Activity 01 – Personal Brand (10% Marks of Continuous Assessment)

Your Professional Reinvention Self-Assessment

Should you reinvent yourself? If you want to win that promotion, shift into another
professional role, join a new company, or change careers, you may need to. Professional
reinvention isn’t an overnight process, and it involves getting feedback from others,
developing new skills, and manifesting the value you can bring. But you can start by taking a
thoughtful look at yourself. Your impressions and ideas are likely to change over time as you
progress through Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future. But for now, you
can learn a lot by putting your thoughts and assumptions on paper and using them as a
baseline. Consider it a head start on your future.

1.) Who You Are My greatest strengths are:

a. My greatest weaknesses are

One of my weaknesses is the fact that I get overly excited while completing tasks which

eventually leads me to make hasty decisions that do not always have good outcomes. Another

flaw that I possess is the fact that I am a people pleaser. I would do anything, even put aside

my preferences to put a smile on someone else's face. This often leaves me with many regrets

and missed opportunities. I understand that these weaknesses are toxic and I should improve

myself, but these flaws make me who I am, so I will try to be a better leader but still be myself.

b. My most marketable skills are

Public Speaking

Content Writing

Content Editing
Graphic Designing

c. The most unusual aspects of my background or experience are

I am a very good communicator and find it’s easy for me to relate to other people. I

really enjoy learning new things and am constantly seeking out new learning

opportunities. My prior experience in customer service has provided me with unique

technical skills. I am not afraid of failure. In fact, I think it is an essential part of the

experimental process that gets you to success. When solving problems I apply both logic

and emotional aspects in equal proportion.

d. People often ask me about

People often ask me if I know the secret of success and if I could tell others how to make
their dreams come true. My answer is, you do it by working.

2.) Where You’re Going

 a. My current professional objective is: Or, if you’re not sure . . .Several areas that intrigue

me professionally are:

My current professional objective is to acquire the skills necessary to become a software

developer. I am very interested in coding and I think it would be fascinating to be able to build

my own software one day.

b. The journals, books, and blogs I can read to learn more about my areas of interest are:

Clean code – Robert Cecil Martin

The Pragmatic Programmer – Dave Thomas

Soft Skills: The Software Developer’s life manual – John Sonmez

CodeBetter

A List Apart

Coding Horror

c. The people I know who are connected to those areas are:

My lecturers at my educational institution, some of my very close friends who are pursuing

careers at IT firms, my sister who is employed at a globally recognised IT company and other

famous software developers such as Mark Zuckerberg that I look up to.

 d. The skills I’ll need to reach my professional objective (that I don’t presently have) are:

Computer Programming and coding

Object Oriented Design

Software Testing and Debugging

e. Possible ways to gain those skills might be (volunteering, job shadowing, reading,

graduate school, etc.):

Read, Listen and Watch.

Engage in open source projects

Have a mentor

Attend conferences

Learn new programming languages

Share my skills and abilities with others

Taking online courses in the relevant subjects

f. The people I know who might advise me in this process are:

My lecturers

Friends who are pursuing careers in the relevant IT field

Parents

3.) Your Competitive Advantage

a. My skills that are most relevant in my new arena are:

Coding languages
Database knowledge
Data structures and algorithms
Source control
Testing procedures
Debugging knowledge
Operating systems
Text editing software

b. What’s unusual about me, compared to people in my new realm (a kingdom):

What makes me stand out from my colleagues is the fact that I think in systems. This
helps me engineer my tools, my environment and my technical growth so it works on
auto pilot. This helps me make progress even on bad days and this steady progress that
has a system will make the competition irrelevant.
 c. The reason my background or previous experience adds value in my new arena:

I have experience in customer care as I have experience as a trainee banking assistant and this

experience has given me the opportunity to develop my communication skills and assisted me

in being precise and clear in what I say. It also has made me understand the customer's needs

and expectations which will be definitely advantageous when it comes to situations when

dealing with customers. So this experience will definitely add value to my arena in the IT field.

d. The reason that working in this new realm is actually a continuation of what I’ve done

in the past:

The reason why working in this new realm is actually a continuation of what I have

done in the past is the fact that I have dealt with extreme situations before that might

occur in this field too. This makes it easier for me to make good decisions based on my

previous mistakes and it also helps me improve myself as a professional individual.

4.) Demonstrating Your Value
a. A major project or initiative in my new arena that I could get involved in might be:

Fingerprint-based ATM system

This project is a desktop application that uses the fingerprint of users for authentication.

Since each individual has a unique fingerprint, this method of using fingerprint as a

mean of authentication to access your ATM is safer and more secure than using an ATM

card. Users need not carry their ATM cards with them at all times since they can use

their fingerprint to access ATM services.

b. People often ask me about these topics (which might make good blog posts or

podcasts):

Cryptocurrency

Internet of things

Cyber Security

Artificial intelligence

c. Professional associations I can join in my new arena include:

Agile alliance

IEEE Computer Society

Help desk Chapters

EDUCAUSE
 d. Ways I can leverage social media to showcase my new identity include:

Creating a LinkedIn account with my professional details, connecting with other

professionals with similar interests as mine, connecting with IT organisations and

viewing posts that will be beneficial for my career path.

e. I could approach the following organizations about speaking engagements:

Digital.gov Upcoming Events

National Institute of Standards & Technology (NIST) Event Calendar

Chief Information Officers (CIO) Women in Federal IT & Cyber Conference

IBM’s Think Gov Digital Event

Index of U.S. Government Departments and Agencies

f. The single most important change I can make, or initiative I could undertake, would

be

The change I could make in the world is to definitely make it a better place using my knowledge
in technology and also make people's lives easier by utilizing my innovative ideas.

References:
Clark, D., 2017. Reinventing You. Harvard Business Review Press.