Yogyakarta, June 18th 2020 – Center for Digital Society (CfDS) Fisipol UGM held another Digital Discussion titled as ‘Impactful CV: Creating Impressive Personal Branding’ with Raissa Almira, the Most Outstanding Student of Faculty of Social and Political Science UGM year 2019. This discussion was held through the WhatsApp Group on the last Thursday.
This discussion that started at 07.00 p.m. was began with the opinion from the audience about the importance of personal branding. “One of the most important things of personal branding is building trust. Personal branding could make someone else believe in your skills and something you can do,” Raissa said as the opening.
According to Raissa, there were three ways to build the personal branding. First, we should try every activities that we love and do not forget to be ourselves, “Without love and passion in doing our activities, it would be difficult to focus on something that you like and support your personal branding. Find where your best potency is,” Raissa said.
Second, after you find your skills or potencies, do not forget to gain more experience and skills in that field. It could be done through mentoring with experienced people, dive right into that field, learning through books or videos, and you should still actively contribute into that field.
Third, consistency is the key. “To build a good personal branding, you should be consistent with what are you trying to ‘sell’. Do not ever feel enough with your knowledge, we should be thirsty and keep our spirit up to learn the new knowledges. That is the key to increase your any skills, one of them is to strengthen your personal branding,” Raissa said.
Other than those three aspects, Raissa also explained about four ways to make characteristics for our skills that we have been chosen to be the focus of our personal branding. “First, be yourself. Do not compare yourself with others, if you see someone as your ‘benchmark’, you would be stressed and not original,” Raissa said.
“Second, accept the criticisms and suggestions from the closest people that know us best,” Raissa said. “Third, take a risk. To deepen our skills, we should be brave to take a risk. All of our experiences in taking a risk were the big roles in creating characteristics to our skills. We’ve got a unique, personal story to tell,” Raissa added.
Other than personal branding, Raissa also gave tips and tricks to make a CV. “The key to make a good CV is customize your CV. When I wanted to apply to the international delegation event, then I would put things that related to the academics. For the CV that were needed to apply to the academics or delegation events, I just used the Microsoft Word,” Raissa said. Other than that, the contents of the CV are sought only to include experiences that occurred during these past five years and no more than two pages.
Raissa also suggested to make a LinkedIn account, an online CV. “Many of the recruiters that checked on the LinkedIn in the recruitment process, because in LinkedIn we can recap our experiences as much as we want. Not like CV that, ideally, just two pages,” Raissa said.
According to Raissa, a good CV should goes hand on hand with a good personal branding. “You are the reflection of your strengths. So, it should suit with how you carry yourself. In this digital era, many people often sees you through social media, so post wisely! If you went through the interview stage, you could be asked about the things related to your CV and the recruiters would have known if you were lied, so be honest!” Raissa said.
In the end of the discussion, Raissa also reminded the audience that the process to build your personal brand was a lifetime process. “You might feel that you already found your personal branding. But in the next three years, your enthusiasm and skills in that area could be fading, and you are interested in focusing in other things. It’s okay, your personal brand doesn’t have to stick with you throughout your whole life. The most important thing is do not choose something recklessly and you should focus,” Raissa ended the discussion that were joined at least by 200 people.