1. Present Yourself
Building Your Portfolio &
Professional Brand in A Digital Age
Presented by Mieko A. Ozeki, Sustainability Officer & Career Strategist
© 2013 Radiance Studios LLC

2. Employment Perspective:
Your Grandparents Generation
According the Bureau of Labor
Statistics:
The average person born in
the latter years of the Baby
Boom (1957-1964) held 11.3
jobs from age 18 to age 46.
More than half of these jobs
were held from ages 18 to 24.
Source: National Longitudinal Survey
of Youth 1979, BLS
Baby Boomers in their twenties (circa 1960s)

3. Employment Perspective:
Your Generation
❖ According to the BLS, the
average worker today stays at
their job for 4.4 years.
❖ 91% of Millennials expected to
stay at their jobs for less than
3 years.*
❖ This means you could hold 15-
20 jobs over the course of your
working lives.
*Source: Future Workplace “Multiple
Generations @ Work”
Getty Images

4. Session Overview
Quality of Life
Narrative
Personal Brand
Body of Work
Portfolio
ManagingBuilding &
Curating

5. {
Information Overload
My goal is to get you
thinking, planning,
acting with
mindfulness on your
career development.
Please ask questions.

6. What comes to Mind when you
think of a “brand”?

7. What comes to mind when you hear
“personal brand”?

8. What is A Personal Brand, Anyhow?
Personal Brand is a perception or emotion maintained by
somebody other than you, that describes your outstanding
qualities and influences that person's relationship with you.
- David McNally & Karl D. Speak , Authors of Be Your Own Brand: Achieve More
of What You Want by Being More of Who You Are,
2nd edition (2011)

10. Personal Brand = Reputation =
How People Perceive You

11. Social Media/Social Network Inventory

13. Who really checks your Profiles
Employers will use:
48% search engines to research candidates
44% Facebook to research candidates
27% Twitter to monitor a candidate’s activity
23% Yelp, Glassdoor, or other rating sites to review
candidate’s posts or comments.
Source: 2013 CareerBuilder Study at goo.gl/r6StlX

14. Your Social Media Inventory
1. Start a list of all your social media
profiles including usernames,
passwords, and/or when you
started the account.
2. Note what kind of posts you share
via these profiles
Ex. On LinkedIn, I share info on
my professional portfolio.
3. Note who your audience is with
each profile.
Ex. on Facebook, friends, family,
and colleagues see my posts.

15. What should I count in my social
media inventory?
★ Any social media service or
website where your name,
information, and/or image can
be publicly viewed.
★ Includes organizations and/or
companies you participate in (i.e.
staff profiles, Memberships)
★ Includes publications, pictures,
presentations that may be posted
on other websites

16. When a poorly worded Tweet leads to
losing your job

17. “You have to
generate your
character offline.”
Reggie Watts
Comedian

18. {
Personal branding is
like a Cliff Notes™ of
You.
It’s not the whole
story, but a synopsis.
What people take a
quick glance at.
A Different Perspective

19. {
Developing, collecting,
and curating your story
(the Content) is just as
important as displaying
your Brand.
90% Your Story & 10% Display
Display
Your Story (the Content)
What is your personal & professional
narrative?

20. Developing A Narrative for Your Body of Work

21. Forming a Personal/Professional
Narrative
Work-Life Balance
Awareness of the
Authentic You:
Identifying
Elements of You
Quality of Life

22. How do you perceive
yourself? What are your
strengths? What
experiences shaped your
skills, values, knowledge?
How do others
perceive you?
Forming a Personal/Professional
Narrative
What would you like
your quality of life to
be? What are you
passionate about?
What will bring
happiness to your
life?
What is your ideal work
environment? Who
would you like to work
with?
How important is
keeping life & work
life in balance?

23. Top 10 Skills for 21st Century
Environmental Professionals
6) Positive
attitude/willingness to
work hard.
7) Information technology
skills.
8) Leadership ability.
9) Occupation-specific skills
10) Experience focusing on the
needs of stakeholders.
Source: The Eco Guide to Careers that
Make a Difference (2004)
1) Ability to communicate
(speaking, writing, visual,
listening).
2) Ability to collaborate.
3) Creativity and innovation.
4) Broad environmental
science understanding
5) Analytical & critical
thinking/problem-solving
ability.

24. First Impressions Matter:
Knowing Your Narrative Helps

25. Your Body of Work:
Professional Portfolio
★ Personal development and
self-reflection
★ Career exploration
★ Promote yourself while
networking
★ A conversation piece
★ Develop & Curate Your
Professional Story
★ Collect content for your
Digital Brand

26. Materials to Share in Your Portfolio
✧ Resume*
✧ Reference list*
✧ Letters of references*
✧ Accomplishments
✧ Brochures
✧ Conferences, workshops,
seminars attended
✧ Public
speaking/presentations or
performances
✧ Featured articles
✧ Honors, awards,
✧ Licenses or certificates for
specific trainings
✧ Professional affiliations
✧ Writing samples
✧ Pictures of you in the field
✧ Examples of projects and
reports

27. Platforms
www.linkedin.com www.seelio.com

28. Platforms
www.slideshare.comwww.prezi.com

29. Platforms
www.issuu.com
Personal Website

30. Platforms
www.vimeo.com www.youtube.com

31. Brand Management

32. Have you Googled Yourself?
“Personal branding is about managing your name — even if you
don't own a business — in a world of misinformation,
disinformation, and semi-permanent Google records. Going on a
date? Chances are that your “blind” date has Googled your name.
Going to a job interview? Ditto.”
- Tim Ferriss, Author of the 4-Hour Work Week (2009)

34. Reputation Management Services

36. Resources
★ Susan Chritton, Personal Branding for
Dummies
★ Erik Deckers & Kyle Lacy, Branding
Yourself (2013)
★ David McNally & Karl Speaks, Be Your
Own Brand (2011)
★ Dan Schwabel, Me 2.0: Build a Powerful
Brand to achieve career success (2009)
and Promote Yourself: The New Rules
for Career Success (2013)
#personalbranding

37. Your Assignment
1. Narrative of you: Write a 1-page narrative of your personal story in the
present and imagine your professional story post-UVM (2-5 years after
graduating).
2. Social Media/Social Network inventory: Create a table of the
profiles/accounts you have on social media and social networking sites.
Thinking of your current use of these platforms, how would you change
your use to reflect your narrative, your body of work, and your personal
brand. Example:
Social Network/Social
Media
Handle, pages, and/or
web address
How do you use this
platform? Who is your
audience?
What would you
change?
i.e. Twitter jsmith Share my thoughts on
movies with friends and
public
Share links and images of
projects I am involved in,
public sharing with a focus
on people in the creative
arts industry.

38. 3. Body of Work: Compose a list of materials you produced and experiences
you participated/engaged in that relate to your current narrative and what
you project yourself to be in the near future. Based on your Lives &
Livelihood research and what you have learned this semester, develop a list
of activities you can do to enhance your body of work to reflect what you
desire for your future professional narrative.

39. Thank you!