Xxxx University MBA622: Personal Brand and Empowerment Report

This report, developed for the MBA622 Personal Growth and Empowerment course at Xxxx University, focuses on personal brand development. The assignment requires a self-reflection section, identifying the student's strengths, skills (soft and hard), unique qualities, purpose, and motivations, drawing upon course materials and self-assessment tools like the Gallup Strength Finder. The report also includes a brand strategy section, outlining the student's target organizations (finance and telecommunications), plans to redesign their current role, and strategies for improvement (e.g., time management, public speaking) and attracting their target audience through online platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. Finally, the report provides a short brand statement and narrative summarizing the student's experience, skills, and career aspirations. References are included, providing a solid foundation for the analysis.

Personal Growth and Empowerment
Name
(Affiliation institution)

A self-reflection section
My name is XXX XXX, a fourth-year student at Xxxx University pursuing a bachelor in
Marketing. Drawing on the material from the first Lecture and also a self-evaluation that I have
undertaken recently via psychological tests like Gallup Strength Finder and feedbacks from my
colleagues, I can conclude that I have various strengths and skills that are essential for my career
development plan. From the findings, my strengths are creative, enthusiasm, determined,
patience, discipline, enthusiasm, a good communicator, honesty, dedicated, achiever, self-
motivated, consistency, restorative, maximizer, activator, focused, Deliberative, adaptability and
Self- assurance. These strengths are the key determinant of where I want to go in career
perspective if I will utilize them.
Based on the first Lecture, I also have various skills that I have gained from past experiences,
education as well as my background. My strengths are categorized into two; Soft skills and Hard
Skills. According to Chattoraj and Shabnam (2015 p.105), soft skills are a combination of
personal traits, emotional intelligence quotients, social intelligence, career attributes, attitude,
communication skills and social skills. The soft skills that I possess include self-motivation,
decision making, conceptual skills, and ability to work under pressure, management,
employability, interpersonal, communication skills, teamwork, leadership, problem solving and
Time management. The combination of these skills is important in my personal and professional
career development as it makes it easier for me to create trust and dependability, build an
effective relationship and lead teams. I also possess hard skills. According to Wikle and Fagin
(2015 p.641), hard skills are a combination of skills or abilities that are teachable and
measurable. The skills are learned through books, on job, classroom and other teaching material.
The Hard skills that I possess include computer skills, Accounting, Copywriting, Data Analysis,

Graphic design, book Keeping, core competencies, SEO/SEM marketing, project management,
analytical skills and Event planning and management.
There are a variety of aspects that makes me unique. Being a good communicator makes it
easier for me to relate with other people from varying cultures, religion and background. In
addition, my personality trait is extrovert. Researches have shown that people who have
extrovert traits are outgoing, sociable, friendly, enthusiastic, action-oriented and talkative
(Jackson and Scott, 2017 p.1). Therefore, being an extrovert, I create relationship easier, work in
a team effectively and have a passion of using my transformational leadership style to inspire
and lead my team towards the achievement of set goals and objectives.
With the extrovert personality trait and other desirable leadership characteristics that I
possess, I have been nominated as a group leader in various situations such as group exercise in
school and head of Interns in the organizations that I have previously worked with. With a
combination of leadership and communication skills, I have been able to connect with a diverse
group of people effectively. My passion for enjoying learning new things, working under
changing the environment and exploring opportunities also makes me different from others.
Furthermore, the passion of working under changing environment shows that am unafraid of
challenges and growth-focused which are some of the employability skills. My prior experience
in Marketing has also equipped me with technical skills. This experience and exposure to a
challenging marketing environment make me unique as I have knowledge of assessing the
internal and external environment of doing business and provide appropriate strategies that can
assist an organization to gain competitive advantage. For example, in my previous workplace, I
conducted an analysis on emerging market in China and advised the Company to strategize and
expand its operation to Chinese markets using Joint venture strategy and later franchising

expansion strategy as the country has a high context culture (Men and Tsai, 2012. p.723).
Furthermore, am always open-minded if the thing fails to work as I expect, capable of remaining
flexible in changing the environment and my ability to know how to learn from failures makes
me unique. In a situation where am solving a problem, I usually apply emotional and logical
aspects in equal proportion. The ability to apply both logical and emotional aspects makes me
unique from others as compared to others.
With combination of my strengths, skills and traits that makes me unique from others, my
purpose is to create a meaningful life by working hard, become a leader in the near future,
contribute significantly in the organization am going to be employed and use the skills and
knowledge that I gained from organizations to start my own business in the near future. The
achievement of all these short-term and long-term goals is what I refer as a success in my career.
What motivates me to achieve my purpose include empowerment stories from role models
who have attained success in life, strongly believe in my skills, abilities, capabilities and
experience, attainment of SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely)
objective and short-term and long term goals that I have set. Learning new ways, working as a
team and conducting thorough training and receiving positive feedback in context on my career
progressing also motivates me to work towards the achievement of my purpose.
Brand Strategy
Brand strategies involve tactics that I use to position myself in the job market for
consideration of the available opportunities. My brand strategy is marketing through “online” as
researchers have shown that most of employees are using online platforms to recruit and
advertise for openings (Villeda and McCamey, 2019 p.66-78). Therefore, I target employees who
use online professional networks to look for employees. Currently, my target is organizations

with good reputations in the finance and telecommunication industry. The telecommunication
industry and finance will fit my brand effectively as they will expand my career path and
choices. In addition, working in finance and telecommunication industry will expose me to a
variety of skills that are required in my future career. Currently, I have prior experience of sales
and marketing in retailing, construction and aviation industry. To effectively fit the
telecommunication and finance industry, I will redesign my current role by adding skills and
knowledge to better fit my personal brand. The soft skills that I will add include customer care
skills, multi-tasking and organizational skills. Unlike in the construction and aviation industry,
these skills are very essential and commonly used in finance and Telecommunication Industry as
the nature of industry involves direct contact with clients and tight deadlines to accomplish.
Currently, am planning to improve my experience by adding new hard skills such as handling
Accounting packages such as Quick book and Graphic design as marketing is evolving and
marketers are required to design campaign posters and content which captures the attention of
customers and communicates the message appropriately (Zhu and Chen, 2015 p.33-345). Time
management and confidence are areas that I need to improve to reach where I want to be in the
near future. Currently, I have received several warnings and complain regarding time
management from various people. I had been late for a meeting, late for classes and also to arrive
at the workplace on time. I have a problem of speaking in public and therefore I need to address
this weakness. Attending meetings, conferences, seminars and actively participating in
discussion forums is what am currently doing to address the weakness. I will obtain feedbacks
from my colleagues to know whether am on the brand through short interviews and surveys. The
social media platforms that I will use to attract the targeted audiences will include Twitter and
Facebook. The professional networks that I will use to attract targeted audience include

LinkedIn where I will create an attractive personal profile showing all my skills, experience and
abilities that I possess.
Develop a short brand statement and a brief narrative
My name is XXXX XXXX, a marketing professional with interest in selling,
promotion, advertising, social media management and leadership fields. I possess two years of
experience from Walmart and BHP Billiton Group Limited Company where I worked as an
intern in the sales and marketing department and Social media department respectively. The
experience that I gained from Walmart and BHP Billiton Group Limited Company has enabled
me to develop not only particular experience, abilities and skills related to sales and marketing
field but also organization skills, administrative skills, decision- making, interpersonal,
teamwork, communication and time management skills. Furthermore, through the experience am
also able to work independently and under minimum supervision using my own initiatives. My
excellent communication skills, friendly in nature, adaptability, reliability and responsibility are
assets that I can bring to the organization. Presently, seeking for an opportunity in your
organization where I can contribute significantly and develop my current skillset further.

References
Chattoraj, A.K. and Shabnam, S., 2015. Importance of soft skill in Business. Anusandhanika, 7(2), p.105.
Jackson, A.E. and Scott, J., 2017. Extroverts as Materialists: Correlating Personality Traits, Materialism,
and Spending Behavior.
Men, L.R. and Tsai, W.H.S., 2012. How companies cultivate relationships with publics on social network
sites: Evidence from China and the United States. Public Relations Review, 38(5), pp.723-730.
Villeda, M. and McCamey, R., 2019. Use of Social Networking Sites for Recruiting and Selecting in the
Hiring Process. International Business Research, 12(3), pp.66-78.
Wikle, T.A. and Fagin, T.D., 2015. Hard and soft skills in preparing GIS professionals: Comparing
perceptions of employers and educators. Transactions in GIS, 19(5), pp.641-652.
Zhu, Y.Q. and Chen, H.G., 2015. Social media and human need satisfaction: Implications for social
media marketing. Business horizons, 58(3), pp.335-345.