Personal Branding for Doctoral Students: What Purpose for Their Professional Project?

Every year, a few hundred doctoral students graduate in Morocco. Among them, some will hold a position as university professor, others will exercise various functions in the public or private sector, or on their own, freelance. Everyone contributes to the promotion of a knowledge economy that is increasingly in demand; and which is focused on discovery and innovation.

Throughout the doctoral journey, a range of soft skills is mobilized, and skills are consolidated, which forge profiles different from those already on the job market, and above all having modes of thinking and resolution distinctive problems for certain specific missions and positions.

In light of our experience with doctoral students and doctors, their concern to build a professional project challenged us; and above all their attraction for the foundation of “Personnel Branding”. This brand image which could possibly open the door, for these profiles, to career opportunities in all socio-economic sectors.

Their culture of working in “project” mode, their methodology, their autonomy, their resilience and perseverance, their autonomy and many other soft skills which are highly sought after on the job market and which we have been able to detect in these hardworking people push us to dig deeper to be able to:

• Identify the soft skills most used and coveted by doctoral students.
• Understand why this generation of doctoral students would so much like to get involved in self-marketing and personal branding.
• How this could impact their professional career.
• And finally provide universities and directors of doctoral centers with a starting point for rethinking the programs offered to doctoral students.