Sunday, November 17, 2013

Reputation


Reputation is a vital factor for success. Whether it’s your academic, professional, or social reputation, I believe each are very important. Although it isn’t always great to care about what others think about you, the reality of it is that you have to in order to have a positive reputation. Since I was a sophomore here at the University of Illinois I have been heavily involved in a professional business fraternity. My reputation for this organization has been one of my biggest priorities ever since I was accepted an invitation to join the organization. My reputation developed from my involvement within the organization. I have always had big roles in different committees and made sure to surpass every goal I had for that committee and to portray myself as a professional at all times. My reputation also developed based off of the internship and full time job offers I was receiving. Since members of the organization always found out about the job offers I have received from the Business Career Fair that made my credibility and reputation higher and stronger. It has been a struggle to always try to maintain this reputation because the members of this organization are my peers so staying professional and timely all the time can be stressful. Since I see a lot of the members around campus that is something I also must always think about.

To keep my reputation intact, since I am a senior and have little responsibilities now within the business fraternity, I try my hardest to be a mentor. I offer mock interviews, resume critiques, and just meeting with the younger members of the organization to see if I can help them in any aspect of their professional business careers. Since I am a senior there are a lot of times where I wish I didn’t always have to stress about maintaining this reputation and with I could just “cash it in” but when I think of any of the immediate gains I could receive, none of them are as meaningful as having a positive reputation within this organization. The alumni relations we have are HUGE for our organization and I have been able to see first hand how the alumni’s of my business fraternity have helped various members of the organization with networking, internships, full time job offers, etc. so having a strong reputation will benefit to the success of my career. For example, if there was a job opening at a Financial Institution where an Alumni of my business fraternity is working, I want them to be able to think of me as a good candidate for that job which could possibly lead to an interview. Reputations go a long way in life and I would never want an immediate gain to get in the way of that. 

3 comments:

  1. Can you say how being in the Business Fraternity helps members with their future careers? Having that would have set up the rest of the piece and help explain why you went to the effort that you did in performing well in that setting an establishing a positive relationship there.

    You said something at the outset about caring of what others think as being important. I think it cuts both ways. Wanting to make a good impression is a positive motivation. Having performance anxiety is a negative motivation. The balance between caring and not caring, may depend on how much of the positive motivation carries through and how much of the negative motivation can be suppressed. In writing, a particular way one develops a reputation, I've always encouraged students to first and foremost please themselves. If they try to please someone else, me for example, they will end up pleasing nobody.

    On the substance of what you talked about, it seemed as much to me about being part of a network as it did about a personal reputation. Do you think those are the same thing, or are they different but complements of one another?

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  2. It sounds like you've been very conscientious about maintaining a good reputation, which isn't always easy to do on a college campus. I agree with your point that, especially in a professional organization where your reputation can affect your future career, there are few (if any) instances where "cashing in" your reputation for immediate gain would be worth it.

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  3. The way a business fraternity helps with future careers is primarily because of the corporate sponsors we have that have strong recruiting efforts towards our members. Those connections and possible networks along with the overall reputation that recruiters have towards our business fraternity is how our careers could be affected. So I guess not only is my reputation important but my business fraternity's as well. And because an organization is only as good as the people in it, I guess I just came to realize how important it is that everyone in the business fraternity is as concerned with their reputation as I am.

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