Abstract
Building personal branding for final-year students is crucial for enhancing work readiness. Consequently, the digital platform known as the Smart Digital Interactive Service at Institute Agama Islam Negeri Curup offers an accessible and effective platform for building personal branding among the millennial generation. The digital platform features a “classic service” that facilitates online discussions among students and counsellors, allowing for the exchange of experiences and information related to personal branding development. Therefore, this study aimed to describe the strategy for building personal branding through the Smart Digital Interactive Service as an effort to improve the work readiness of final-year students. An experimental design was adopted using a one-group t-test model conducted through the Smart Digital Interactive Service application. The study population included seventh-semester students from the class of 2021 at Institute Agama Islam Negeri Curup, with a purposive sampling method used to select 30 participants from various study programs. Data collection also included questionnaires to assess personal branding and students’ work readiness. Furthermore, the t-test formula was applied to analyse the differences in personal branding and work readiness before and after the intervention. The results showed that the strategy for building personal branding through the Smart Digital Interactive Service was carried out in several stages. Initially, an offline session explained how to access the digital platform. Students subsequently registered to receive a username and password to log in to the Smart Digital Interactive Service account. The next stage included online discussions and Zoom meetings to further develop and strengthen personal branding.
Keywords: Education, Personal Branding, Smart Digital Interactive Service, Students, Work Readiness.