Co-Hosting a Career Readiness Session: What Happens Behind the Scenes
On 25 July, I co-hosted a two-hour virtual session on personal branding and LinkedIn with my fellow MyNext Campus Ambassador. Here is what planning it actually looked like, and what I would repeat.
Personal Branding: Soft Launch Your Career ft. LinkedIn ran from 8 to 10 PM on a Friday, over Google Meet, with students joining from across the country. Two hours sounds like a lot of runway until you are the one holding the agenda. My co-ambassador and I split the session into three movements: what personal branding actually means, how to build a LinkedIn profile that earns attention, and how to launch a career with intention instead of waiting for opportunity to find you.
The part nobody sees
Before the session there were planning calls, a shared outline that we kept editing right up to the day before, slides that got rebuilt twice, and one full rehearsal over Meet to test timing and transitions. The most useful hour of prep was the dry run. It surfaced the two segments that were running long and the one question we had not prepared an answer for.
We also made a deliberate decision about the talk track. Students have heard the advice to 'build your personal brand' a hundred times, usually from people who never explain how. We wanted concrete steps: a headline formula, a photo checklist, a summary section that says what you can do, and a follow-up habit that turns a connection into a conversation.
A good virtual session is planned like a broadcast: structure, timing, and a backup for the moments that go quiet.
Running the session live
The live part taught me more than the prep. Pacing a two-hour Meet means watching the chat while you talk, checking the time without being obvious about it, and keeping energy up when the audience is just a grid of dark rectangles. We built question breaks into the agenda so students could ask things in the moment instead of saving them for the end, and the questions were the best part of the evening.
What I would repeat
- Test the tech before the audience arrives. A five-minute check saves a fifteen-minute scramble.
- Leave room in the agenda for questions. The unscripted parts land hardest.
- Follow up after the session. We shared the slide deck and a profile checklist so the advice survives past the call.
- Co-host with someone you can trade energy with. Split the segments and cover each other's weak spots.
The session was the kind of work I want to do more of: practical, people-facing, and genuinely useful. Personal branding is a practice, not a one-off event, and helping students start that practice is exactly why I joined the MyNext ambassador programme.