Coupled with their mantra of investing in innovative technology, they’re also becoming cognisant of the role people play in successful companies. As a result we’re working together onattracting the right talent into their organisation, and establishing a strong talent pool for further recruitment.

This of course involves a heavy University Relations campaign, and crafting your pitch to university students is key to a well received message. The best opportunity to talk at length about your company’s opportunities on campus, is via a recruitment talk. So, what exactly should an organisation focus on in this presentation? Below is a list of areas I’ve identified as pertinent.

Company Vision: Start with WHY you’re doing what you do. Why is it you get out of bed in the morning? Why should people care about what you do? In order to attract the right young, impressionable adults (or anyone for that matter), it’s vital you appeal to their heart as well as their mind. Blowing their mind with your prestigious client base may be sufficient to pull a larger university crowd, however only those that believe in your vision will be loyal and become brand ambassadors. If your mission is to change the way people use technology for example, then promulgate it. Don’t be afraid to communicate this vision despite how bold it may be.

Companies that are able to encapsulate their overall vision through a diagram or metaphorical representation will also go further in winning over their audience.

Company Description: This is essentially the WHAT and HOW of your company. “What” exactly is it your company does and “How” exactly do you do it. This is the section you can elaborate on the type of services you offer, your unique value proposition and differentiation from competitors, and a brief list of clients you work with (I say brief as we’ll expand on this via case studies later).

An enthralling story (especially if you’re a start-up or smaller company), is to tell your audience about the very first time the founders got together and started working to build the business. I recall in my previous company, everyone found it amusing as I would narrate the time my previous CEO and CTO would be working in a tiny office with one powerpoint which was shared by the server and a meager coffee machine. Likewise if your company has grown from such humble beginnings, capitalise on this experience and evoke a strong feeling from listeners.

Employee Profiles: There’s no need to showcase every single employee in your company, but pick a few superstars that shine. Be sure to include at least one of the senior members as well as an employee at the graduate or intern level. Why? Well a senior person demonstrates the type of career progression available through the company, and a graduate resembles the most similar position to your audience’s current stage; It gives them a more accurate depiction of the calibre of talent you’re seeking. Qualities you might choose to illustrate for each individual are exemplified below:

Name: Chan Sung Jung (aka The Professor)
Position: Lead Engineer
Degree: Electrical Engineering at NUS
Hobbies: World of Warcraft, Wannabe triathlete and passionate Liverpool fan.
Biggest Achievement: Leading a team of engineers to conceptualise design for an emergency surgery system at NUH.
Biggest Challenges: Remaining on the cusp of continuous technology innovation.
Future Aspirations: To develop a technology that can be used in bionic devices that save lives.

Culture and Values: Your company culture and values tie your overall vision to your Talent Management goals. Your aim is to attract young people that not only possess the necessary skills but also prove to be a good cultural fit and will represent your values. So what’s the difference between the two? Well the Values of a company are essentially the fundamental principles you believe – i.e. integrity, leadership, excellence etc. The Culture is how those values are personified by the people. A good way to demonstrate this in your presentation is via a photo, preferably of the whole office, engaging in an activity that displays your culture and values. It may be from winning a big client and capturing everybody celebrating or it may be from a team bonding activity such as bowling.

Future Growth: Every Gen-Yer wants to join a company with serious growth prospects. They desire progression and they desire it quickly. If your company aims to expand, either through it’s product and/or service offering or through international markets, make this known! Ambitious students will want to be a part of your successful growth plans.

Client Case Studies: Pick out a couple of client projects that you’re particularly proud of working on as an organisation. Don’t feel like they must be recognised clients. Instead, focus on examples that your audience will find interesting, unusual or compelling. Back up your story with visual images where possible; after all a picture speaks a thousand words.

Graduate Programme: Behind all the rhetoric, people still want to know the type of graduate or internship programmes your company offers. In this section, go into details about the different phases of the training programme you’re offering and how long each of these phases lasts. What roles can people expect to play as they progress up the ranks of the company? Do you provide different training for tech positions as you do for marketing? Elaborate on these important details here.

A Day in the Life of: A great way to illustrate the above training scheme is through an example of a real life employee. What activities and tasks consume their day from morning to early evening? Naturally the more exciting this appears, the more interest you will garner.

Selection Criteria: It’s important that you attract the best talent to your organisation. The definition of “best” will also vary from company to company. Everyone in your audience won’t be a matching fit, so use this as an opportunity to highlight the numerous criteria you may seek in fresh grads. Are you looking for people that are driven? entrepreneurial? What makes your employees different, and how do you assess potential recruits? In your subsequent hiring procedure, the most in touch students will be sure to address this in their application.

Immediate Vacancies: Sometimes you might be offering positions that fall out of your regular graduate and internship programmes. Feel free to mention these in your talk, but don’t waste too much time on this. Rather, direct students to the relevant URL on your website and interested parties can apply accordingly.

Dates and Logistics: Give some further information about deadlines and minor details.

• Application Procedure
• Application Deadline
• Interview Process
• Commencement Date
• Number of Vacancies
• HR Contacts
• Social Media Resources (encourage people to join your Facebook Page, Follow you on Twitter and subscribe to your blog)

and so on…

The above isn’t an exhaustive list by any means, but it does cover the main elements required to captivate your university audience. You may choose any or all of these that are appropriate for the type of company you are and stage of growth you’re experiencing.

Ultimately the aim is to stimulate young people’s minds through the exciting clients and projects they’ll be working with, but more importantly, inspiring them to achieve their goals through effective alignment with your organisation’s overall vision.

What other elements are important for a company recruitment talk on campus? What am I missing?

In other occasions, the person leaving is a manager or executive who has been in the company for a fairly long period of time. While they were working, things ran smoothly and everything was organized. But the moment they walk out the door, things go awry. People start talking about how good this person was and how things were easy when he was around but now that he or she has left, every day is a nightmare. You can miss the person and the steadiness associated with his presence when actually, when this happens, it means that this person got it all wrong.

Let me explain. Some people tend to hog work in order to keep control. It works while they are present, but when and if the person leaves on vacations or quits nobody knows how to do stuff because they never had a chance to do it in the past.

When some employees give their two week notice they consider themselves already out of the job and slack for those last two weeks -I’ve seen it-. This is one of those crucial moments when we have to step up our game and leave our job with our right foot… specially if you are interested in staying within the employed population in the future.

I’ve seen people -who have done a great job during their stay in a company- slack off as soon as they realize they are on their way out. And trust me, that is something that will be brought up if another company ever asks for references.

Do this exercise. I’m going to give you a list of numbers: 10, 13, 73, 89, 42, 93, 42, 37, 60, 22. Now look away and see how many you can remember. Most probably, you will remember the first and last 2 numbers. Our memory can retain 5 (+-2) chunks of information and on top of that, the first and last chunks to get processed are the ones more easily retained. This is called priming.

Taking this example to the work environment, the two most important moments during your stay at a company will be the first couple of weeks and the last ones. What people will remember the most are the impression you made when you arrived and how you did while you were leaving the job.

This is where ethics and good planning skills come into play. On the ethical side, leaving without caring for what happens after you leave will not only affect others’ perception of you and your work but you will also be  a disregard to those people that have worked closely with you.

Planning your exit will ensure that after you are gone, operations continue as normal as possible. Do yourself a favor, don’t leave loose ends and delegate your tasks with enough time in advance so others have time to ask you if they have any doubts on how to do your job.

Think about the last team building training or meeting where an ice breaker was used. Usually the memories shouldn’t take long to come by. Those trainings, done by -insert irony- “those guys at HR that have lots of free time”, tend to linger in your memory for two reasons:

• At least once, you felt uncomfortable during the training
• “They made you play” childish games
• The third one led me to write this post, even days after one of those trainings: they leave you thinking

Whoever says that hasn’t gone through this please throw the first stone -you wouldn’t do that to your screen, would you?-. With tons of paperwork piling on your desk, requests from clients and deadlines to meet, you think to yourself “why am I wasting my time here?”.

The funny part is that 90% of the time you end up having fun. Even on those occasions when you did but wouldn’t admit it.

These trainings are successful at getting the message across because they feed on your discomfort and reluctance to take part  in them.

Usually, the second reason -childish games- is perceived as the most evident source of uneasiness and that’s what people cling to when judging these type of training. People in suits playing Twister? Doctors getting wrapped in paper towel? How do you expect me to feel after those tortures? Being mummified in the workplace is certainly one way you don’t want to see yourself portrayed on Larry King Live.

In a way, that shield that took you years to build around your adult persona sometimes limits access to feelings deep within you, feelings so primal that you can’t even put into words. When you are alone or in a “controlled” environment it’s easy to keep those emotions at bay but when faced against peer pressure you have no other choice but to go with the flow. This may be the most spontaneous reaction to games during training at work: “the CFO, CEO, Paul from Finance and Jenny from Marketing -along with other 14 souls- are doing it… what the heck… can’t dodge it… here I go…”.

In a crowd, individual traits are suppressed, hence each crowd member’s personality blurs, the heterogeneous merges into homogeneous and suggestibility turns people into blind followers. Yup, good old peer pressure pushed you into this game.

An hour later, you are out of the training with the feeling that you didn’t waste your time, even after you felt embarrassed because once the “crowd dissolved” you are back to normal but it’s too late, you got impregnated with teamwork and the feeling that you can’t tell what it is but you have learnt something.

I bet that most companies don’t think about this when they develop their trainings, but in these activities, there are elements extensively studied by a school of psychology, a form of psychotherapy known as Psycho-drama. Take a look at this Wikipedia entry and tell me if it doesn’t ring any bells.

In a different channel, those trainings switch on one of the most (currently) regarded and lest used types of intelligence in the work environment: your Emotional Intelligence -well, women use it more than us. Point for them-.

Now, compare those trainings where you sit and listen, interact every now and then and maybe do some scenario based brain-storm to these type of trainings where you experienced something with your bare self and body. Which one “marked” you the most? Yup, they may seem cheesy, corny or childish when looked from our “grown up” point of view, but think again.

Image credit, Online Educa Berlin

One of the most productive methods is to “follow” the right people, associations and resources.

Follow your favourite companies – Many organisations are now active in the twitterverse, not only tweeting about new products and services, but also about the latest career opportunities. In fact, they’ll dedicate a separate account specifically to disseminate relevant information about job opportunities. For example check out http://twitter.com/ShellCareers. This twitter stream is solely allocated to notifying all its followers of the latest career opportunities for Shell from all over the world. They’ll even post links to photos captured at campus events.

Follow Influencers – Who is an influencer you ask? It’s typically someone or a group that holds a fair amount of clout in a particular field. You’ll usually be able to spot them by the number of followers they have. An influencer to you might be somebody that is considered an authority in your field of expertise or passions. They’ll often tweet interesting facts about their industry, keeping you informed as well as career opportunities. You can even communicate with them using the @ symbol followed by their Twitter ID. Occasionally they may respond, and alert their audience of your correspondence.

Follow Careers Resources – There are a plethora of careers websites that help young people enhance their career prospects. They can help you tailor your CV, sharpen your interviewing technique and hone your job search skills. If you’re unsure where to look then Twellow is a useful directly that allows you to search for resources according to different categories. Gradkin also has its own Twitter account that links to the most recent blog articles as well as other careers resources from around the world.

Need a Job? Tweet it – This tactic will be more effective when you’ve accrued a large follower base. One of the biggest mistakes that people can make in their job hunt is that they neglect to inform people or keep it a secret – almost embarrassed by the shame that comes with unemployment. If you’re looking for a job, then send a tweet out that accurately depicts your qualifications and requirements. “Hey Everyone I need a Job” is not the right way to go about things, but “Hi I’m an HR Pro with 4 years of experience in MNCs, looking for a smaller org’n where I can contribute to the growth of HR Best Practices” is a much more effective alternative…oh and it’s less than 140 characters!

Quantity and Quality – Unfortunately with Twitter, you can’t better either of these at the expense of the other. In order to amass a huge following, not only must you ensure that your tweets are quality content that others are interested in consuming, but you must also tweet very often. The only people with huge followings that don’t tweet often are celebrities. So unless you have your name in shining lights somewhere, you’ll need to invest some time into implementing a consistent tweet strategy.

Complete your profile – Your profile on Twitter is so basic, that no one really has the excuse that it takes too long. Not attempting to do this indicates you’re very lazy. Also, when you decide to follow someone, your profile will be featured to that person; therefore if you’re missing these details, people will be less likely to follow you back.

If you have your own website or blog, then link to this via the website field. If not, then link potential employers to your Linkedin, Facebook or Gradkin profile.

For the Bio, you only have 140 characters so make it keyword rich regarding your area of expertise or passions. Mine says “Entrepreneur, Founder of @gradkin, Blogger, Speaker, Mixed Martial Arts, Fitness Freak and Backpacker”. It’s not how I’d introduce myself at a formal gathering, or even a party, but it works for twitter. Your aim is to make an impression in as few words as possible.

Link Twitter to email and other profiles – Twitter isn’t going to work for you if people don’t follow you, it’s that simple! A passive way to be found is to link your Twitter ID to your email signatures and other social media profiles. This way, whenever your communicating using other mediums, your Twitter profile is inadvertently promoted, enticing others to follow you. I’ve even seen some business people include it on their business card, right after their other contact channels…true!

Does anyone else know of other strategies to utilise Twitter for job-hunting? Please share for the interest of our audience.

Join our Facebook page and follow us on Twitter to remain updated on the latest career advice, job search tips and  job opportunities.

While writing my last post here on Gradkin I briefly talked about viralizing a company’s organizational culture but I never mentioned how to do it. Hence, here’s the follow up post where I’ll elaborate on that. The concept I’m going to rely on to make my point is memes.

A meme is a unit of cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes, in that they self-replicate and respond to selective pressures -thank you Wikipedia-.

The British scientist Richard Dawkins coined the word “meme” in The Selfish Gene (1976) as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, beliefs, clothing fashion, and the technology of building arches. If Dawkins lived today, I’m sure he would have included Lolcats on his list.

Creating and spreading memes

Some types of viruses become successful organisms because they are simple and adaptable enough to be able to survive in a hostile environment long enough until they shelter in a host that lets them to replicate. For your memes to go viral you need to do the same thing: your meme has to be catchy or tempting to survive long enough and spread. It also has to be simple to adopt -so use the KISS method: Keep It Simple Stupid-.

You can enforce a policy, a way of doing work, how to manage idle time or whatever you can think of, but the moment you turn around, it will be gone and forgotten. Pushing ideas onto others is not the most effective way to get things done your way.

If you want to shape or create a culture that sticks you need to create the desire to adopt it. People also like to own what they do, so forget about keeping the credit for it. You have to be willing to let go and allow others to take ownership of the memes you release into the environment.

How to easily start a meme in your company.

Every time I finish my on-call week I send an email to managers, directors and administrators detailing all the events that transpired during that week -that’s the usual procedure-. But I don’t limit myself to just sending that information. I include opportunities for improvement that I detect and I also send commendations and kudos to staff’s supervisors to let them know when their staff went above and beyond. This has not only gotten me “back-kudos” from the higher-ups (which motivates others to do the same) but is also a morale enhancer for those people that don’t usually get credit through this particular channel. I just added something on top of what was already being done. In other words, I plant cultural viruses on my emails.

That alone does not configure a meme but if others start doing it it, in time, it will become one. That meme then becomes common practice, which then becomes an element that merges into a department’s culture.

Stronger memes will have a wider reach and spread across the whole organization instead of staying within the area or unit level. The reach of your virus will then depend on how ubiquitous you want to make it, so keep in mind that the strength of a meme will only depend on the knowledge you have of your organization and how creative you are.

Seed your verbal and written interactions with cultural viruses and make them spread like wildfires.

As per the survey conducted last year, we can see that Passion, Communication Skills and Desire to Learn all reappear in the top 5, with Passion considered as the MOST important of these. Being Proactive and a Team Player are adjudged to hold prominence in the top 5 criteria also.

Some young job-seekers are at a loss when it comes to understanding what employers really mean when they look for “passionate” people.

Does it mean you have to be passionate about banking if you’re seeking banking roles? Not necessarily. Employers recognise that passion is a quality that isn’t developed overnight. Understandably, with little to no work experience, it’s unlikely that job-seekers are going to be genuinely passionate about their particular industry. Demonstrating otherwise, may seen insincere and turn employers off. If however, you are honestly enthusiastic about your desired profession, then this goes a long way to accounting your suitability for the role.

Do you have to be passionate about the company you are applying to? Again, no you don’t. Unless it’s a big brand name such as Apple or Google, chances are you won’t know enough about the organisation to develop a true affinity for it. Indicating otherwise will seem pretentious.

Generally speaking, employers are looking for young job-seekers that are passionate about life and possess a thirst for learning. For example, you might feel that your passion for cinema may have no correlation to your application for a role at a consulting firm, but that’s not necessarily true. Passion is a trait that demonstrates a certain zest for a particular area. That zest can therefore be transferred to other areas most notably concerned with a company’s overall vision. If you’re not able to demonstrate a passion for anything in life thus far, employers are less likely to believe that passion can be developed later.

When asked which attributes will develop a fresh graduate into a global talent, employers ranked Emotional Intelligence (EQ), a Global Mindset, Overseas Internships, Overseas Programmes and being able to Manage Diversity at Work as the top 5 criteria.

These findings represent the fact that employers realise that in order to succeed globally, it’s vital for talents to be emotionally aware of their own feelings, and that of others. As you become exposed to various nationalities and cultures, what sets apart a superior talent from an average talent, will be their ability to communicate and manage different people accordingly to achieve a mutually beneficial effect.

At this point your grades and scores will not be of any importance, and your EQ honed through experience and learning will equip you to compete with other global talents. The more mistakes one makes, the sharper the learning curve and growth. I’m reminded of a phrase I heard recently that encapsulates this thought quite adequately – “To avoid situations in which you might make mistakes may be the biggest mistake of all.” Peter McWilliams.

Any employers out there reading this entry, please share your thoughts.

You can argue whether people change or don’t. But I’m pretty sure of something though. People’s essence, barring exceptional circumstances, remains the same throughout life, but there are manifest behaviors and characteristics that do change over time due to what we experience in our lives. These changes are driven by our environment, our self perception and how we position ourselves with respect to others. In other words, changes in how we behave are dependent on our social interactions and the setting we live in.

The workplace is no exception to this fact of life:  the way we are is influenced by what we do. As people move up in hierarchy the way they interact with superiors, subordinates and peers, change. During your career, you may meet several types of managers. Here are some of them:

Confrontation Avoiders: these are managers that to avoid confrontation, have never disciplined anyone but as they moved up started to do it because they are now able to take distance -they may be the employee’s supervisor boss-. They tend to let things flow and look away from problems. But as soon as they start looking at them from above they behave like vultures, hovering over their subordinates to find the right moment to hit them hard with divine justice.

The Amnesics: there are managers that have forgotten their roots and treat those who don’t have a prominent position as second class humans (I’ve seen it). As they reach the upper levels of the food chain they assume that everyone who doesn’t have  a “nobility title” is a worthless peasant.

The Resented: these are those managers or executives who have had bad experiences with authority figures in the past and now take a vendetta against their past experiences by abusing their authority. You see this phenomenon in police and military forces across the world. People who come from backgrounds where they’ve been subjugated by the acting powers or individuals who have been psychologically abused by their superiors, once they become them, they reproduce the same patterns they experienced in their pasts.

The Actors: these are individuals who are new to management and now that they are “the boss”, they start acting like one (or the way they think a boss should act). These people are usually mocked since it is evident how drastically they changed since moving up. They tend to be overly bossy and inconsistent in their practices.

Consequent Leaders: these are my favorites. Consequent leaders are those managers which no matter how high they go, remain the same. The way that they interact with others is consistent across all the hierarchies they’ve occupied and tend to be easy going but stern in their decisions. Of course, you got those who are draconian and bossy but they’ve been like that since the beginning. I dig them as well.

Spiderman’s lesson

There’s something you need to know. “With great power comes great responsibility, Peter”. Uncle Ben couldn’t be more right at mentoring Spiderman. Joking aside, with titles comes self entitlement. Self entitlement is a logical reaction and a necessary step to own a leadership role. But what matters is how that power is used and how that reflects the way we are.

You are not your title. What’s important is who you are and how you wear your title. Authority is earned through your actions, the treatment you give to others and the ability to lead by example. You can pretend you are Steve Jobs, you can forget what it was like to be at the bottom of the food chain or loathe your previous bosses; what you can’t do is think you are your title because when or if you ever lose it, you’ll feel miserable for losing something you never had. On the contrary, you will have yourself for the rest of your career; and how others perceive you could be the difference between having a successful one or being the town’s jester.

The survey interviewed over 4,500 students from a good cross-section of faculties and year of study, including post-grad students.

It’s not surprising that the top 5 criteria that students consider now for job-hunting are identical to the previous year’s findings. The only differentiating factor is the order of importance.

“Job Relates to my interest” is still #1 however, and illustrates a trend among young people today to follow a career path they will ultimately enjoy.

“Work-Life Balance” has jumped up to number two and again is indicative of Gen-Y’s desire to seek fulfillment in their entire life, not just career. It’s quite surprising that “Attractive Pay Package” has also jumped up, by two notches to take the bronze for the most important criteria young people seek while job-hunting. A possible explanation to this is the fallout from the economic crisis, which has stirred the skepticism of job-seekers resulting in a desire for more security if the economy were to plummet again.

From the above graphs, MNCs continue to dominate the field of choice as the top form of organisation that young job-seekers are interested in. This will likely be the case for many years also as larger organisations do offer more security, higher salaries and more established management programmes than their smaller counterparts. It is promising to see nearly a third of students surveyed would pursue opportunities at SMEs though, and I presume this will rise in future years as aspects such as growth and culture become more relevant among young people.

The financial services industry has always been an attractive option for job-seekers, lured by the global opportunities and lucrativeness.

The Top 5 Companies to work for are:

1. Singapore Airlines
2. Google
3. Shell
4. ExxonMobil
5. Deutsche Bank

Gen-Y are often labelled as fickle by older generations in the workplace. And compared to Boomers and Gen-X, there certainly is a greater need to experience the fruits of one organisation before moving onto another.

The findings support this notion, with an overwhelming 74.5% expected to stay in their first job between 1-3 years; but it’s reflective of the times, so perhaps unfair to label today’s Gen-Yers as job-hoppers. I also suspect that the propensity to change jobs will diminish as job-seekers move further into their careers and establish themselves.

Finally Social Media has proved to be a useful tool socially, with 73.2% using platforms to stay connected with friends and acquaintances. While the proportion that use social media for professional networking and branding are only 11.3% and 10.7% respectively, no doubt these figures will rise in the future as recruitment and job-hunting becomes more social and engaging overall.

What do you think of these findings? Any surprises? Please share your comments.

In a following post I’ll elaborate on the results from the Employers on their hiring requirements.

All data is provided courtesy of the NUS Careers Centre.

Being a Gen-Y employee working for a company that still lives in the 20th century  and where senior managers mistake Blackberries with Star Trek Tricorders can be a towering challenge.

Old company doesn’t mean that they’ve been in business for hundreds of years. Longevity here is not a factor, what I refer to is the way they do business. There are companies that have been around for ages but their culture is constantly forged using cutting edge knowledge and tech. On the contrary, some start-ups’ organizational cultures seem to be founded on medieval scriptures. Somehow, old companies tend to be a retention magnet for “old people” (leave age aside!).

The Matrix effect

Old companies often move at a pace that to you, may seem like bullet time. It’s not infrequent to see people complaining about how certain tasks consume their entire weeks. Strikingly, you can get those things done in 2 hours, which leaves you wondering if you are either Flash or there’s a time dilation field surrounding your desk.

Although you may at times get frustrated with the speed that things are done, the times involved in processing documentation or solving urgent problems, this is something you must use to your advantage. On one hand, being in the non-ranters group will make a difference in how others see you, thus, increasing your informal authority (which will be useful in the next step).

But more importantly, getting things done in a blink of an eye -relatively speaking- can free up time to focus on creative thinking to generate ideas for innovation.

The problem is that if a company is resilient to change, your attempts to drive change will be futile and you’ll end up losing your will to improve as well as your motivation.

Shape your own bubble… and bring your team inside it

Something I’ve learned from working in huge companies is that achieving meaningful change at a large scale in a short time span can be -sometimes- utopic; specially if you are not a top executive.

The alternative I’ve found to avoid falling into a company’s dragging pace and outdated practices is to generate that change you seek within your team, unit or area. Shaping a micro culture where you can feel comfortable will not only increase your team’s morale but will also boost productivity, performance and will ultimately -with some luck, word of mouth and good pitching- ripple towards other teams. In other words, you are making your micro-culture go viral. The advantage of this is that people from other areas of the company won’t feel that something is being pushed to them, making adoption painless.

Old companies are sometimes unfriendly towards members who stray away from the herd. But a) working in an uncomfortable setting is not good neither for you nor the company. And b) who’s gonna tell you that you or your team are being overly productive?

Take into account that even if your team’s micro culture doesn’t spread across the office building, having a safe haven where you can work comfortably can shield you from the stress and frustration of working in a company that works at a different pace than yours.

Image credit, Gus Ramadan

It’s a buzzword we’re hearing more of, and many young people seemed to be confused by the concept. Below are the main discussion points which we elaborated on in the live show, and our responses.

Personal Branding seems like a recent trend. What is your definition and how did the need for a Personal Brand arise?

Well let’s first look at the concept of a “brand”. A Brand is intangible and refers to the perception that is created in other people’s minds. For example, Nike and Coke are strong product brands – When I hear Nike I think of superior athletic performance for everyday people and when I hear Coke, I think of young people quenching their thirst. Similarly a Personal Brand is the image/perception that you plant in other people’s mind about yourself. One should make sure therefore that their self-impression equates with their outward perception. Personal Branding on the other hand are the channels (networks, social media, video) individuals use to showcase their Personal Brand.

The concept has been around for a number of years but has been written and discussed extensively in the last few years especially. The main reason for this is because people have started to recognise that in order to differentiate themselves from others, whether it be for their career, business or romance, it’s imperative to solidify your own uniqueness through a personal brand.

How is Personal Branding important and relevant for undergraduates?

It’s important for everyone, not just undergraduates. Whether you’re a sixteen year old that’s exploring options for your career, or whether you’re a senior professional with 25 years of work experience. Regardless of what stage in life you’re at, showcasing your value is important.

It’s especially important for undergraduates because when you’re graduating from university and looking for employment, you need to be able to answer the question “Why should a company hire you, over anyone else?”. That’s  where your personal brand comes into the equation. Every year, companies have hundreds, or even thousands of options for a few available positions; naturally they’ll gravitate toward people that make a strong impression.

At the end of the day, undergraduates should also think of themselves like a product. Why should consumers (in this case the employer) purchase you (the product)? This comes to establishing your Personal Brand on your Unique Selling Points which illustrate your competitive advantage. Job-seekers should ask themselves, “Would you prefer to be a strong brand like Coke, or a no-brand cola?”

Last time self-help books talked about self-improvement — like how we can make ourselves better from the inside out. Now with personal branding, there’s the core idea of ’self-packaging’, like only the appearance matters. Do you think that promotes an unhealthy culture of superficial relationships in the workplace and deception at its worst?

Personal Branding isn’t about focusing solely on the exterior and portraying an appealing facade to the world. This is a misconception! In fact, personal branding should actually start from within – your passions. This should then surface through your personal brand, forming an impression on other people.

People fronting an exterior that contravenes their inner self are really just masquerading as the Real McCoy. It’s insincere and others will eventually impugn your credibility. In order to establish a strong personal brand, individuals should base it on a strong foundation of passions. When you’re truly passionate about something, you do it really well after all, and this will be evident to others. In this sense, Personal Branding can be viewed as an extension of self-improvement, rather than a replacement.

Help!! I am currently doing a bit of my own personal branding — managing my online social profiles, making connections, stuff like that. Recently I’ve started a blog on random stuff that goes on in my life — like work — and my blog’s become unexpectedly popular! Which is good for me I guess, but my boss doesn’t seem too happy about it: he told me recently that I am just riding on the company’s reputation. What can I do to not step on his toes?

First of all kudos on the personal branding, you’re already miles ahead of most young people. Blogging can be a contentious past-time as you’re bound to share your thoughts on controversial topics, and subjects that interest you. Blogging should also be about self-expression, so no one should hate on you for that.

Personally I feel, that as long as you’re not denigrating your boss, colleagues and company, then you should be allowed to express your sentiments publicly. If your blog has gained a lot of popularity, I suspect it’s because of the frank perspective that you provide your readers; don’t ever change that. Perhaps you could sit down with your boss, show him some of your posts and assure him that your writing is simply an assertion of your life, and work plays a big component in that life. This reinforces to him that your career at the company is important to you.

If this doesn’t do anything to placate his feelings, try and focus your blog on other areas of your life for a while before you bring your work back into the picture. I think most managers will be pleased that you are differentiating yourself and consolidating your personal brand in your spare time. High achievers outside the workplace are usually high achievers inside the workplace.

Hope this helps. Please tune into “No Reservations” on Friday at 2pm for the latest career advice. The link is on the right side bar.

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