Assignment #1: Establishing Your Brand

(a memo from you to me, your instructor)

To prepare for your assignment you need to read Chapter 14 (“Corresponding in Print and Online”) and Chapter 15 (“Applying for a Job”) as well as view on Moodle the material on news feeds and aggregators.

From chapter 15: “Being a successful job seeker requires a particular frame of mind. Think of yourself not as a student at this college or an employee of that company but rather as a professional with a brand to establish and maintain.” Your “brand” is your professional reputation. You need to be thinking about your professional reputation now and as long as you hope to work. No one can do this for you.

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Your goal with Assignment #1 is straightforward:

• Compose a properly organized memo, adhering to conventions explained in your textbook.

• Prove to me that you have read and thoroughly thought about the items enumerated in your book, focusing

on the two sets of “guidelines”: “Building a Foundation of Your Professional Brand” and “Presenting Your Professional Brand.”

Note: If your discussion is not truly interesting and specific to YOU, then you are saying, in effect, that you are not interesting and probably not worth hiring. So: Don’t do that.

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There will be a BigBlueButton session in the days preceding the due date for this assignment. It will be recorded for later viewing in case you miss the session itself. In the session I will discuss the assignment in detail and answer any questions you have. In addition I will be addressing a couple of very interesting questions I would like you to ponder ahead of time:

• What brand preparation ideas and activities surprise or puzzle you?

• How do you show evidence of having thought about something? (Possibilities include, in no particular

order: Question it, criticize it, extend it, reduce it, find an analogy to it, locate an example in your life, in class, make a prediction based on thoughts you have on the topic you read about, etc.)

Memo organization:

• Descriptive subject line. Indicate the main topics of your memo. (See chapter 14, “Corresponding in

Print and Online,” to see what memos and other forms of correspondence look like.)

• Situation-Message-Response opening paragraph. In 2 – 3 sentences, explain the context of your memo (you are submitting an assignment upon request), tell me what your memo’s main message is (the paragraphs following your two headings), and ask me for some sort of response.

• Descriptive headings (one for each topic you discuss).

 • Compose one or two paragraphs per topic, proving to me you have read and thoroughly thought about the two or more items enumerated in your textbook. Write precisely and concisely. Don’t “think out loud.” Get to your points.

• Response/Deadline/Contact-info closing paragraph. Reiterate what you would like me to do. Give me a reasonable deadline to respond (think about what would be reasonable – there is actually a correct answer), and provide the contact information by which you would like my response.