Week 11 Branding
- Matt Wilson
- Dec 22, 2020
- 4 min read
I worked through the RealWorks’ Art of the Approach and it highlighted a couple of things that I needed to update and improve on.
Although at this stage I'm not looking for a new job, I am open to opportunities that may arise. Part of the reason for doing the Masters's was to improve in areas that I feel I lack to open up further pathways in the near future.
I haven't written a CV in a very long time and this is an area I know I need to improve on. From the guidance given through the RealWorks program Abintegro Ltd. (n.d.)
Layout,
Keywords,
powerful action words
avoiding filler words
All the areas that I need to address and this will be a task that I will complete over the coming weeks.
It has been an interesting few months for me in this department as I have started to consider my career roadmap. To decide if I want to stay in education or to look at something different in the games Industry or a mixture of both.
I have recently spoken with Ian Goodall of Aardvark Swift, Ian is a friend that I have known since starting up the games course. He runs a recruitment company that specialises in the game [industry. I was able to have a frank conversation about opportunities open to me now and going forward and this has enabled me to get some foresight in what I want to get from the course and my current professional position.
I have also spoken with Marcia Deakin of NextGen Skills about her progression from the Games Industry into Education. How she developed her role and the transition between the two industries. It was an interesting conversation as we are currently working on a project together in creating apprenticeships specifically for the games industry for FE students. This brought in the discussion of the changing landscape and possible roles that will be opening up as the games industry starts to look at training and their roles in education at all levels. It has allowed me to think outside the box.
Personal Branding
I feel as though I started this a while ago when I realised that I was making a lot of the decisions with regards to my job role and the course I had created. I wanted very early on to create a brand or seal of quality that would be identified through the students that passed through the course and also through the work I had done.
I had a logo created for the course very early on, this I feel has a very strong ID. I not only used it as part of the course but the community we built within the students and as identification when conversing through the multiple networks. The logo belongs to me and should I move on from my current role the logo will come with me.
In a TEDx talk (Tedx, 2017) Ann Bastianelli talks about the importance of understanding who you want to be defined as, and to show the skills that define you.
I am a daily user of many networks that I use to promote myself and my course.
Twitter, which I have talked about in previous posts is something that I have used to gain many contacts and create opportunities for myself and my course. I have kept this account professional in its integrity or at the very least it revolves around Game development and the Games Industry.
I have used Linkedin for many years and I regularly post. Using this account I focus on myself as a professional. I have made many contacts through Linkedin and I have had a number of job opportunities come through Linkedin based on my profile and the networks that have joined. I find this very useful but it has its limitations, it is necessary to keep this updated and to keep posting as this will improve your searches. In a survey by (Iqbal, 2020)) there is a 10% improvement in job callbacks and searches if you have an up-to-date detailed profile compared to that of a basic limited profile.
Website and Digital Portfolios, I have over time collected many examples of work that the course creates through its students. This was for a long period of time my main source of evidence of what I was able to achieve. I have recently started to create more of my work but also to bring some of those achievements together in one place that I can use to promote myself and my course. It worth pointing out that most of this I have done is outside of the institution that I work for. This was a conscious decision at the time. I would use all content and opportunities to promote myself, my course, and my college but primarily I want to make sure I could create a brand for myself that I could take with me in the future or at the very least be directly linked to and control.
Abintegro Ltd. (n.d.). Creating Your CV Explained. realworks.careercentre.me. Available at: https://realworks.careercentre.me/resources/elearning/hub.aspx?id=1354 [Accessed 16 Dec. 2020].
iqbal, m., 2020. Linkedin Usage And Revenue Statistics (2020). [online] Business of Apps. Available at: <https://www.businessofapps.com/data/linkedin-statistics/> [Accessed 22 December 2020].
Tedx, 2017. TEDX Powerful Personal Branding. [video] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcr3MshYe3g> [Accessed 22 December 2020].
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