How You Are Like Shampoo for College Graduates. Brenda Bence

process that successful brands continue to survive and thrive through economic ups and downs.

      Several years ago, when I began coaching people to reach their goals and develop their individual personal brands, I started to experiment and apply these same principles of corporate branding to personal branding. I took the elements and framework used by name- brand marketers and adjusted them to fit personal brands, so that all of us — as individuals — could thrive in our careers the same way those great name brands we love have thrived in the marketplace. That’s how the personal branding system in this book was born.

      Now, you may be thinking, “But Brenda, you weren’t coaching college grads, were you?” Well, yes, eventually I was! At first, as you’d expect, I mostly coached executives, but those executives had sons and daughters just like you who were getting ready to graduate from college. That’s why I took my system one step further and adapted it especially for college grads. So, I’ve witnessed firsthand just how powerful this personal branding process can be when applied to college graduates, and that’s how this book came about.

      In the pages that follow, we’ll walk together through the process of building your college graduate personal brand step by step by step, helping you to craft and effectively communicate YOU^TM. That’s right — the trademarked you.

      Today, you — or YOU^TM — can apply the same system in your job search that big-company marketers have used for years to build enormously successful corporate brands. Can you see now “how YOU^TM are like shampoo?” Just as a corporate marketer uses this proven process to build the mega-brand of a shampoo like Pantene or Vidal Sassoon or Head & Shoulders, you, too, will build the brand of YOU^TM. It doesn’t matter if you are looking for your first full-time job. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have any work experience or if you’ve “only” ever worked at a fast food chain. You’ll learn how to use your education and all of your experiences (even outside of work and school) to your advantage during your job search.

      Since the advent of personal branding over a decade ago, several books have been written on the subject. What makes How YOU^TM are like Shampoo for College Graduates different is that it offers a complete system specifically for job-seeking college grads, covering every possible aspect of how to use personal branding to sail through your job search with a successful result. This book goes beyond the theories about personal branding to bring you practical tools that you can apply immediately to your job search!

      My hope is that this book will:

      •Open you up to the power that comes from successfully branding yourself.

      •Show you how your job search can actually be energizing and fun.

      •Expand your vision of the kind of job and career you’re capable of achieving.

      •Offer you empowering tips and tools you can use before, during, and after your interviews so that you’ll feel confident and fully ready to wow your interviewers.

      •Give you the satisfaction of knowing you’re reaching your full potential and starting the gratifying life that will put a smile on your face every morning.

      This is probably both an exciting and scary time in your life. Up until now, your primary role has been to study, learn, and grow. Your parents have probably taken care of putting a roof over your head and food on the table. Now, for the first time, it’s going to be up to you to step up to the plate and fend for yourself. Personal branding can help you do just that, and that’s what this book is all about. Your personal brand can serve as a compass to guide you in a future direction toward a job that doesn’t just look good on paper but that feels absolutely “right” down in your bones. I want you to wake up every day, revved up about going to work.

      It’s exciting for me to share with you my personal branding system tailored specifically for college grad job seekers! I hope you’ll have fun with it, too, as we move through this process together.

      “Today, you — or YOU^TM — can apply the same system in your job search that big-company marketers have used for years to build enormously successful corporate brands.

      Can you see now

      ‘how YOU^TM are like shampoo?’”

      Introduction

      Your Job Search — How Are YOU™ Like Shampoo?

      It’s better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret.

      — Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Olympic Gold Medalist

      Alfred Nobel was a successful and wealthy Swedish man who lived in the late 1800s. He was famous for having invented two things: dynamite and the detonator, the device that makes dynamite go off from far away. Thanks to these two inventions, Alfred Nobel had made millions, and he was living a wonderful millionaire’s life.

      Alfred’s brother, Ludwig Nobel, who was also famous and wealthy, died in 1888. But the obituary that showed up the next day in the newspaper was switched, and it was Alfred’s obituary that got printed, not Ludwig’s. So, Alfred Nobel had the mind-boggling experience of opening up the morning paper … and reading his own life story.

      Can you imagine how powerful that would be?

      But Alfred must have cringed when he read the title of his obituary. It called him “The Merchant of Death” because of all the work he had done with dynamite and detonators. In that single moment, Alfred Nobel realized that his personal brand would always be associated with death and destruction — unless he took control and did something about it.

      So, he decided to change what his brand stood for. He made a plan to develop the Nobel Prizes to make a difference in important subjects that he really cared about. And when he died in 1895, Alfred Nobel left most of his millions to establish those prizes. He didn’t want his name, “Nobel,” to stand for destruction and death. Did he succeed? Well, just look at what the name Nobel stands for today — the world’s most prestigious prizes awarded for outstanding achievements in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace.

      You’ve heard of the Nobel Prizes, right? But you probably didn’t know the other work that Nobel had done in his life. That’s because Alfred Nobel was successful in changing his personal brand so that his name could stand for what he wanted it to stand for.

      You can change what you stand for, too, by creating your own personal brand and using it to energize your job search. As author Carl Bard said, “Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.”

      Did You Know You Already Have a Personal Brand?

      So, maybe you’re thinking, “Good story, Brenda, but what does that have to do with me? I’m just getting started in my career. How could I already have a personal brand?”

      That’s a fair question — and here’s my answer: Even if you’ve never had a full-time job in a company, you already have a personal brand. (And you didn’t have to do anything as earth-shattering as invent dynamite to get it!)

      It’s true. To have a personal brand, you don’t have to be an inventor or even sit down and give your personal brand any thought. Just by virtue of being you in a job interview or at school or wherever you are, you have a personal brand. The question is whether you have the personal brand you want. If not, you’re leaving too much of your job search and your future to chance.

      Just like Alfred Nobel, you have the power to change your personal brand and create the one that you desire. In other words, you have to make a decision about how you want to come across before, during, and after interviews in order to get the kind of work you really want. And there’s no better time to work on your personal brand than now as you think about your first job after college and as you get ready to launch yourself into the professional marketplace.

      Personal Branding and Your Job