Archived: Developing Your Personal Brand: Start in College
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For me, personal branding is all about marketing yourself. And one of the best ways to do that is online by creating a website. Create a website for yourself and use it to marketyou. It’s a great place for you to…
- Tell people about who you are,
- show off your work,
- and impress future employers.
Start creating your website when you’re a freshman. You might not think you have enough “content” to create your own website as a freshman, but you do. Chances are you have a resume put together, possibly a high school senior picture still laying around somewhere, a few class projects completed related to your major, and enough tech-savvyness to create a website.
Here’s how to get started.
Find a website builder
There are lots of free website builders out there that make it easy for you to create your own. My top three favorites:
Explore these and others. Find one you like best, and play – try different themes, designs, etc. I highly recommend Squarespace for its beautiful pre-built themes and intuitive design features that make it easy to use, in addition to its 24/7 customer service.
Upload the basics
Your website should serve as your digital portfolio. After you’ve chosen a website builder, start to upload digital content.
Start with the basics. Your website might only have one page of content, and that’s okay. Your homepage could include your photo, contact information, and links to your resume and portfolio.
The three basic necessities: Use one of your senior pictures, if you don’t have a professional head-shot photo. Upload an updated resume. And add some of your work. Your portfolio of work could be projects you’ve completed, research papers you’ve written, or even slides of presentations you’ve given.
Brand yourself
It’s not necessary, but a bonus. Give yourself a brand to help you really stand out. Use similar colors, fonts, and design throughout both your website and resume. Even think about designing a logo for yourself.
I created this logo of my initials in just a few minutes using canva.com. This could then be used on both my website and resume.
Include your website url on your resume
After you have your website completed, use it on your resume. Use your website’s url in the contact section – usually towards the top. This allows those viewing your resume another chance to find out more about you and an opportunity to view your work than they normally could with a typical one-page paper resume.
Keep your website updated
Lastly, keep it updated. As you journey through college, add new work to your portfolio and always keep updating your resume.
My parting advice
One of the best things that I did for myself in college was to create an online portfolio of my work… What started out as a simple website used to house my resume, professional head-shot and some of my photography, design and written work from college classes, eventually turned into a business – my photography and graphic design business – CeeCee Photography.
By Sierra Heaton | Owner, CeeCee Photography
