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Building a Personal Brand in a Professional Space

Maya Cucchetti

During your time studying in a business-related field how many times have you heard a mention to your personal brand? It is the key to interviews, how employers recognize you professionally, how you stand out, how you find professional opportunities that are a good fit for you. There is no doubt that it is vital to being successful in your professional life. But how can you be proactive about building a brand that is authentic, updated, and memorable? Some past OSU students, and WIB members, have shared their thoughts on the topic. 


Samantha Schmidbauer grew up in Grand Rapids, Michigan before moving out of state to attend OSU. She described her time at The Fisher College of Business as one of academic exploration. She explained that even though she entered as a business major, due to her knack for numbers, she waited to declare a specialization. She took her first two years to decide, leaning on her professors for guidance, and taking a variety of different classes to get a better idea of what she enjoyed and the fields that she might want to pursue. She found that she particularly liked finance and followed that path as her specialization. Due to her rigorous academic decisions she graduated after just three years. She currently works as a credit analyst at Huntington National Bank in downtown Columbus. 


Colette Jakubow, originally from Canton, Ohio and a recent OSU grad, spent her collegiate years with a dual specialization in finance and real estate. During this same period she had two internships: The first in Paris working in residential real estate through the Fisher Global Internship program. The second was with Phillips Edison & Co. working in investment management. After her graduation in 2024 she took a position with JPMorgan Asset Management on the Shareholder Services team in Columbus. 


Nicole Borchers, another 2024 OSU grad, majored in Logistics Management and a minor in Social Psychology and Personality. During her time at OSU, she held several leadership positions within WIB including the Co-Leader of the Mentorship Program. She also had an internship at PepsiCo working as a supply chain intern. Since her graduation she has worked for Honda as a procurement sourcing specialist in their powersports division.


Ami Brannan, originally from Athens, Ohio, graduated Ohio State majoring in Marketing with a minor in Spanish. While at OSU she was involved with many student organizations such as the Asian Business Student Association. She also participated in the Honors Cohort Program. She furthered her professional experiences through roles with both the Office of Distance Education and eLearning and the Office of Corporate Relations. She was also a part of an internship in Barcelona through the Fisher Global Internship Program. After her junior year she got an internship with United Airlines, she returned to the company full time following her graduation and now works in the Marketing and Loyalty Department.


After speaking with all of these accomplished women, there were a lot of commonalities in their advice on building a personal brand, as well as what they found successful while developing their own as they moved through their careers. Three fundamental principles to consider stood out through their responses. These principles can be applied to both in-person interactions and the online presence necessary to have a well-rounded personal brand that is memorable and effective in the technologically advanced job market of today. These principles were to make sure you are prepared, be as authentically yourself as possible, and make sure to utilize the resources available to you.


Being prepared was a key piece of advice that was brought up consistently, usually in reference to networking events or when speakers come to campus. These experiences are incredibly important to building a personal brand, this is where you can get introduced to people in your prospective professional field and develop connections that can help push your career forward. Events like this are also productive due to their conversational nature; Schmidbauer specifically brought up how important face to face contact can be. As important as it is to utilize online tools such as LinkedIn, being in-person can offer a more natural and comfortable feeling to the conversation.  


When attending these events it can often help to have a series of questions prepared to ask those you speak to. Brannan also emphasized the importance of being prepared when you know you're going to meet people who you hope to add to your network. She identified the connection between being prepared and being authentic. When you are prepared for these events, specifically with questions, this can help your conversations run smoother as you can spend less energy directed to deciding or coming up with things to say. This can give the conversation more flow and thus give you the confidence to be your authentic self, and demonstrate your strengths. Being yourself also makes you more personable and likeable., as mentioned by Jakubow. She described how it is difficult to be memorable when you are hiding your true self. 


Another topic that was consistently brought up was the necessity of utilizing the resources that are available to you. This ranges from professional headshots offered by clubs, to internships made known to you by peers or classes. In order to build a personal brand, you need to have learning experiences that you can post online with outlets such as LinkedIn, as well as bring up in networking environments. You need personal experiences to build a personal brand, things that are important to you and make you unique. This is also connected to authenticity. It is much easier to feel comfortable in your professional presence when you have experiences you are proud of and comfortable speaking about. 


Experiences like this can be found all over campus. Jakubow and Brannan utilized the Fisher Global Internship program to secure internships in Paris and Barcelona respectively. Experiences like this can be great to have while you are networking. In Borcher’s responses, she also demonstrated the need to be a part in a diverse group of involvements, from clubs, to internships, to volunteering. Additionally in these spaces, you meet people that can develop connections with and expand your network. Starting with personal connections, people you meet in class, clubs, your professors and other staff members is part of recognizing resources. You never know what connection will be important later and the people you meet on campus can be important parts of your network.


Jakubow sums up the importance of a personal brand well: “It’s how people will remember you”. That is all it is in its simplest form. Getting people to remember you so that you can reach out to them after networking events, and after guest lectures and become a part of your network because they want to be a part of your career. Being memorable can be because of your enthusiasm, as Schmidbauer mentioned, because of your authenticity, or because of shared experiences, as Jakubow mentioned, or something else entirely. That being said, the main conclusion that could be drawn from their responses was that your personal brand is as much about creating a professional profile that you are proud of based on experiences and connections with others as it is being able to use that profile to make a meaningful and consequential impact on those you speak to.

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