Building Your Professional Online Presence
After figuring out what you’re good at and finding your niche within the communications field, you may be ready to build an online presence to position yourself as a competent communicator in your own corner of the internet.
Here a few tips on how to navigate the process.
#1: Cohesive branding
Having your personal signature on the work you create, whether it’s a logo you’re recognized for or a certain style you’ve coined, is a valuable step in establishing your personal brand.
#2: LinkedIn Profile
My LinkedIn profile introduction statement.
Being in my last semester of college, LinkedIn has been an especially effective tool in connecting with businesses and organizations I may not have heard of otherwise. My professional presence is vital during this process, because the wording I use and the work I display are the first impression I give to potential recruiters.
It’s important to keep it updated, with any awards you’ve gotten, unique skills, work experience and completed projects. It’s built to be an online networking tool, and can be extremely helpful and effective when used to its fullest potential. Strategically structure your profile so that each section of it invites the person to keep reading and keeps them interested. Which leads me to my next tip.
#3: Online Portfolio
Examples of some recommendations I’ve collected. Seek people whom you’ve worked for, worked with you, or worked for you. Having well-rounded perspectives on your work is a plus.
It’s impressive to recruiters and people who are interested in working with you that you have an online portfolio. It makes you stick out from other people—the fact that you put enough effort to provide your whole internet apartment displaying your work, resume, blog (perhaps), and projects for recruiters and hiring managers to explore. It also shows them a detailed, meticulous, and even creative side of your personality, which is definitely a win.
Here are some links to my own portfolio and those from fellow journalist friends whom I admire:
Phillip Warfield, history major
Kristen Vonnoh, senior journalism major
Tierra Hayes, junior mass communication writing and editing major
Elena Anunciado, public relations and graphic design major.
#4: Build Personal Relationships
Positioning yourself in the PR field socially, whether it’s through PRSSA, conferences, or any other potential networking events and opportunities, building relationships in person is extremely important. Your entire career is literally relationship building, but building personal relationships outside of the work place is vital to your career success. Even the people you work on projects with in college can turn out to be great professional relationships who will connect you with great job opportunities in the future.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in one of my “oh my gosh what am I doing after graduation (!!!)” mental rants, and a few minutes later a former co-worker from 4 years ago messages me, asking me about my future plans. I tell him I’m still figuring that out, and he presents me with an almost job offer for a position at AdventHealth that’s going to be posted in a couple of months. We’d worked together on our university’s campus ministries communication branch, forming two out of the three in the comm branch trinity. We hadn’t spoken in more than two years, but he remembered our prior working experience as a good one, and he had personally witnessed my work ethic and writing skills. Making a good impression on the people you work with in college is important.