Textbook: Chapter 2

     This week's reading was a little bit shorter but raised a good question. This wasn't the exact question but similar: what does your personal brand look like right now and what are you doing to help build the brand? The chapter discusses how to develop professional brand, develop personal brand, audit both brands, and how to build up the brands to the level you want them to be at. 

    The chapter still labels professional brand as personal brand, but what the section discussed is along the lines of where you want to work and what industry along with job you want to have. It talks about doing some simple research by going into the description of jobs to determine the skills and experience they are looking for in these jobs. This is something that all professors at college preach to students and I agree with the preaching because it helps understand the expectations these jobs have and helps candidates get prepared. This sections also talks about different steps that you can do to help build personal brand, but my favorite step mentioned is the swot analysis. Not many people in my opinion do a swot analysis of themselves and this would tremendously help them grow individually. By doing the swot analysis, you have strengths that can be showcased on social media, you have weaknesses that can be worked on, you have opportunities that can be taken advantage of, and threats that you are becoming more aware of. This helps determine a clear path on things that can help benefit your personal brand and is a real gamechanger.

    The most interesting section during the reading for me was the section about building your personal brand online. The reason for this was because while reading this section, I was comparing everything the chapter was talking about to my personal brand. This section dove deep into LinkedIn and Twitter, highlighting all of the sections that you should have and the different areas to look into. In the middle of the reading, I went to all of my social media platforms and tried to make sure it was current. LinkedIn especially I made sure it was current because this is one of the best platforms when it comes to getting professional jobs and I wanted to make sure I was giving myself the best opportunity. I also wanted to make sure that companies were getting to see my full story and that no piece was left out.

    Takeaway from this chapter is how important personal brand is both professionally and personally. It's important to constantly update your brands and make sure that everyone can see the full story that you have to offer.