Pitching your way into the future: How RMIT students transformed personal brand into professional readiness

In an era where personal branding often feels vague with a mix of social media aesthetics and a time of achievements that supposedly define who they are, three RMIT students have redefined what it means to be career-ready. As the winners of Perfect Pitch 2025, a pitching competition for RMIT Hanoi students to sharpen their personal brands, Le Ha Phuong, Mai Minh Anh, and Le Hong Trang demonstrated that authentic professional identity stems from something far more valuable than curated portfolios: their unique perspectives. 

Organised exclusively for students at RMIT Vietnam – Hanoi campus, Perfect Pitch is a competition that helps young creatives sharpen their personal brand and pitching skills. 

Coming from Professional Communication, all three emerged victorious not by showcasing traditional achievements but by mastering the art of translating their personal narratives into professional values. Through mentoring and real-world pitching practice, they discovered that their greatest strengths lay in their distinctive ways of seeing the world, observing culture, expressing ideas, and turning lived experiences into creative strength instead of centering their pitches on “big achievements.”  

Ha Phuong - Grand Prize Winner of the Perfect Pitch 2025

“I failed so many times that I no longer fear failure,” shared freshman Ha Phuong, Grand Prize Winner, who challenged the notion that success requires an impressive résumé. Instead of seeing her lack of “proper victories” as a weakness, she framed it as her identity as a learner at heart. “That mindset is what I brought to the table. It encouraged me to embrace and reflect on every experience, even the least significant ones,” she said. In her pitch on the usage of cultural elements as creative materials, Ha Phuong drew on Vietnamese music, fashion, and folklore to show how embracing culture in a modern era can become both a creative resource and a professional strength. 

Minh Anh - Winner of Most Creative Pitch of the Perfect Pitch 2025 

Minh Anh - Winner of Most Creative Pitch - transformed her quiet observational skills into a professional asset, leveraging her ability to spot patterns in human behavior. Her analysis of the Silver Economy demonstrated how personal insight can drive market understanding. 

Hong Trang - Winner of the Audience Choice Award of the Perfect Pitch 2025

For Hong Trang - Winner of Audience Choice Award, the turning point was when she stopped asking, “Am I impressive enough?” and started asking, “Where can I naturally add value?” Reflecting on her projects and relationships, she saw the same pattern over and over: she was always the one connecting people, ideas, and emotions. That’s when “the connector” stopped being a vague feeling and became the core of her personal brand in her pitch with the topic Nostalgia marketing. 

If discovering their identity was the emotional core of the journey, learning to pitch that identity was the technical one. Perfect Pitch transformed students into industry professionals by teaching them the delicate balance between substance and style in presentation. 

Hong Trang had her own breakthrough. Her pitch started as a dense block of information, but with each round of feedback, she learned a crucial pitching skill: “It was the ability to distill my message, to highlight only the most essential points instead of trying to cover everything at once. I used to speak quickly and include as many ideas as possible within the limited time, but that often diluted the impact”, she shared. “This skill is incredibly valuable for my future career because strong communication isn’t about saying more; it’s about making what you say truly matter.

Hong Trang participating in Perfect Pitch 2025

Ha Phuong saw a similar pattern in her pitching as she discovered an unexpected rule: Make it right before you make it ‘wow’. “Recruiters are very ‘pragmatic’,” she shared. “I wouldn't recommend presenting a whole 'inspiring', 'emotional' story, just straight to the point: You can work, and you are ready to work.” In her pitch, she did exactly that: “Even though I’m a freshman, I have already done a lot while studying full-time,” before calmly walking the judges through her relevant experience and the position she’s aiming for. The ‘wow’ moment wasn’t theatrics; it was the assurance that she could already operate like a junior professional. 

Ha Phuong participating in Perfect Pitch 2025 

For Minh Anh, the hardest part was letting go of the instinct to over-explain. Her initial presentation on the Silver Economy was rich, layered in theories and evidence, but almost too academic. “By focusing on one central promise rather than multiple findings, my research became not just understood, but remembered," Minh Anh explained. What began as an overloaded analysis became a clear, human story about how Vietnam could better support an aging population by creating meaningful jobs for the elderly, inspired by the successes of Japan, China, and several European countries. 

Minh Anh’s pitching in Perfect Pitch 2025 

In the end, Perfect Pitch 2025 wasn’t just about finding the best pitch but about helping students learn how to speak for their ideas and for themselves with the kind of focus that makes people in the industry sit up and listen. Together with other student professional development initiatives from the School of Communication and Design like ITS Uniform Design Competition and Creative Artwork Contest, it forms a growing pathway that connects classroom learning with real-world skills, enabling students to confidently step into the industry as future-ready creatives. 

Story: Written by Hoang Ngoc Tram, Professional Communication student, with input from the student clubs. This article does not reflect the views of RMIT Vietnam as an institution.