A professional ballerina turned UX designer shares how to build an unforgettable personal brand

Publish date: 2024-07-11
2022-01-06T15:12:23Z

Breaking into ballet is hard, but sometimes breaking out is even harder — Rina Takikawa, a former professional dancer who dedicated her life to the art form, would know. 

At 20 years old, though still at the beginning of her adult career, Takikawa decided to make a drastic life change from ballerina to UX designer. To aid the transition, she began rebuilding her online presence through YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and her own website. 

Now, when hiring managers search "Rina Takikawa," they find a story about a woman who took her love for ballet and art and translated it into the technology industry as the founding product designer at Mooch, a budgeting app. While Takikawa does not have a design degree, she did complete intensive workshops and boot camps to learn the technical elements of the craft.

Takikawa found a way to make herself stand out in a competitive job market. Despite the number of job openings in the US increasing to 10.7 million in September, fears over a recession and layoffs are shaking up the labor market. Still, executives across industries, from tech giants like LinkedIn and Adobe, to the language-learning app Duolingo and cybersecurity firm Cloudflare, all report valuing candidates who can use the company's products to show off their personality. Without a cohesive personal image, experts say job seekers face an uphill battle in the competitive job market.

"We're all on social media, we live a lot of our lives there," said Tracey Wallace, a marketing director at MarketerHire, a hiring platform for marketing professionals. "It's really important, even from a professional point of view, to have some kind of brand."

Brainstorming your brand 

Rina Takikawa started her YouTube channel before she even thought about changing careers. Rina Takikawa

Starting your personal brand can be the hardest part, Wallace and Takikawa agree, which is why Takikawa delivers a "Personal Branding 101 Presentation" to high school and university students across the country.

Her first piece of advice is meant to be disarming: "You might be overthinking it," she said. "You don't have to be a social media manager or a content strategist to put content out there, because nobody knows your story better than you do."

Over at Duolingo, for instance, Jocelyn Lai, global head of talent acquisition, says she wants employees who don't "fit in" but bring a new perspective to the table.

During her presentation, Takikawa asks students to brainstorm their life experiences and answer a set of questions; What is your dream career or your dream life? What are you passionate about? What genuinely makes you excited? What do you value in your career? She also has them list any accomplishment they are proud of, "whether they be big or small." 

All of this factors into answering the age-old interview question, "Tell me about yourself," she said. 

For Takikawa, finding her answer to this question was the first step to building her personal brand. She realized that being a former professional ballerina in the Ballet de Catalunya and being a "third culture kid" (in her case, a child born in Singapore and raised in America by Japanese parents) were all parts of an identity and story that make her standout.

"I think branding is common in products and companies, so you've been exposed to the topic of branding your whole life," she said. "But once it comes to personal branding, people are so confused. I just want to say that it's the same thing. You're just marketing yourself."

Rina Takikawa let her brand evolve with her life. Rina Takikawa

Building your brand  

Takikawa started her Youtube channel in 2019, when she was still in college and on track to work as a professional ballerina. When she decided to change careers she had a choice to make: Would she delete her old content and build her new self, or would she keep it? 

She chose to keep her old content, and she recommends other job seekers do as well. 

"Our morals are gonna be changing. Our careers might be changing," she said. "And the fact that you have already something out there from your previous self just shows people that you've grown." 

People who watch Takikawa's channel will see this growth, and she even broke her channel down into playlists — life in tech career journey diary, and ballerina diaries — to make it easier for people to follow her journey.

And while Takikawa's first employer in the technology industry found her through her LinkedIn, she said all of her platforms are connected — sharing the same message, accomplishment, or thought but in a different way, whether that be through text, photos, or video.

Natalie Lavery, a full-stack marketer with Climate People offered similar advice, encouraging job seekers looking to break into the climate tech industry to ensure their online presence demonstrates their passion for fighting climate change. 

Even if your personal brand isn't the right fit for every company, MarketerHire's Wallace says not to worry. Just as you are constantly evolving and growing she said, let your personal brand shift with you.

"Personal branding is very important, it can do so much for your career," Wallace said. "But I want people to know that it's not gonna happen overnight. That doesn't mean you're not successful." 

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