You must have heard about personal branding at this point. I’m sure you have a sense for what it means. FastCompany calls it the “Brand of ‘You’”. But have you ever wondered how to create it? How does a career-seeking international student apply personal branding—in the interview, networking, or in setting up their profiles on Linked In?

Let’s first start by assessing your personal branding toolkit. We want you to do a simple experiment, right now.

Pretend there is a highly valuable recruiter or employer in front of you, take out your wallet or purse, and hand that person the closest form of professional identification that you can find.

1.       Did you find a business card with your university contact information?

2.       Did you find paper, receipts, and a pen (which you might use to exchange your contact info)?

3.       Or did you find your own personalized stationery—personal business cards and a notepad with your name, e-mail and all relevant contact info?

If you are in the latter group—congratulations! You’re ahead of the curve when it comes to personal branding. But most international students fall into groups one and two, so it’s time to think about upgrading your personal branding wardrobe.

The lesson learned in the above experiment is that of readiness, a crucial ingredient in personal branding. After all, the early bird catches the worm. Now check out some of these tips to become the “early bird.”

1.       Create Personal Stationary- make your own set of stationery. You can get that for dirt cheap, or free, at Vistaprint. Why do this, you ask? University sponsored cards are great, but they are only around for a limited time. Personal cards allow for expanded info (your unique value prop, your target market, alternative forms of contact). If you share conversation notes with someone, why not have your personal info sprinkled all over that, too? You want to be top of mind, EVERYWHERE!

2.       Use a Gmail e-mail account, if you don’t already have one. Recruiters seem to prefer this—it has an elevated branding above other forms of e-mail and may have fewer chances of being blocked in spam filters versus other. Check out what the Brazen Careerist gripes on about regarding this very topic in a recent post.

3.       Get on (and use!) Linked In. Worried about your English or saying/doing the wrong thing? We agree—there are a lot of ways to go about this clumsily, and first impressions can hurt you. Tell your school Career Services office to bring in Springboards for a workshop on “How to Leverage your Personal Brand through Linked In.” Details here .

4.       Develop a unique value proposition. You want to have a very clearly articulated statement about your unique value to a potential employer and a few words to capture who that employer might be by industry, corporate culture, client base or other factors.

5.       Rehearse the UVP out loud constantly. You want this to roll off your lips effortlessly in an unplanned discussion when someone asks what you’re looking to do. Plan on someone asking you what you want to do and encourage this question often. The power of networking is boundless.

These are just a few tips to get you going! Don’t forget to share with your friends and let us know how it goes.

Happy networking,

Springboards