If you had to make your own logo, what would it be?

Many of you must have watched Ratatouille , the movie about a rat-chef. Despite all the odds — human are averse to the very sight of rats, let alone be okay with allowing one make food for you — the rat wins over a celebrated food critic and, subsequently, becomes a chef at a restaurant.

Here’s a question for you — if Remy, the rat, had to have personal branding — a logo that would define him, if you will — what would it be? A chef’s hat seems the most plausible, doesn’t it? Now, if you had to make your own personal logo, it probably would take more than ten minutes for you to come up with one, correct?

Well, this was one exercise that Shiva Subramaniam, founder at The Paper Clip (which shows companies how to facilitate cross-cultural exchanges), made the audience go through at the 14th MMA All India Management Students Convention, held in Chennai.

Flipping open a newspaper on stage, he pointed to an article that talked about landing a “hot job and big bucks” if you make a video resume. “That’s brilliant, isn’t it? You have a good phone that can shoot good video, you know how to act, and have a friend willing to capture your resume. But what will you say in it that will make an employer believe there is something unique about you, that no one else has? Is graduating from a good university enough to help you land a good job?” he asked.

After showing a 15-minute clip from the movie, he quotes the food critic and says: “Not everyone can be a great artist, but a great artist can come from anywhere. Which means what? That each of us is unique in our own way. This is exactly what personal branding is.”

Stop comparing Talking about comparisons, Shiva said: “We’ve all been brought up being compared to somebody else. And now, suddenly, we’re learning that we don’t need to compare ourselves with anyone else. We are what we are. We are mostly bothered by weakness, not strength. If a young boy comes home with 100 in English, and 70 in Math, the parents will send him for tuition in Math, so he overcomes his weakness. I read a book that said instead of concentrating on weakness, you should spend more energy on your strength, which means he should be sent for a course that would make his English even better.”

He urged students not to think of others as better than themselves. “Stop telling yourself that other people are greater than you are. Tell yourselves that you are as good, if not better, than others.”

Logo on resume Shiva worked with TCS for 18 years and as a lawyer for seven years, before that. Now, he teaches at IIT Madras. “I have interviewed with a lot of people, interviewed them as well. But never have I seen a logo on a CV; most CVs are boring! Imagine if you hone your logo and put it on your resume, the hirer would look at it and wonder what it is. Most likely, he will ask you about it, and then you can show why and how you’re unique in your own way,” he said.

Concluding, he said: “So to answer the question about what personal branding is, it is who you are — your logo.”

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