PwC Creates Personal Brand Experience for Students

According to a study released by PEW Research, just 54% of Americans age 18-24 have jobs. It’s the lowest employment rate within this age group since the government began tracking the information in 1948. Creating jobs for young adults is critical to the success of our economy.

But we all know that, right? We realize these 18-24 year olds will eventually be our doctors, CEOs and government officials. And setting them up for success means giving them the career opportunities they need to develop professionally.

In career development, first jobs and entry level jobs provide a valuable purpose. They teach us how to be good employees. They help us determine what we would like our personal brand to be. Now, I realize there are some personal brand haters out there, but the bottom line is we all have a personal brand. Conceptually, it’s important.

That’s why, when I discovered what PwC was doing with students and personal branding, I wanted to share it with you.  If you’re not familiar with PwC, they help organizations and individuals create the value they’re looking for by delivering quality in assurance, tax and advisory services. They have over 169,000 employees in more than 158 countries. Pretty impressive.

What’s even more impressive is that PwC also has a history of investing in education and talent development.  For the past three years, PwC has been ranked #1 in Training magazine’s “Training Top 125” annual ranking of organizations that excel at employee training and development (the firm also ranked #2 in 2007).  PwC has also consistently been named to such lists as FORTUNE magazine’s “100 Best Companies to Work For”, BusinessWeek’s “Best Internships”, and “Best Places to Launch a Career.”

Holly Paul, PwC’s recruiting leader discussed their new initiative, the Personal Brand Experience.

Holly, in a couple of sentences, describe the “personal brand experience”?

PwC is offering students a variety of activities, assessments and interactive resources through our website, social media platforms and various campus events across the country. This experience helps students find and jumpstart their desired career by helping them identify who they are, what they want to do, what matters most to them and then, take all of that information and create their own personal brand.  In learning how to build your own personal brand, you define your individuality, maximize your strengths, and manage your choices now to create future opportunities and a career path of your own choosing.

What prompted PwC to create this “personal brand experience” for students?

Personal branding is critical to one’s success at school and beyond. It’s the tool that will help students make the right decisions – from choosing a major to selecting an internship that will best help them pursue their future interests.

PwC wants students to see the firm as an ‘Employer of Choice,’ one who appreciates the unique differences and strengths each individual can contribute to the firm and enables each individual to have a unique career path that is meaningful to them.

Why should students be concerned about their personal brand?

In today’s world, your brand is comprised of your ‘real world’ brand and your ‘virtual brand.’  People are using Google to research you and are making decisions about you based on what Google reveals. Social media tools like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube can help you express your brand to a much larger audience. Once you have defined your personal brand, you need to know how to articulate it online so that people can see the real you in the virtual world.

I noticed that students who participate in the “experience” will receive their own personal brand plan. What exactly is a brand plan and what information does it contain?

The personal brand master plan is your personal roadmap to success. It’s your opportunity to aspire and achieve. This master plan has two primary functions:

    1. It’s the place where you can distill what you learned about yourself throughout PwC’s personal brand experience. It will help you take the most important insights from your personal brand workbook and compile it into one document.
    2. It’s your action plan. There are places throughout this document for you to record your action commitments so you can move your brand forward. You can transfer these to your ‘to-do list’ or calendar to ensure you take action.

To create your personal brand master plan, click here.

PwC launched the platform a couple weeks ago. Can you share the reaction from students? Are you seeing high engagement? What kind of participation are you getting?

PwC’s Personal Brand Experience launched on February 6 on our campus recruiting website, and in less than one week, we had more than 15,000 hits to our site.  The reaction from students has been tremendous, with students engaging with PwC both on campus and through social media, expressing their interest in learning more about how to differentiate themselves in the marketplace, and appreciating the simple, yet effective tools PwC has made available to all students, to help them jump start their career.

Can anyone use the brand experience platform?  Will it be a regular feature on your careers site?

Anyone can use PwC’s Personal Brand Experience by visiting the website. PwC’s Personal Brand Experience is living information and will continue to be available. We plan to refresh the content to push out information and tips to anyone looking to discover their strengths and jumpstart their desired career.

My thanks to Holly and the PwC team for sharing their new personal branding initiative with us. I hope you’ll check it out and share it with others.

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