Self-review: Personal Branding for Career Advancement

This self-review explores personal branding for career advancement. The author shares their current state, dreams, and ambitions, as well as strategies for achieving them. They discuss their education, work experience, and desire to work in business management. The article also includes references to relevant literature on personal branding.

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Running head: Self-review
Self-review
Student’s Name
Institution

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INTRODUCTION
A person advances in his/her career, there is always a great need for marketing
themselves as well as their careers as a brand. This technique holds strongly that
success comes from how well one is packaged (McChesney, Covey, & Huling, 2012).
This is always a continual process and therefore it cannot be achieved in one instance.
This is an activity that requires one to create a prescribed picture in the mind of other
people (Tsai, 2005). In this paper, this technique will be centered on as I brand myself
to make other people know me better too. I will be talking more of my current state, my
feature dreams and ambitions and also a way through which achieving them will be
possible. The paper will be as explicit so that one can know who really I am at a glance
on it. It will also heavily borrow ideas from other scholars on the relevant principles of
personal branding. This all will be to ensure that a good image of myself have been
created. This information is aimed to be helpful to anyone who might be interested to
know more about me. Normally there is more about a person that cannot be captured at
a glance. This ranges from a person’s interest, goals and ambitions, a person’s history
and match more. It is a document that is expected to be helpful especially in my career
field as it stresses more of my career ambitions. It is expected to serve as a compass
that can guide other when tracing me in any way. It is also expected to add weight to my
resume as I seek employment out there.
FINDINGS
I’m a graduate of Jordan University where I did a course in aeronautical
engineering. It’s been a while since I cleared with campus life. Life at Jordan was
amazing as it shaped me and molded me in diverse ways. This a platform that helped
me in realizing my interests and strengths too. I love playing soccer a big deal. This was
one of the interest that I realized on campus. I frequently attend tournaments when they
are available. My love for soccer is beyond money as I find more fulfillment playing the
game even when there is no any pay. I have also enrolled for masters for a master in
business to further my knowledge in business management. When it comes to working
experience, I have already worked with Jordan aviation airline as an aeronautical
engineer. This one year was a golden opportunity to put what I had learned into

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practice. In many cases, it becomes hard for students to put into practice what they
learned in the classroom out there in the job market. I, however, had a chance to bridge
this gap by identifying my weak areas and improving on the same, it is during this time
that I learned on how to work together and in collaboration with people of different
personalities and values. I also had a chance of learning how to work under minimum or
no supervision (Alloza, 2008). I have also worked as a manager as in my family’s
wedding company hence having some ability to manage personnel. This was a ground
where I was natured in the field of business. I love this moment because my parent held
my hand as I made those baby steps. I knew less in management but I gradually
improved to the point of handling complex situation. I started by handling petty things
such as emails and being a messenger. Later I could be given a substantial assignment
to point of standing for my parents when they were not there. Besides having other
mentors in this field, I can proudly attest that my parents lead in the list. They are the
one who did the primary and most essential job. All these fired up my passion to learn
more about business management.
As mentioned earlier, I have a dream to work as a business manager. Despite
being an engineer, I aspire to venture in the business industry. This has been
contributed by a number of reasons but above all, I find it to be a passion. From a
distance, it may appear as a waste of times but it is an added advantage. As an
engineer, is have learned on how activities and things integrate so as to produce the
desired end results. I find some of these engineering principles helpful too in the
business industry as they help in finding the solution to some complex activities (Avery,
Paharia, Keinan, & Schor, 2010). My experience as an engineer has helped me to bee
deep when making a decision and also when performing any analysis. Shallowness in
business at times can lead to a form of myopia. This always to great problems as a
business person is expected to be longsighted and visionary. This ability helps one in
analyzing this to the root. What propels me most in life is my dreams. I have a dream of
owning my own organization in a feature. I also aspire to be in a position of advising
other emerging business people. I have a great confidence in business since I know it’s
the only thing that can unlock our economy. I have also developed this interest from my
family who are serious business people. They own a wedding company which at times

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also deals with events planning and management. Since my childhood, I have been
observing them and with time I have desired to succeed them and even do better as far
as business management is concerned. Among the choices of the organization that I
aspire to have is to open an airline. This will be an integration of the two areas and
therefore every competence will count (Rampersad, 2008). I am also inspired by other
businessmen who have gone ahead of me and are doing well too. I look at their
success and I feel motivated that I can be there too. Many of them have one thing and
that is a humble beginning. This gives me hope that I will also make it.
It is one thing to have dreams and aspiration and it’s another different thing to
achieve thing to achieve them (Malär, Krohmer, Hoyer, & Nyffenegger, 2011). One way
of achieving all these is been strategical i9n every step taken. This ensures that the
dreams do not become empty pep talks. This is real in the different industries in the
nation. People are at first excited about the new dream at hand but within no time, the
dream and the vision die in the forest of fantasy. I know I am not immune to this and
therefore I have laid some strategies that are aimed to facilitate me in achieving the
above-mentioned dreams (Labrecque, Markos, & Milne, 2011). One of the ways is
maintaining contact with resourceful people who have gone ahead of me in the same
field and are doing well. As it is evident in my journal a good example is a time we spent
with Mr. Dan and Mr. Neil. Despite the fact that they were looking for a store manager
and I also had an interest, I learned a lot as they narrated to me how they started the
business to here they are. I can attest that even if I never got the chance of being the
store manager, I had a lot to take home that could not be compared to anything at any
given time. A wise man learns from the experiences of other people and therefore he
does not have to wait for him to be in the same shoes. Another strategical action is that
I have enrolled for an MBA. This is one milestone of its kind that will ensure that my
dreams of owning and managing a big organization come true. This will equip me with
the necessary skills required. Before rising to the position of solving big challenges, I
have to teach myself by trying to solve the little ones that come my way (Shepherd,
2005). This is a principle that I have upheld in my quest for success. That why I have
applied jobs that will also impact me with skills and competence that is beyond the
classroom.

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CONCLUSION
Dreams and aspiration are good when they are looked from afar but things
change when one comes near (Montoya, & Vandehey, 2002). This has been one of the
most valuable lessons that I have taught myself in my journey of pursuit to dreams.
There is always a call to action to ensure these dreams do not die unachieved.
Greatest desire as observed in the essay is to be well conversant with business
management and then later integrate it with engineering. I am an open-minded person
and this puts me in a position of learning and borrowing of ideas and principles from
different places. Despite having a few skills that I have attained through apprenticeship
from my parents, I still desire to advance my study so that I can be even more effective.
I aspire to be more effective in business than my parents have been. In the time I have
been working with them, I have seen some of the mistakes that they have made and still
I’m aware of how these mistakes have costed us. At some point, they experienced
hardship just because they lacked some skills in management. I also aspire to make the
aviation industry better with the skills that I have attained (Rampersad, 2008). With all
these dreams in mind I know I will achieve them slowly by the little strategical steps.
This call for patience and also sticking to the vision. This is an art that if not cultivated, it
makes one irrelevant. One has to keep reminding himself of what he aims until it is
achieved. This is some of the skills and secrets that I have proved to be working for me.
I strongly believe that in due time I will be the person I have been dreaming to be. I’m
also very aggressive in the pursuits of these goals as I know the journey does not turn
out to be smooth as expected.

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References
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Achieving your wildly important goals. Simon and Schuster.
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Alloza, A. (2008). Brand engagement and brand experience at BBVA, the
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Avery, J., Paharia, N., Keinan, A., & Schor, J. B. (2010). The strategic use of brand
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Rampersad, H. K. (2008). A new blueprint for powerful and authentic personal branding.
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marketing and personal branding. Journal of Marketing Management, 21(5-6),
589-606.
Labrecque, L. I., Markos, E., & Milne, G. R. (2011). Online personal branding:
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Montoya, P., & Vandehey, T. (2002). The brand called you(Vol. 30). Nightingale Conant.
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