In the business world, smart organizations use branding and strategic management techniques to differentiate themselves from their competition and to achieve a competitive advantage. In this Specialization, you will learn how to use proven brand management methods and tools for individual career development in competitive job environments. You will gain knowledge and analytical skills for career self-management and learn techniques for career brand building. You will create a robust self-management information system that will help you self-organize and increase your human capital by building high demand employability skills. During each week of the Specialization, you will be practicing various career branding techniques in your custom-built, individual Career Development Lab. The final Capstone Project is designed as a training facility where you will create your evidence-based portfolios, professional development plans, personal self-marketing and branding strategies, presentations, and public profiles.
Career Brand Management Specialization
Market Yourself Professionally. Learn how to develop, manage and communicate a strong career brand in just three courses.
Offered By
How the Specialization Works
Take Courses
A Coursera Specialization is a series of courses that helps you master a skill. To begin, enroll in the Specialization directly, or review its courses and choose the one you'd like to start with. When you subscribe to a course that is part of a Specialization, you’re automatically subscribed to the full Specialization. It’s okay to complete just one course — you can pause your learning or end your subscription at any time. Visit your learner dashboard to track your course enrollments and your progress.
Hands-on Project
Every Specialization includes a hands-on project. You'll need to successfully finish the project(s) to complete the Specialization and earn your certificate. If the Specialization includes a separate course for the hands-on project, you'll need to finish each of the other courses before you can start it.
Earn a Certificate
When you finish every course and complete the hands-on project, you'll earn a Certificate that you can share with prospective employers and your professional network.
There are 4 Courses in this Specialization
Course1
Strategic Career Self-Management
4.4
173 ratings
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in the current economy, Americans shift jobs every 4-5 years, which translates into 8-10 job transitions, including several career changes, over one’s life time. With competition for jobs on the rise, a person’s continuing employability and career success are increasingly defined by his or her mastery of individual career development and the ability to effectively "manage oneself" (P. Drucker).
In this course, you will learn how to think strategically and professionally about your career self-management. Through this course you'll develop an objective, external view of your marketable skills as a solid foundation for building a strong career brand. In particular, you'll be able to:
- explain why developing a protean and boundaryless career perspective based on transferable (portable) skills is advantageous for continuing employability and career growth;
- design your portable skills portfolio, identify and examine critically important competencies underpinning your transferable skills, and analyze your career self-management competency gaps;
- increase self-awareness, pinpoint your career goals, and envision your future work self;
- recognize the central role of self-management for developing transferable, marketable, skills and create a customized self-management information system (Career Development Lab) for ongoing personal development and professional growth;
- conduct a thorough, competency-based job analysis in your area of interest and examine practices of evidence-based, data-driven competitive employee selection;
-implement your newly developed skills for crafting effective selection criteria statements and refining your job applications.
Course2
Career Brand Development and Self-Coaching
4.3
51 ratings
In this course, you will engage in developing and strengthening the functional component of your career brand. Acting as “your own Chief Executive Officer” (P. Drucker), you will learn how to use strategic management models and techniques for enhancing your skills portfolio. You will learn how to increase your human capital by developing and documenting high-demand marketable skills. After completing this course, you will be able to:
- Implement business strategy and models and tools, such as benchmarking and SWOT analysis, for identifying and analyzing your competitive strengths and addressing competency gaps in a skill-based, competitive job selection context;
- Understand evidence-based, data-driven skill assessment methodologies and techniques;
- Select appropriate assessment tools and apply them for a thorough, accurate, evidence-based and data driven self-assessment of your transferable skills;
- Create your critical competency profile ("The Self-Assessment Grid for Evaluation, or SAGE") and use it as an effective instrument for an objective, 360 degree self-assessment of your competitive strengths and competency gaps;
- Create and use an effective instrument for organizing, directing and monitoring your skill-building activities (“The Skill-Building Dashboard, or Skill-Builder”);
- Develop an effective tool (“The T-Portfolio”) for gathering and organizing samples of standards, best practices, assessment instruments and techniques in your chosen field;
- Effectively organize your self-management information system to systematically collect and analyze job-related data, evaluate and assess required competencies and skills, develop and implement plans for self-improvement, and monitor your progress;
- Develop and implement a realistic performance metric for your career development activities ("Your Present Job Market Value");
- Engage in self-coaching to support active self-development.
Course3
Strategic Self-Marketing and Personal Branding
4.2
76 ratings
In this course, you will learn how to use strategic marketing and personal branding techniques for designing, enhancing, and promoting your professional image. Acting as "your own Chief Executive Officer" (P. Drucker), you will learn how to use relationship and network marketing and impression management to showcase your skills to prospective employers, colleagues, supervisors, and other interested parties. This course will help you to:
- Recognize the importance of marketing orientation and career brand building for your career development; use marketing communication strategies for your self-marketing;
- Implement strategic marketing planning for your career development and engage in creating your own strategic self-marketing plan;
- Devise strategies for managing your professional reputation; begin creating your personal brand, and plan steps for strategic personal branding;
- Create personal branding statements, and integrate social networking into your career branding;
- Refine your self-management information system to systematically collect and analyze self-marketing and personal branding related data, select appropriate tools and apply them for a thorough, accurate, evidence-based and data driven self-assessment of your self-marketing and personal branding skills;
- Develop and implement an effective instrument for displaying your artifacts and monitoring your marketing communications strategies ("The Showcaser") and a realistic performance metric for evaluating your career brand building activities ("The Career Brand Equity Builder").
Course4
Career Total Fitness Annual Retreat
In the business world, modern organizations conduct corporate retreats on a regular basis to consider their strategic direction, review progress, and set up goals and objectives for the year. In this course you will use the same approach to organize, strategize, re-energize, and re-invigorate your career building activities. The final Capstone Project is designed as an annual retreat aimed at facilitating your ability to step back from day-to-day demands and strategically focus on gaining a competitive edge on the job market by investigating new opportunities for career growth, conducting a thorough audit of your skill-building and self-marketing strategies, and developing new ways to enhance and showcase your marketable skills. The Capstone Project will allow you to integrate concepts and tools from the entire Career Brand Management specialization to effectively manage your career brand and increase personal effectiveness.
Some unique program highlights:
• The Capstone Project is designed as a virtual training and development facility where you will engage in career investigation research, self-audit, and creating evidence-based portfolios, professional development plans, self-marketing and personal branding strategies, presentations, and public profiles;
• You’ll be actively working with your cohort (study group members) to review their work and receive peer feedback;
• You may also use the Capstone as a “career fitness gym” and work independently on a project where you will share your results with others and receive peer feedback. Examples of these projects include but are not limited to developing a self-marketing plan, creating a new digital artifact, developing communication strategy, working on a job application, creating a selection criteria statement, and looking for best practices and self-assessment tools;
• It is completely self-paced; you may want to either do it as a 4-week course, or focus and complete in just 3-4 days.
Overall, the Capstone Project will help you organize yourself, fine tune your self-management information system, provide a framework for strategic self-management, and serve as an effective self-coaching support system. In the end, you will be well positioned to succeed in the marketplace as the CEO of your own career!
Instructors
Dr. Kymn Harvin Rutigliano
Assistant ProfessorSUNY Empire State College
Dr. John M. Beckem II
Assistant Professor of Finance and Management StudiesState University of New York, Empire State College
Dr. Valeri Chukhlomin
ProfessorSUNY Empire State College
Dr. Michele Forte
Assistant Professor, SUNY Empire State CollegeCommunity and Human Services
Amy Giaculli
Assessment SpecialistSUNY Empire State College
Dr. Tonka Jokelova
Coordinator of Curriculum and Instructional DesignSUNY Empire State College
About The State University of New York
The State University of New York, with 64 unique institutions, is the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States. Educating nearly 468,000 students in more than 7,500 degree and certificate programs both on campus and online, SUNY has nearly 3 million alumni around the globe.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the refund policy?
Can I just enroll in a single course?
Yes! To get started, click the course card that interests you and enroll. You can enroll and complete the course to earn a shareable certificate, or you can audit it to view the course materials for free. When you subscribe to a course that is part of a Specialization, you’re automatically subscribed to the full Specialization. Visit your learner dashboard to track your progress.
Is financial aid available?
Can I take the course for free?
Is this course really 100% online? Do I need to attend any classes in person?
This course is completely online, so there’s no need to show up to a classroom in person. You can access your lectures, readings and assignments anytime and anywhere via the web or your mobile device.
Will I earn university credit for completing the Specialization?
This Specialization doesn't carry university credit, but some universities may choose to accept Specialization Certificates for credit. Check with your institution to learn more.
Do I need to take the courses in a specific order?
Yes, we recommend that you take courses in sequential order.
How do I complete the Specialization?
To complete the Specialization you must earn a verified Certificate in all 3 courses and successfully complete the Capstone course.
What is shown on the certificate that students earn in this Specializtion?
This certificate confirms that the student learned how to use brand management methods for individual career development in competitive job environments and gained knowledge and analytical skills for career self-management. The student learned how to create and use a robust self-management information system for developing, documenting, and presenting high-demand employability skills, with particular attention to transferable skills. By practicing self-management and self-marketing techniques in the individual Career Development Lab, the student acquired career-building skills and learned how to use evidence-based, data-driven approaches for personal development and professional growth.
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