The beginning of week three opened up with a session explaining the meaning behind a personal brand and how the interns can find and define ours. At 9 a.m. sharp on both Monday and Wednesday, each intern sat inside the Jack Nicklaus Museum awaiting the presentation. On Monday, four men- Mark Bergey, Ben Carignan, Tyler Carpenter and Tyler Jones- stood at the front of the room ready to introduce themselves. After each greeted the room, Mark implored the group about who of the four they would hire based on their introduction. Yianni Sarris, an intern for compliance, jokingly said that he would hire Tyler Carpenter because if he did not, Tyler would make him run laps at the weight room. This persona exercise served to teach us about the importance of verbal and nonverbal communication when in a professional setting since it can make or break getting hired. As someone applying for a job, we learned that you must read the environment and adjust based on its standards. For example, wearing a suit to an interview for a position as a golf coach would probably not land you the job, since it is not the appropriate attire for the situation at hand. We discussed how each man was dressed and how he presented himself in front of the group in relation to how well it would be received in a work environment. Then, each of the four men talked about the journey they went through to get to the position they are in today.

Following this, a questionnaire was distributed covering personal brand. The sheet included questions and statements such as, “Who are you?”, “What are you?”, “List 5 words to best describe you”, “List 5 of your best characteristics”, “What does personal brand mean to you?”, “What is your personal brand?” and “List 5 people that you think have the most powerful personal brand.” After some deliberation, we addressed the challenging questions of “Who I am” versus “What I am.” Initially, some interns had mixed up the two and put what they are for who they are, but Mark explained what you are consists of where you are from and what you do, whereas who you are entails your beliefs and values. Then, we deliberated on what a personal brand is and came to the conclusion that it is how someone identifies with you. Our group devised a list of some people and things that have strong personal brands, which include Aaron Craft, Kim Kardashian, Kanye West, Apple and Starbucks. However, not all of these are known for their positive characteristics.

Next, we watched two short videos, one on Kobe Bryant and another on Magic Johnson. In the interview with Kobe Bryant, he touched on distinguishing between “who I am” and “what I am” in accordance with one’s personal brand. When Magic Johnson spoke in his interview, he posed some essential factors in building your personal brand. He discussed the importance of reinventing yourself, aligning yourself with other people who are the best in their field, keeping an eye on the future, not diluting your brand, defining what richness means to you and controlling your brand. Both of these examples helped teach us the meaning behind a personal brand, gave us concrete evidence of successful personal brands and provided helpful advice on how to develop our own positive personal brand.

After this introduction to personal brand, Gene Smith, vice president and director of athletics at Ohio State, came to speak to the interns about being a professional and answer any questions we had for him. He spoke about the importance of possessing emotional intelligence about the people and the environment in a work setting. Knowing who you are and being self-aware of both your strengths and weaknesses allows you to be the best you can be and lets you effectively deal with yourself. Also, he encouraged us to differentiate ourselves in our career and especially during an interview. In the interview process, he told us to know about the company, treat it like a beauty contest by knowing who you are and reading the environment and develop a strategy to remember the names of the people interviewing you.

Up next on our agenda was learning about the infamous elevator speech. We received a handout that explained how an elevator pitch is a short summary used to quickly and simply define a person, profession, product, service, organization or event and its value proposition.  It also laid out a plan of attack based on the floor numbers when introducing yourself, mentioning your interests and committing to connect with the person you are speaking with. Essentially, an elevator speech allows you to sell or market yourself to a potential employer or resource in a short time frame with an explanation of who you are, a description of your background and interests and what you bring to the table. Each of us had the opportunity to practice our speeches on Wednesday in small groups and three brave souls volunteered to act out their speeches in front of the group.

Wednesday also included a presentation on the significance of social media on personal branding, which Pat Kindig, director of digital marketing, spoke to us about. He stressed the importance of interacting with fans, actively sharing news directed at or including yourself and putting a personal touch or posting current events on your social media. All of these factors lead to a positive reflection of you that contributes to a successful personal brand. However, he explained how posts on social media done when emotional cause consequences damaging to your personal brand. For example, Christian Robinson once received a ticket for running a stop sign and took his aggressions out on twitter, which resulted in media bashing him for his immaturity. Kindig warned us against this type of thoughtless posting on social media because we are more than a reflection of just ourselves, since we also represent THE Ohio State University.

To finish up the session, we learned about the Hierarchy of Like from Tyler Carpenter. It consists of four questions:  can I do the job the best, can I do the job, do they like me, and do they know me. When he first saw the pyramid for himself, he initially believed the most important factor to being hired by an employer is being able to do the job the best. However, he discovered knowing your employer plays  a critical role in whether or not you get the job you apply for. Then, he informed us on the actual order of value in the Hierarchy of Like for landing a job and it goes as followed from least to most important:

1. Can I do the job the best?
2. Can I do the job?
3. Do they like me?
4. Do they know me?

This surprised many of the interns because, like Tyler, we assumed being able to perform a job better than anyone else would secure our desired position. So, the Hierarchy of Like just validates the saying, “It’s not about what you know, but who you know.” As we concluded the week, we left the session with fancy business cards in hand and a firm desire to establish our own personal brand.