Transcript Document

Building Your Professional Persona
Ayanna M. Howard, Georgia Institute of Technology
and
Amanda Stent, Yahoo Labs
Thanks to Mondira Pant, Ellen Spertus and A. J. Brush
CRA-W CAPP Workshop – November 2012
What
• Your professional character and
reputation
• What three adjectives would you like
others to use to describe you?
• What would you hate to hear said about
yourself?
Why?
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Job opportunities
Invitations
Award nominations
External evaluation
Media opportunities
Research visibility
Recruiting
Visibility within institution
How
• Offline:
• Your workday life : colleagues, senior students,
professors
• Volunteer/leadership activities within your
department/school
• Volunteering at conferences
• Online:
• Professional web site
• Organization web site(s)
• General ‘academic’ web sites
• LinkedIn
• Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc.
How?
Develop your personal brand
Four components:
Appearance:
Your body language, clothing attire and overall posture
Personality:
Your behavior, communication skills and attitudes toward
people
Competencies:
Your special skills fulfilling task requirements
Differentiation:
What separates you from others and leaves a lasting
memory in minds of others
Use your personal brand to differentiate yourself and
make a positive impression
Your First Impression
• Make full use of your first impression
• In person
• Within group
• Online/networking
• In just a few seconds, with a brief glance, a
person unfamiliar with you will evaluate who you
are based upon your appearance and personality
• Dress to your professional persona
• Develop an elevator pitch for yourself
• Film yourself *and watch it* - how do you stand?
Where do you look? How do you speak?
Your Work Habits
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Show up and don’t quit
Show willingness and gratitude
Be mindful of your company
Make yourself available
Advocate for yourself/your ideas
Respect other people/cultures
Grow your technical + soft skills
Display (and HAVE) a positive attitude
Quick Poll
How many people have:
• Wikipedia page
• Google Scholar author page
• Facebook account
• Linked-In account
Search Results for You
Your professional website
Your LinkedIn profile
Stuff you don’t control!
•Try multiple search engines
•Consider a Google Alert
More stuff you don’t control!
More stuff you don’t control!
Your Professional Website
Your Professional Website
• List
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Publications
Research interests
Media coverage
Photos
Teaching materials
Link to CV/bio
Personal information???
• Your locus of greatest control
CV/Resume
• You should have one
• It should be reasonably up-to-date
(e.g. you can update within 2 hours)
• You may wish to link it to your web
page
• Ask a friend to review it
Internal Company Visibility
• Companies have internal only places
to represent yourself…
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Confidential project pages
Mailing lists (take care)
Internal talks
….
You control:
•Your summary
•Your experience
You somewhat control:
•Your skills
•Your reviews
•Your connections
Your social networks, e.g.Google+
Your ‘academic’ pages
Your ‘Academic’ Profiles
•Google Scholar
•Microsoft Academic
•Academia.edu
•ResearchGate
•dblp
•ACM, IEEE,
other disciplinary ‘libraries’
Your ‘Academic’ Profiles
•Google Scholar
Important 
an automated kinematic
assessment algorithm
If You Change Names…
Merge your profiles!
Google Scholar allows you to indicate
publications that should be part of your
profile.
The ACM DL will merge separate author profiles
into one if you contact them.
Slide courtesy of Meredith Morris
Blogs, Twitter, YouTube
Quick Poll:
• How many people have blogs?
• Regularly tweet?
• Post stuff to YouTube?
Your Personal Life Online
Nothing online is
private
•Be strategic
•Online is the ‘real world’
• Pax Dickinson
• Adria Richards
• James Olmstead
Checklist
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Check search engine results for yourself (multiple engines)
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Setup a Google alert on your name
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Check/Create your profile at:
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Google Scholar, Microsoft Academic Search, ACM DL,
academia.edu, ResearchGate
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Make a web page: CV, bio
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Put recurring appointment on your calendar to revisit every
3 months
Discussion