Hi all aspiring MBAs,

Branding is important; it is a name that influences recruiters.

We have entered in an attention economy: there is so much choice and opacity that recruiters cannot spend their time comparing the candidates before they make a choice. They have no time and even if they did, they cannot be certain of being able to determine the right person to join them as new recruits. Your personal branding must, therefore, convey certain attributes ? be it be trust, confident, competent or international ? your personal branding speak.

Brand power to influence recruiters relies on the representations and relationships. If you are fortunate enough to have completed your MBA from a ?branded? business school such as Wharton and Harvard, chances are you do not need to make as much effort to create your own branding, because your business schools? names have already spoken for you. However, if you have graduated from a good business school in Asia, and you know that your MBA School has a good ranking by Fortune or Economist Intelligence Unit, you would still need to work hard to create and improve your personal branding, especially if you are going to work in Asia where word of mouth is important.

There are primarily two reasons for this subject:

First, your brands are intangible assets. If you are known as a trustworthy, international, and the most effective presenter in your MBA cohort, your colleagues could remember that even if they do not see you as often anymore. Such a personal branding can create a positive mental image in the minds of the people, and these positive mental images would be vital to get new contacts and networks.

Second, your brands are conditional assets. This is a key point often overlooked. An asset is an element that is able to produce benefits over a long period of time. Your personal branding is a conditional asset because in order for it to deliver values, your own branding needs to work in conjunction with other skill sets and attitudes of yourself. There is no personal branding without your true qualification. As a result, you need to create an image that is coherent with your overall abilities and qualifications.

In summary

Your personal branding is unable to work or produce positive images unless your actions and achievements have spoken about it. Your personal branding may have great potential, but this potential would remain as potential until you have proven them true in your achievements. Once you have shown in your success either in academic or in work performance, you have quantified your personal branding.

Kind regards,
Thomas Wai
MBA, MA, BEng, Certified Career Coach

Advice to new aspiring MBAs ? By a MBA (http://thomaswai.blogspot.com)

Thomas, good post! Just checked your blog. I look foward to find out "why some people almost always win" ;-)

Hi Thomas

Thanks for the great article! I have just gone to your blog and your experience has inspired me a lot!

Kaixin

Hi LaVoz de Galicia, Kai Xin

Thank you for your words and I hope the articles in my blog would inspire you to some extent.

The book, ?Why Some People Almost Always Win?, is targeted to release by end July. I hope you two would like the book too!

Kind regards,
Thomas

School branding is merely a filter point.

Once this filter has been crossed, it comes down to personal branding.

I cant help but thinking that most of this is just managerial jargon! Why is business management filled with such 'branding' nonsense?

You should have a look at the brilliant Richard Sennett's
'The Corrosion of Character, The Personal Consequences Of Work In the New Capitalism', Norton (1998) and 'The Craftsman', Allen Lane (2008).

It`s not managerial jargon, It`s a form of association. Whether it be negative (racism) or positive (royalty). People have pre-conceived perceptions about you depending on the group you associate with. This can be the company you worked for, the school you went to, the associations you are a member of. This is all part of your brand, and it acts as a filter point before you even get invited to interview.

Hi phonefreak

I agree with you.

People have pre-conceived perceptions about others, this is also one of the motivation to prepare the article above - hoping to inspire and share with aspiring professionals to take care of his own brand.

May all the aspiring young MBAs be successful.

Good luck.

Kind regards
Thomas