Sharing our practice!

Do you want to get some inspiration for  future projects?

Are you looking for partners for projects about employability?

We are happy to share with you the Personal Branding brochure, as a result  of the project”Personal Branding 4EUth employment”, Training Course, funded by Erasmus+ Programme of the European Commission which took place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, from 6 to 13 October 2015. 

Inside the brochure you can find:

• The history of a long term project  from the first to the 5th edition
• Methods and knowledge of our project
• Testimonials and experiences
• Ideas about how you can develop your own project
• Ideas for how to have an impact

Click here for the brochure:   Personal Branding Brochure

Hope you get inspired!

 

Pictures Barcelona 2015

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This project has the support of the Erasmus+ program of the European Commission

The empowering days

The fifth day of our training course started with some good food. Why am I mentioning the food? Because it was the best one anyone could get, that is food for thought.

Please, do not hesitate to take as much as you want of it. Anytime, anywhere. It never ends and if you want it badly you can always have it. All you have to do is keep your eyes and ears open. You can ask questions, you can be the one being asked questions- does not matter. Just like we did on the day I am going to tell you about as well as on any other day during our stay in the beautiful Romania.

As usual, after breakfast the first thing all of us had to do was a brief summary of what we have experienced the previous day. That managed to open not only our sleepy eyes but also our consciousness of what exactly has happened and how have we perceived it.

After we have made sure we were aware of what we are doing and what we are about to do, we moved on to the next task which was to get well acquainted with a model of how to do our personal branding. It followed five concrete steps and included:

1. Personal objectives
2. Audience
3. Self-promotion
4. Best self
5. Personal Branding

To elaborate further on the matter, several participants were given the floor to give their own definitions for some of the concepts, such as “Audience: refers to people we present ourselves to.” and “Best self: We are the best at something. Use the skills you have.”

With this kind of new knowledge and know-how, we were all invited to continue with our schedule. This time we had to work in groups and identify the activities we did in the training course to achieve some goals presented in the personal branding pyramid model. By working together, we managed to list a good deal of exercises which have helped us in one way or another.

This being finished, we moved on to identifying our own personal goals in groups of two people. When we knew what we were aiming for, we were supposed to keep an eye on our partner and help them realize one of their goals until the end of the training. Once again we were there for each other, for empowering and achieving results by cooperation.

When this exercise was over came the time to relax during the coffee break, absolutely not expecting the surprise that was about to come next. We had a guest speaker. A real HR expert, just waiting to lead us in the world of people’s development. She started her speech with the quote: “Companies are like dreamers”. And why is that so? Because they have very high expectations of the employees they hire, of course. So, we were there to figure out how to be able to reach the image companies are looking for in a person without forgetting who we are. In order to do so we did some brainstorming on what we should do and how we should act:

• Before the interview
• During the interview
• After the interview

Having figured it out, we felt more confident to continue our journey further into the depths of personal branding.

Considering the fact that we have done a lot of work, we got some strength during lunch break and jumped into the workshops of the afternoon with enthusiasm and some expectations. Luckily, during and after the workshops we felt full of energy and positive vibes. We participated actively because our friends have made sure to include each one of us into thinking, doing and achieving. Hence, what we experienced through their creativity put into action was no less than wonderful!

Did I mention that part of the reason why we felt so refreshed was due to the fact that the activities were held in an ancient castle in the center of Cluj-Napoca? There you have it: a group of people engaging in non-formal education and bonding while they are at it, plus the atmosphere preserved in this magical place- what more could you possibly ask for?

You could ask for anything. Absolutely anything, without exaggeration. Dare to dream, dare to be yourself and pursue your dreams while using all the tools you have because you are lucky-lucky to have them, lucky to be unique. All you have to do now is to show it to the world. So go, go and brand yourself in the best way you possibly can and good luck!

by Petya Natcheva (Bulgaria

TC “Personal Branding” in Cluj-Napoca, Romania (5th to 13th of October)

Finantat de Comisia Europeana

Personal Branding Babylon

We live in a world where everything from the coca cola bottle to the politicians dressing style is marked by branding. We are being aggressively  attacked  by ads of all kinds, trying to have effect on us. Nowadays there are philosopher who argue that even the religion is a kind of branding. Religion is an advertisement campaign for a product that does not exist, they say. Everybody has it’s own agenda. And the problem is… sometimes we do not really speak the same language.

What could be the outcome of mixing Southern European cultures and giving them a meeting point focused on personal branding then? Meeting youngsters with The Personal Branding Project, based in the European Youth capital of Cluj-Napoca is this Babylon where the colorful mix of cultures takes place. That’s right, amongst the Catholic and Orthodox churches of this Central European city a real babylon tower is being build. And this time with the aim to last as long as there is Europe. The reason – no matter how many mistakes they make, people will always reach for the skies. People from different cultural, religious, political and social background gathered together to discuss how the problem of youth unemployment in Southern Europe could be solved. The economy of this region has been struggling for years. Now the time has come for young Europeans to take the situation in their hands.

This is what basically happened at the beginning of October 2015 in the European Youth Capital. Against all odds the group of 20 young people aged 18 – 32 from Spain, Italy, Croatia, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus and Poland managed with all the task given to them from the trainers. Though, emotional and full of U-turns the first day of the exchange showed that this colourful Babylonian crowd managed to overcome the differences between each other and not only. What was more important than the mistakes which were made and which always follow hard work was the experience everyone got from the activities. And to be honest… the international party is the best thing about Babylon. Where there is a colorful crowd, there is always a great fun and a lot of new friendships and relationships to be made. That’s what Europe needs now! The aim: learn to brand yourself and show out the best of you, in order to get better job opportunities.

Integrity changes everything. The connections between people transform the economy. This is what happened with the emergence of Social Media. This is exactly what is happening with the European Youth Exchanges programs. Anyway, exchange programs are the infrastructure of this new global village. Social medias are only the means of transport that leads to connectivity. Therefore, better rebrand yourself now. Share, retweet and stay tuned for an even more united and diverse Europe!

By Svetlin Ivanov, Bulagria

Participant of Personal Branding TC, 2015

TIC TAC opportunities!

The clock is ticking…

Find out the last OPPORTUNITIES you can access in Europe!

From free career tools to know yourself better to web pages with international projects, Erasmus+ opportunities, jobs, scholarships, conferences and volunteering.

Find your own!

 

DOWNLOAD: TicTac Youth Opportunities

By Marco Dimola (Italy) and Roberts Jurkevics (Latvia).

 

This brochure has been created during the project Personal Branding for my international experience,Youth Exchange, Cluj-Napoca, 2014 and financed by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission.

 

 

 

 

Personal branding for my international experience – Day 5

For most of the group the day nr 5, when the project was slowly coming to an end, was a day out, where they could explore the Cluj-Napoca city and do different kind of tasks to have fun and improve their skills.

But me and four other people from Latvian team decided to go to the mountains as most of us had never seen them before. So we – 5 girls, rented a car and off we went. Little did we know that this experience would test our communication, team working, physical skills, patience and that we would experience a lot of real wow moments.
Our first big challenge was reading a blurry map without a certain understanding where exactly in the map was our location point and what was the scale of the map. At some point, as you can see in the picture   we needed to use some team working skills, to read the map. It spite of our incredible outdoor orientation abilities, intuition and skill set to survive in the wild, we got lost. Our only chance to move forwards to our goals was to ask for local people help. Mountain and village people do not speak English or Russian or any other language except Romania. So it was the right moment to test what we have learned during the days in workshop. We became extremely expressive. We used our non-verbal and para-verbal communication methods and the local people who were very nice and tried to help us did the same. Without their help and ability to understand each other we would probably be still wondering in the mountains till this day.
We moved on and an idea to see some caves appeared, but it was not as easy as one could think. We could not find them easily and for this, we had to be patient and assertive. While on our way, we were amazed by the beauty of Romanian nature but for some moments it seemed that instead of the caves we will find the Dracula castle or Dracula himself.

Not only did we see the mountains – there were animals as well.

We learned that a cow always has a best friend – another cow. And if the best friend is gone, they feel sad. All the cows we saw were walking in pairs, so this must be true.

We learned that sheep do not feel bothered by cars. And sheppards are neither bothered.
We came back from the mountains late, tired but happy, for discovering something more about Romani, one another and ourselves.

This was a journey that we will never forget!

By Liga Apsane

This project was financed by Erasmus+ programme of the European Commission

Euronews -Unemployment- DAY 2

This Autumn in the city of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, from 3 to 9 November took place the Youth Exchange “Personal Branding for my international experience” an initiative funded under the Erasmus+ programme by the European commission.
For one week a rich intercultural exchange happened for 36 enthusiastic young people from four countries of Europe: Italy, Latvia, Romania and Spain.

Over the days various dynamics, games, reflections, debates were performed. In one of these activities was discussed the situation of youth unemployment that is currently featuring in the four participating countries.
Participants presented the youth unemployment rate of their national countries, producing surprise between people

because we could see how big is the problem we are facing:

Italy – 40%
Latvia – 23.2%
Romania – 23.6
Spain – 55.5%

Source: Eurostat 2013 indices

Also after knowing the situation of youth unemployment in these countries, participants proposed some solutions and recommendations for young people to overcome the problem.

Many ideas came up:
• Create your own entrepreneurial project or business
• Share information with young people about the possibilities that exist in Europe to find employment or participate in initiatives promoted by the European Union
• Learning Languages to increase your possibilities
• Learn and build your own personal brand
• Take the initiative and submit a project to any company or organization
• Keep expectations realistic and do not expect to have a great job from the beginning

Then a brainstorm was made about the resources that can access to find a job around Europe:
• Create a profile on the professional social network LinkedIn
• Deals on Twitter
• Friends
• Teachers
• Jobs in the Newspaper
• University employment bureau
• Perform pre-professional internship
• Through previous jobs
• Volunteering in an NGO or project
• Apply for scholarships and grants from the government of the country or the European Union
• Ask for help in youth information points
• Looking directly into Google
• Visiting the following websites: Help Exchange Woolfing, workaway, Volint.

Finally this youth exchange was very important for all the participants, because many of us become able to orient better about our career aspirations and actively participate in job search.

I really recommend you to live this kind of experience if you want to know more about you and your professional aspirations!

 By Karen Salas

This project is financed by Erasmus+ program of the European Commission.

Personal Branding for my international experience- DAY 4

Morning. After waking up and taking a shower  I was – outside of hotel, in Romania’s second city – Cluj-Napoca.

This morning was a bit different – it was a cold one. Most of participants were already in the lobby and you can see a fear in their faces, a fear of “funbox”.

After a breakfast we had a little celebration – we give Annija a little surprise, because it was her birthday.

The work can start! At first – short overview what we had done, after – wrote 20 qualities that we have. After these 20 qualities each choose 5 best ones, start to work in the groups and talk about it. Interesting part was that many of us didn’t realize that we have good things that we didn’t see.  After this exercise we wrote strategies how we can “promote” ourselves. There main ideas was that we need to change our point of view, take a step outside our comfort zones, learn new languages, lose our shyness and put a hard work to break impossible! Of course we have a good laught about this one.

After coffee break start to talk about creative marketplaces and about job abroad. We give each other a view about where we look for a job in our countries. Sites about a job abroad – mladiinfo.eu , eurodesk.org, EURES etc.

In the end of the day our task was to  make a ”commercial”  about a magic product. Andreea and Doru gave us some information about “Erasmus+”, Volunteer job abroad (EVS), and Youth pass.

That was my short look of the day. Thank you and love you guys.

 By Roberts Jurkevics

This project was financed by Erasmus+ program of the European Commission.

What do I get from participating in international projects?

Everybody know…
International projects are fun because bring lot of friends and nice moments in an amazing intercultural space.
Have you ever wonder…

What people learn from participating in Youth Exchanges, Training courses, or other Erasmus+ projects?

Well, here you can check what some participants say.

After evaluating their learning outcomes, people realize they get competences for life.

Mihai (Romania)
• Capacity to speak in English and make myself understood. Improving my accent.
• Ability to speak in English without to constantly translate words from my native language.
• Ability to organize my own learning and feel responsible for that.
• Using non-formal methods for learning.
• Positive attitude toward learning.
• How to learn in a funny and productive way.
• Knowledge about different cultures and their own way of thinking and living.
• How to use creativity as a tool for developing projects.
• Ability to use music, games, acting and dancing for the learning process.

Alex (Greece)
• To interact linguistically in appropriate way by expressing feelings and thoughts in public.
• To evaluate the outcomes of my learning.
• To become creative and acting as actor in a short movie.
• How to be innovative and creative because I got ideas about creating my own Erasmus+ project.
• To express my cultural identity most of all by participating in the intercultural night.

Anna (Spain)
• I dared to take risks.
• I learned to deal with obstacles when activities become too difficult for me.
• Being responsible for my own language and not making mistakes in front of the others.
• To understand other cultures and behaviors.
• To deal with obstacles when activities become too difficult for me.
• The ability to understand and appreciate the importance of creative expression of ideas, emotions and experiences.

Still not convincing for you?

TRY IT ! and let us know…what did you learn?

Declaration of participants from personal Branding 4EUth employment 3, Erasmus+ Youth Exchange, Barcelona, 2014

Personal Branding my CV

This video is a result of the Erasmus+ youth exchange ¨ Personal Branding for my international experience¨, activity Digital Photo Story on the topic My Europass CV – Describing skills.

Video by Marco Dimola

This project was financed by Erasmus+ program of the European Commission.