What a Personal Brand Is and How to Build One

One of the best ways to strengthen your MBA application is through building your personal brand.

“Your personal brand is what you convey about yourself and how you’re perceived, shaped by your skills, qualifications, values, personality, and how you present yourself,” Soojin Kwon, former head of MBA admissions and program at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, says.

Forbes recently spoke to experts about what a personal brand consists of and why it can make or break your MBA application.

WHAT MAKES YOU TICK?

The essence of your personal brand comes down to your voice and personal story. Mary Van de Wiel, dubbed a “brand psychologist” by Time magazine, says it can be helpful to think of your personal brand through the lens of your ideal future self. Van de Wiel encourages people to think about the “personal” in their personal brand.

“Where do you come from? Be proud of that,” Van de Wiel says. “Make that part of your unique story. Think about your values and tap into what you stand for. What has meaning and purpose for you?”

In other words, your personal brand should be intentional.

“It is how you want people to see you,” Harrison Monarth, an executive coach, says. “Whereas reputation is about credibility, your personal brand is about visibility and the values that you outwardly represent.”

Monarth recommends applicants to ask themselves these questions to help build the foundation of their personal brand:

What motivates you to get up in the morning and go to work?

What skills or talents are you most proud of?

What skills are you curious about but have yet to build?

What kind of tasks or projects energize you?

What subjects most pique your interest?

Ten years from now, what do you want to have contributed to the world?

What do the people you most admire have in common?

“Identifying and reflecting on what drives you, as well as what you want to achieve, will help you harness your existing skills and competencies to deliberately demonstrate behaviors that make your greatest strengths and passions outwardly visible,” Monarth says.

BE AUTHENTIC

As enticing as it may be to brand yourself as the “ideal candidate,” experts stress the importance of staying authentic in MBA admissions.

“The idea is really to show who you are in the application and be genuine about it,” Betsy Massar, award-winning founder of Master Admissions, says. “You are who you are and if that is clear in the application it should show through.”

And being authentic, Massar says, is the easiest and surest way to stand out from the competition.

“The best differentiation strategy is for applicants to be authentic – i.e., true to themselves, because no other applicant will have the same combination of values, beliefs, skills and life experiences.”

Sources: Forbes, Harvard Business Review