connect and build qualified relationship with other
important people who have similar personal brand
 Develop personal expertise: Continuously develop specific
skills and knowledge in chosen field by joining conferences,
workshops, and webinars. Besides, always look for
opportunities for professional development and stay
updated with the latest trends and advancements.
 Continuous improve the current personal brand: The above
4 steps must be repeated and improved to upgrade
continuously the current personal brand. As all other kind of
brands, new competitors will appear and reach the trend
quickly and attract audience. Then, the ongoing
improvement is required always to keep the personal brand
exist.

2. Personal audit
2.1. Ikigai test

According to Wikipedia, the idea of Ikigai has bean a part of

Japanese culture- it was first popularized in 1966 book “On the Meaning
of Life” by Japanese author Mieko Kamiya.

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 The word Ikigai include 2 words of ‘Iki’ and ‘gai’. ‘Iki’ means
‘life,’ and ‘gai’ is value. Then, the term Ikigai means “reason for being”.
Ikigai test is a guide for person to head to the purpose of their life to find
their suitable job to contribute to the community and be happy by doing
it. . Ikigai has been popular in both Asia and Europe and America.

There are four sections in each Ikigai test: passions, missions,

vocations, and professions. Each section has a series of questions or
activities to help testers reflect on their life choices and figure out what
makes them happy. After finding each personal ‘Ikigai’, he or she will be
joyful of being busy, proactive, creative doing their job.

A basic Ikigai has 4 main steps to proceed including:

 Determine the most important thing to you in life. What

makes tester joyful and satisfied?
 Look back on the past and reflect experiences. Ikigai test is
based on past experiences and successes to determine future
purpose. Recall the most fulfilling and successful in the past
is the key for justification?
 Determine the nature ability or what makes tester good at or
advantage at. Each person has their own unique skills and
talents, which can be great indicators of their Ikigai. The
advantage of each person can support a lot on their own
career.
 The last step is to explore potential paths. By knowing
personal value, skills and advantage, testers can explore
their potential paths by considering options they may have
such as volunteering, taking classes, or seeking a new
career.

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 Below is my personal Ikigai test result:

Figure 1. Ikigai test result

As presented above, my Ikigai test result is Nuse Practitioner. This

career path support my passion, my profession, my vocation and my
mission. This career path is also supported by increasing of global need
of mental health and physical health care recently, especially after
Covid-19. The intersection of the Ikigai circle signifies the harmony of
various aspects, resulting in a free and joyful feeling in my life. There
are many specific options for this career path. Then based on other testes
and analysis, I can define my last result for my specific job and my
personal development plan.

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 2.2. MBTI test

According to Wikipedia, the Myers–Briggs Type Indicator

(MBTI) is a self-report questionnaire that claims to indicate 16 kinds of "
personality types" The test assigns a binary value to each of four
categories.

 Introversion or extraversion
 Sensing or intuition
 Thinking or feeling
 Judging or perceiving.

One letter from each category is taken to produce a four-letter test

result representing one of sixteen possible types as below:

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 Figure 2. MBTI test

To examine my personality, I took an MBTI exam (Myers-Briggs

Type Indicator) on the 16Personalities website. The exam has proved I
am an Campaigner or “Turbulent Campaigners” (ENFP-T) as below.

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 Figure 3. Turbulent Campaigners (ENFP-T)

My personality of Campaigners are enthusiastic, creative, and

sociable free spirits, who can always find a reason to smile. I can
embrace big ideas and actions that reflect my sense of hope and goodwill
toward others. The additional “T” or “Turbulent” means less confidence
and less emotional control, also experiencing more anxiety when dealing
with everyday stress. This personality is made by my 74% extraverted,
64% intuitive, 74% feeling, 58% prospecting, 71% turbulent.

An estimated 5% to 7% percent of the population has an

Campaigner personality type. Some popular people of Campaigners can
be listed as:

 Robin Williams: actor and comedian

 Ron Weasley, Harry Potter character
 Doja Cat: Singer of Pop Ballad
 Kanye West: Rapper and Producer
 John Lennon: Musician and Singer
 Tom Holland: Actor

The personality of Campaigner provides me some strengths as

below:

 Warm and enthusiastic

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  Empathetic and caring
 Strong people skills
 Good communication skills
 Humor and spontaneous
 Highly creative

Besides, the personality of Campaigner provides me

some weaknesses as below:

 Needs approval from others

 Disorganized
 Tends to get stressed out easily
 Can be overly emotional
 Overthinks
 Struggles to follow rules
According to my MBTI test, my personality is Turbulent
Campaigner. The website of 16personalities analysis 6 advantages
of my personality and 6 challenges also. These advantages can
support my personal brand while my challenges should be put on
my improvement plan to overcome.
My 6 advantages are:
 Curious – I prefer to discover and find answer for unknown
questions in nearly anything. As a person of think-out-of-
box, I can not satisfy my own comfort zone and keep
seeking new area, new space, new atmosphere, new
adventure and new experience search of new ideas,
experiences, and adventures. I also desire on how people
and universe work and try to learn the rule from it.

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 Perceptive – My type is not try to overestimate someone or
put a person on top of my mind. This attitude keep me
making decision neutrally without considering others
feeling or conception. On the other hand, this advantage can
make a side effect, a barrier for me to satisfy people around,
especially sensitive people.
 Enthusiastic – I can easily share my though and emotion to
anyone who has eager to listen. I can also listen to their
story to connect them with me and improve my personal
brand also.
 Excellent Communicators – This can be a result of a
combination of the 2 above advantages of perspective and
enthusiastic. As an friendly and close communicator, I can
match and connect to people via verbal conversation. These
dialogs can provide me new information, knowledge and
skills to improve my career.
 Easygoing – An easygoing mind is a big advantage these
days for my, especially our generation is facing to new
waves of global challenges such as global warming, peer
pressure, deforestation, economy crisis, military issues, etc.
I can find an simple way to joy my work, my life and my
moments and also can share them with others
 Positive – I can get closed to people and help them a lot,
which can make me a trustful person in their mind and
expand my positive thinking to them and gain it back. This
advantage can be a Sumption of all above and be an
important part of my personal brand and career path.

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 Beside these advantages, there are 6 challenges that a Campaigner
should overcome:

 Try to please people– As other Campaigners, I prefer to

look people’s eyes to react. This require me a high
demanding of please people to satisfy myself. And when I
loose their attention, I also loose my ability of being control
 Unfocused – Dealing with multiple tasks is my big
challenge, it is hard to concentrate for completing a mission
without considering other work-in-processes. Practicing
discipline is the only way to overcome this challenge.
 Disorganized – The ability of looking at the details is
limited on me. It is hard for me to provide paperwork or
routine task or a repeatable work. I prefer to handle a big
vision or a big picture and find the new idea, or a new way
of work to improve productivity of the group. This
limitation can be reduced be meditation or practicing sports.
 Overly Accommodating – As a friendly person and easy
going, a personality like me can be easily asked for a favor
to any one. It make me distract from my main purpose or
my key point in life. A help then can be consider as a duty
and I can be justified based on it. Practicing saying “NO” is
necessary sometimes.
 Overly Optimistic – Optimism is an advantage by over
confident is dangerous, especially in important decision
making circumstance. This challenge can be danger to
people I work with, especially in health care or dental, or in
case of keeping secret from others.

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  Restless – As caring about people, I left an empty inner and
I can feel lonely sometimes. A long time of loneliness can
lead to other mental issue and take me down sometimes.
Building a strong inner piece is a good practice for myself.

Based on these challenges and advantage, I made a list of jobs that

I should try and career I should avoid as below:
Table 1. Jobs that I should try and should avoid

Business field I should try I should avoid

 Actor  Writer
 KOL manager  Author
Entertainment
 Producer
 Reporter
 Computer Software
 Sociologist Engineer
Sciences  Psychologist  Mechanical Engineer
 Archaeologist  Systems Analyst
 College Professor
 Fashion Designer  Construction supervisor
Arts and design
 Interior Designer  Fashion store supervisor
 Nutritionist
 Massage Therapist  Dentist
Healthcare  Social Worker  Doctor
 Recreational  Neurologist
Therapist

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2.3. SWOT matrix
Table 2. SWOT matrix

Strengths Weaknesses

I know how to Easily overwhelmed

connect group when in a pressured
members and environment
SWOT Matrix
promote the power I’m easy to wander,
of teamwork by think too much, and
finding a common worry.
voice.
I am creative, have a
rich in ideas.
Opportunities

Graduated from I can easily speak

With the indigenous
the globally with
way of thinking and
International anyone in any
mindset I'll learn, I can
Education country by using
learn to use my reason
program, I can my strong
more than my emotions
be a global communication and
to rebalance aspects of
citizen and English language
life.
broaden my skills.
global career I can update new
path trending and find a
chance of opening a
Used to a
business with my
member in
teammates.
human

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 resources in
Start-up club

I can assist in
overcoming the Knowing how unstable
Market obstacles caused by the global work market
Threats the instability of the may be, I can aim to
world economy by strengthen my areas of
Competitive utilizing my weakness and control
Threats Market adaptability, my emotions to make
Saturation flexibility, and myself more appealing
knowledge of to employers.
international affairs.

The SWOT matrix has shown my strengths, my weaknesses, my

opportunities and my threads. By combining these 4 elements, 4 new
areas were made to analyze how each element impacts to the others and
deduce a strategy for my future career path:

Strength – Opportunities: By taking advantage of my creativity

and my communication skills in the global educational environment and
new trending of starting-ups, I can easily gather a group of teamates to
start a business to reach new trending of young generation. I did try 2
small businesses when I was in highschool and in my first year in my
university and they left me a lot of lessons which can not be found in
academic book. For a near future, after graduation, I would like to work
for a multi-reasonal company to join and learn from an international
business. This chance can scale up my strength and fascinate the
oppotunities i already have.

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 Strength – Thread: The economic crisis in Vietnam and all over
the world after covid-19 have threaten on all students in my generation.
Having a strength of being adapt is a solution for me to overcome this
situation. Besides, I am able and eager to learn new skills including
languages (Chinese, Japanese), designing, singing, etc to expand my
choices of career paths and fullfil new requirement of employeers. Flat
world is supporting me a lot but also create more competitors, but
competing with others competitors using my strength makes my more
confident than competing with fewer competitors using my weakeness.

Weakeness – Oppotunities: As a member of the new flat world, I

understand clearly the new labor market is going harder than it was a
decade ago. Emotional behavior can be an inner danger that can threaten
me and encourage me to make wrong important decisions. Career path is
a very important decision and I have to learn how to be calm and
consider others impacts to find my best way to take advantage in
oppotunitis and scale down my limit.

Weakenes – Thread: Being emotional and overthinking can be a

bad way to make myself look underestimated in employer’s justification.
During the current jobs market, keeping calm and control myself is a
good solution to survive until the market trend goes better and I can find
my suitable job them.

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 2.4. Internal verification

To identify personal brand, the PwC ,or PricewaterhouseCoopers,

has made a personal brand examination to guide every individual to
experience in understanding themselves and showing their own personal
brand. The questionnaire is called X-factor. Each X-factor includes 2
sections: Unleash your super skill and Conquer your weakest point.
After testing, tester can unleash their own strength, overcome their
weakness and can present themselves in interviews.

Due to limit of this report, I present only the section of “Unleash

your super skill” as below:

Document

To help guide you through this exercise, answer the questions below:
1. What are the strengths that others acknowledge in me?
My most popular strength is my communication skill. I use this skill to build relationship
with friends and gather teammates in group business projects.
2. When working on a team, what roles do I seek to fulfil?
During teamwork, especially for homework or projects, I am often the speaker to present
the presentation and answer questions of audience. I also handle monitoring the building
of our presentation file.
3. When faced with an overwhelming obstacle, what are my “go to” skills to
overcome it?
I prefer to spend time to be calm and then I try to get help from other people. In the
circumstance I am alone, I have to give up some targets to focus on the main purpose of
the mission.
4. What was the most successful project I ever tackled and what made me
successful?
The most successful project I have ever done was my Charity Volunteer program in a
local pagoda. Our team gathered more than 1 ton of rice to deliver to poor families nearby
to celebrate their Tet holidays.
5. What was the most important team role I ever fulfilled and why?
The most important team role I have ever taken and fulfilled was team leader for a group
of presentation for a 3 months project from teacher. I assigned my teammates to handle

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 and provide me their result for me to combine and build the presentation. The prestation
was successful and we gain a lot of lessons.

Distil

To deeper your introspection, answer the questions below:

1. What strengths and skills came up over and over again?

My communication skills has came up over again in every new subject.

2. Which are my motivating skills—the skills that excite me?

English speaking skill exites me a lot.

3. What are my burnout skills—the skills I’ve mastered but would rather not use
every day?

After working for several Social clubs and small businesses, customer care is my the skill
I have mastered but I rarely use every day because I have to go to school. However, after
graduation, I believe I can use that ability for my career path.
4. Which strengths and skills are going to be most helpful in achieving my career
goals?

The English speaking skill and computer skills would be necessary for my career goal
because they support me a lot in daily work.
5. What skills are missing? What skills would I like to build but have not yet had the
opportunity to practice?

I think Chinese speaking skill is my missing part. Due to FDI from China to Vietnam, it is
easier to find a good job required Chinese than a job need English because English seems
to be a must, not a need as ealier.

2.5. External verification

To determine how other people think about me, I made a survey

for 40 students in my class to describe me. The survey is list of 15
keywords which are suggested by website of resumespice.com and each

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candidate need to stick 5 keywords during the meantime of 10 minutes.
15 keywords in the survey are presented as below:

Figure 4. 15 adjectives to use in survey to describe my self

Versatile 8

Personable 8

Methodical 6

Creative 22

Friendly 24

Motivated 8

Encouraging 8

Confident 16

Analytical 14

Responsive 8

Enthusiastic 28

Reliable 8

Persistent 6

Hard-working 14

Flexible 22
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Figure 5. Result of survey

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The survey have proved that, 5 appropriate terms to describe me are:

 Friendly
 Enthusiastic
 Creative
 Flexible
 Confident

2.6. Personal brand definition

I am very passionate about influencing people (entrepreneurs,

learners marketers, artists, etc) how to achieve skyrocket results by
building their own social media channel. I inspire them to take action
and “Just Do It.”

3. Reflections on my Personal Brand

3.1. Gibbs' Reflective Cycle

Gibbs' Reflective Cycle is a model for reflection, presenting as a

structured method for each person to systemize their experiences they
had during a specific circumstance.

Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle was created by Graham Gibbs in 1988 at

Oxford Polytechnic, now Oxford Brookes University, this reflective
cycle is used within careers and businesses such as healthcare, education,
and management to enhance personal development.

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 Figure 6. Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle

3.2. Reflection on learning experience using Gibbs' Reflective

Cycle

I conducted interviews with alumni who studied at the

university I was studying to share their experiences. The secret they
shared with me and everyone else about marketing is that you must
have creativity and passion to pursue this field. In addition, Gen Z
needs to overcome their weaknesses, admit mistakes when evaluated
by their bosses, and try to integrate into the marketing

4. Personal development plan

4.1. Market research of jobs outlook

According to “Future market insight” website, the key opinion

leader management (or KOL management) market reached $ 65.06
Billion in 2022 and that number can scale up to $ 211.27 Billion in 2032.

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 This job is a chain of works including seeking, identifying,
profiling, updating, and measuring the effect of key opinion leaders
(KOLs). During this job, the performance of each employee is defined
based on interact or attention of audience on each KOL. Salary is then
paid according to brands who are willing to pay for KOL and employees
get a share on it.

Due to short time existing in labor market, there is no range of

salary for this job. If the influencer get high paid, then their managers
has similar payment and so on. This job also requires employees to be
eager to learn the new trending of young generation and can travel with
influencers to other countries or to dangerous place such as underwater
or on high mountains to gain special content for viewers.

After studying carefully all above study, I would like to choose

career path of KOL management after graduation. Below are some
examples of job description of KOL managers as I collected:
Table 3. Job discriptions of KOL manager

Location Job Descriptions Requirements

South Jakarta, Manage end-to-end seller achelor's Degree in
Jakarta, influencer projects from Marketing,
Indonesia conceptualization, Management or
execution, to reporting. related disciplines
Develop and execute the from recognized
identification, screening, universities.
and management process Candidates to possess
for seller influencers. at least 2-3 years
Research and identify key experience in
seller influencers and other influencer
relevant online media management role.

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 Prior working
presence that can be tapped
experience in E-
for various seller education
commerce or Tech
initiatives.
startup industry will
Create customized
be a bonus.
activations, events, and
Excellent verbal and
other projects that are in
written
line with current goals and
communication skills
priorities of Seller
in English and Bahasa
Operations.
Indonesia.
Monitor key performance
Excellent presentation
metrics of seller influencer
and interpersonal
activities and assist in
skills.
preparing materials for
Strong project
reporting.
management and
Coordinate and develop
execution abilities.
good working relationships
Creative and
with internal and external
proactive in
stakeholders involved in
identifying content
the seller influencer
trends and proposing
projects.
executions.
Drive continuous
Good and reliable
improvement by
team player who
identifying gaps and areas
enjoys a fast-paced
for development.
environment.
Aura Bangkok Develop a comprehensive Degree in any
Clinic Co., Ltd year plan for the use of bachelor.
KOL in Aura. At least 1 year of
Set and allocate KOL experience in PR,

27
 budget to maximize the
company's long-term value.
Research and identify
KOLs that are
Marketing or related.
representative of Aura's
Basic skill in
across multiple social
Microsoft Office.
platforms to support
Engaged in Social
marketing goals.
Media platforms and
Create, design and
stay up-to-date with
communicate the content
market trends.
guideline and requirement
Have a passion for
to KOLs to ensure that all
managing and
marketing plan are
developing campaign.
effective.
Good interpersonal
Support KOLs at any time
skills and a team
in completing their tasks on
player.
time and communicate with
Be a creative person
KOLs regularly
and think out of the
Monitor Influencer
box
performance and work
Eager to learn and
closely to achieve target
improve skills.
and KPIs
Provide detailed monthly
report on all scope of work
to marketing manager.

4.2. Personal skills evaluation and action plan

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To determine my target for achieving my career path, I use the SMART
goal analysis to justify my goal as below:
Table 4. SMART goal analysis

No 1 2
Get 6.5 IELTS score
SPECIFIC Graduate on time
overall
Listening: 7
Pass the thesis council
Reading: 5
MEASURABLE without any
Writing: 5
unfinished subjects
Speaking: 7
The thesis will be
The test is already
delivered when I
ACHIEVABLE booked to be taken on
achieve IELTS
July 20th, 2024.
certificate
The bachelor
certificate is a
The IELTS certificate
milestone for me to
is the ticket for my to
finish my path in
RELEVANCE apply for my thesis
FTU, then I have all
and finish my last
of my chance to
semester.
follow my determined
career path.
TIME-BOUND July 28th, 2024 December 2024.

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III. CONCLUSION

In this digital era, where online presence is paramount, my

personal brand will serve as the key to unlocking a world of
opportunities. By defining my unique strengths, identifying my target
audience, and creating a polished online portfolio, I have taken crucial
steps toward to find my personal brand. This brand will continually
evolve and adapt, guiding my path toward a successful and fulfilling
career.

IV. REFERENCES
 https://ikigaitest.com/en-top/
 https://vi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ikigai
 https://www.16personalities.com/istj-personality
 https://resumespice.com/best-answers-to-the-interview-question-describe-
yourself-in-5-words/
 https://www.structural-learning.com/post/gibbs-reflective-cycle
 https://www.futuremarketinsights.com/reports/key-opinion-leader-
management-market#:~:text=Key%20Opinion%20Leader%20Management
%20Market%20Outlook%202022%2D2032,US%24%2065.06%20Bn%20in
%202022.
 https://www.careers-page.com/desty/job/XXV9YR#:~:text=About%20the
%20job%20KOL%20Management&text=Develop%20and%20execute
%20the%20identification,for%20various%20seller%20education
%20initiatives.

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 V. APPENDIX

List of candidates to join the survey

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