Presenting yourself:

Personal branding,
digital presence and
networking

Peggy Vazoura, Careers Consultant MSc ABS

p.vazoura@aston.ac.uk
Upcoming Careers and Placements events

Online – GE Aviation: Application Advice for Placement Students

Monday 11th October | 1.00-2.00pm | Online – Blackboard

Online – Centrica: Placement and Graduate Roles - how to maximise

your chance of success
Wednesday 13th October | 1.00-2.00pm | Online – Blackboard

Online – Navigating the Legal Application Process - How to get it right with
Covington & Burling LLP
Thursday 14th October | 3.00-4.00pm | Online - Blackboard

Head to Aston Futures to find out more and book onto individual events.
Upcoming Careers and Placements events

Online – GRB: How to put 2020 on your CV

Monday 18th October | 1.00-2.00pm | Online – Blackboard

Online – Network Rail: Graduate Schemes, Year in Industry Schemes

and Summer Placements at Network Rail
Tuesday 19th October | 1.00-2.00pm | Online – Blackboard

Online – Careers and Placements: The Big Careers Fair, 60+ employers
Wednesday 20th October | 10.00am-4.00pm | Online – Career Fair Plus

Online – What is the Civil Service Fast Stream?

Thursday 21st October | 3.00-4.00pm | Online - Blackboard

Head to Aston Futures to find out more and book onto individual events.
What I had in mind for this session:

• Personal branding

• Managing your online presence

• Building a professional network

Which words do you associate with these?
Brand: the story you think of when you hear the name
or see the logo
Attributes + Reputation + Consistency

Memorable + Individual
Reputation damage…
What words to describe him?
Personal branding – Me Inc.

“the practice of people marketing themselves

and their careers as brands.”

“…We are C.E.O.s of our own companies:

Me Inc. To be in business today, our most
important job is to be head marketer for
the brand called You.”
(Tom Peters in Fast Company)
Your brand – your values

• Write down one word to describe yourself

• Name 3 things you do to live up to that brand

What do you want your brand to be?

• Why

• How

• What

Use
• Ethos

• Logos

• Pathos
In recruitment: (values-based)

• “PRIDE is the mirror in which we recognise ourselves and its the heart and soul of what
we do. It's that important. So, if you'd like to work at Nationwide, these are the sort of
values and standards you'll also need to believe in and want to live up to.”
https://www.nationwide.co.uk/about-us/responsible-business/our-people/our-culture
• “Safety. Respect. Excellence. Courage. One Team.” – BP
• “Our values define how we do business and interact with our colleagues, partners,
customers and consumers. Our four core values are integrity, responsibility, respect and
pioneering. As we expand into new markets, recruit new talent and face new challenges,
these guide our people in the decisions and actions they take every day.” - Unilever
Why matching values matter

• Align what’s important to you with

what matters to the employer
• Being on the same page

• You spend a good number of hours

a day at work. They should matter
to you
• Feeling of belonging and purpose
How and where do you communicate your brand?
What technologies do you use?
Do we have a choice?
How and where will you communicate your brand?

- Platforms: where
- Behaviour: how
- Language / content
- Design / aesthetics
- Multisensory sound, touch, smell, self-motion and taste?
- Audience: who
BE CONSISTENT!
Private / Public or Professional?

• Announcement about being promoted

• Rant about the food in the staff canteen
• Opinion about a development in your work industry

• Picture of your medal from a half marathon race last weekend

• Photo from a rowdy night out with work colleagues
• Picture of your child’s first day of school
• Post reflecting how much you’d like a new job that challenges you more

Social media is a great way to build visibility and create connections online, both in a personal and
professional context. Often, the difficult bit is figuring out the line between those parts of your life.
Presenting yourself online: Digital presence
things you have chosen to publish yourself on the internet:
• Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube
etc), your own website or blog

things others have published about you, information or

news about you:
• professional (announced as a new hire in a company
newsletter)

• educational (featured on your school website for winning an

essay prize)
• related to a sport or other hobby (top scorer in a five-a-side
football game)

• other people’s blog posts may mention you, or social media

posts may include your name

(You have more control over these)

Inadvertently sharing…

• a review on Amazon or TripAdvisor (and many other sites which are powered by user reviews) the
username provided can be clicked on

• When you create a Spotify playlist

• likes, shares, even the time of your last activity on a site.

Have you ever liked a tweet or favourited a YouTube video? That information is part of your data trail.
Digital tattoo

Your Digital Tattoo is the data that’s left behind

whenever you use a digital service. Also known as
Digital Footprint but footprints disappear
whereas tattoos are permanent
Tattoos can be created in two ways:
• Passively - when data is collected without you
being aware of it e.g. search engines storing
your search history
• Actively – created when you voluntarily share
information online
Have you ever ‘googled’ yourself?

• Search for yourself on Google, DuckDuckGo, or any search

engine you prefer. DuckDuckGo doesn’t use internet
cookies to prioritise what it shows you, so this search will
give a more accurate result.

• Could there be anything embarrassing, damaging or

compromising to your professional reputation?

• Having a professional online presence matters to

employers, employees, and freelancers alike.
Did you know?
Managing your online presence
Decisions

PLATFORMS: Which platforms do you think are most relevant to your

needs?

CONTENT: Text / Images / Video / Audio / Animations

CONNECTION: Networking (making contacts) / following and being followed

by others (known or unknown) / interacting with people within a particular
space in vocal ways and otherwise

PARTICIPATION:
• Actively pursuing conversation and connection with others on the same
platform by following people who seem interesting or who have
experiences you’d like to know more about.

• Commenting on other people’s content and reply to comments on your

own content.

• Using appropriate keywords or topic/event hashtags to appear in searches

for those terms.
What is networking?
What is networking?

• Networking is creating a group of acquaintances and keeping

it active through regular communication and mutual benefit
• Networking is based on the question “How can I help?” NOT 
“What can I get?”
• Chain of Helpfulness” (Bernard Haldan)
‘Social capital’: Lyda Judson Hanifan (1916)

BONDS – BRIDGES - LINKAGES

• …a form of currency. When cashed in, it’s
what you can ask people to do that benefits
you

• Our social networks have value. The people

in those networks do things for each other,
such as buying products, sharing articles,
and helping each other.

• “networks together with shared norms, values

and understandings that facilitate co-
operation within or among groups”. (OECD)
Who are your contacts?

(Write some ideas in

the discussion area on
the right of the screen)
Who are your contacts?

• Your peers (course-mates)

• Chance encounters
• Graduates from your last uni
• Members of clubs &
• Academics (here and societies
elsewhere)
• Connections through
• Alumni speculative
enquiries
• Friends
(Write some ideas in
• Conference connections
• Family the discussion area on
• Previous business connections the right of the screen)
and work experience contacts
What about extended contacts?
• Friends of parents
• Friends of friends

• Parents of friends

• Contacts your academics may

have
• Members of learned societies and
professional bodies
• Anyone else?
Face-to-face
• Talk to people – they won’t bite!

• Attend careers /employer events on campus

• Go to local trade shows (e.g. NEC)

• Arrange to speak with professionals in a field you are interested in (e.g. networking events in town
(Such as BPS – Business Professional Services))

• Work-shadow someone in a field you are looking to get into after university 
Look at social media
Tip: Look for connections

Take a few minutes to go to LinkedIn, Twitter

and/or Instagram and see if you can identify the
following:​
• Which hashtags or topic labels are frequently
used by people in your chosen field.​
• Groups, pages or online events/activities where
people active in your potential area of interest
already congregate to interact with each other.​

• Three to five people who seem to be influential

and active in this particular subject area online.

Example:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-hill-4206487a/?originalSubdomain=uk
Building your community:

giving to the community or professional network as much or more than you take. This could include:
• welcoming new faces
• answering questions where you can

• providing links
• participating in non-vocal ways, such as liking and sharing/retweeting others’ posts.

It is important to demonstrate to the professional community that you are a trustworthy, knowledgeable
and accomplished professional.

You can prove that you can be an asset to any setting you are a part of, including a workplace, by being
genuine and generous with your time, experience, ideas and skills.
 Tips:
• Do not necessarily go for the most high profile people - It's about interesting people, peers or next level up
• Go to events, attending webinars, and just connect with like-minded individuals
• People love being flattered - “I really liked your work on that particular programme, I thought that was
really empowering, and I'm trying to kind of break into this industry, and I just really welcome your advice
on how you did that”. Everybody loves to give advice.

• DON’T! “I want to break into this industry, I'm looking for a job”, it feels like the other person is not really
gaining anything from it.
• It's about recognising the work that they do: talk to them about stuff that they've posted online, why that
has inspired you, and why you're passionate about working in that particular industry. Show you have
done the homework and that you are really passionate
• Following up: Thanks for your advice. It'd be great to kind of keep in touch, if that’s OK with you”, that's
perfectly fine.

• Maintaining that relationship over time: contact them when they've had an achievement, when their
company has done something big, a new product, or just something interesting that's going on.
What do you think?

‘Hi. I’m …. and I’m a Masters … student at Aston University.

I have strong social media skills from working at xxx

I’m looking for a placement as part of my Masters course and I’d like to work with a local business. I’ve
done some research into (name of employer) and I am really impressed by how you are involved in
helping the local community….

Who could I speak to about the possibility of having some work experience with you?

WHO are you? WHAT have you got? WHAT are you looking for?
Tips:
• Keep it brief, but not too brief. You want to communicate who you are, so focus on what’s most
important and relevant. Elevator pitch!
• Be platform-appropriate. Think about tone.

Twitter and Instagram are usually thought of as more authentic, personal platforms, so try to add
something unique or a curious fact about you to your profile there. LinkedIn gives you more space to
talk about your achievements, so you can use more formal language and fewer abbreviations or
industry jargon.

• Say something to invite engagement and demonstrate openness to contact. What are you looking
for, interested in, curious about? Do you have a favourite quote?

• Use keywords in context to your interests or area of work. For example, saying you are passionate
about marketing, public speaking and football is better than simply saying you like talking to people
about stuff. If you can use hashtags in your profile then do so, but no more than three, and put them
at the end of a piece of the profile to aid readability.

• Avoid buzzwords. Words like ninja, guru, leader, synergy, strategic, etc

• Include a link.
Create an action plan
References / Resources

• https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-manager-skills/
• https://www.oecd.org/insights/37966934.pdf
• https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/create-a-professional-online-presence

• https://targetjobs.co.uk/careers-advice/marketing-advertising-and-pr/how-promote-your-work-throug
h-social-media
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=_YRs28yBYuI
• https://fama.io/
• https://social-media.co.uk/list-popular-social-networking-websites

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=2IcpwISszbQ