Employability Fortnight : Social Media

Some companies will only consider candidates who follow them
There are groups on LinkedIn for everything - interact with other people in Industry

How to write a LinkedIn profile:
- Have a banner making you stand out, something different
- Headline, change the default tell people what you are and your value proposition (what you do, your purpose)
- Summary, what you are, value proposition, skills, experience, knowledge and expertise.
- Reference key achievements, back things up with examples. 
- Philosophy/ethos/style 
- List of skills separated by /
- Jobs in the past - company name summarise role and achievements.

After this lecture I updated my LinkedIn profile as seen below. 

Updating my LinkedIn Profile :

Employability Fortnight : Preparing for Interviews

Top three mistakes 

- You don't score points for being able to answer the question take time to understand the purpose of the question to provide information the interviewer is looking for. 

- Interviewer wants to know more about you avoid collaboratively speaking (we). 

- Preparation is key e.g. research the company or organisation key values 

Other tips 

- In your answers you should aim to give an example of when you applied or demonstrated a specific skill. 

- Try to use STAR technique with your answers 

- Creating a career autobiography can help identify likely questions whilst identifying real life examples to answer these questions 

- Discover client needs to come up with a solution - sales wedge technique 


Difficult questions can include:

What are your strengths and weaknesses 

Why should we hire you?

Tell me about yourself?

What's your biggest achievement?

What motivates/de-motivates you?

What do you like most/least about your current role?


Do's and Do Nots

Do:
- Dress smartly, look bright and attentive 
- Find out what type of interview it will be 
- Examine job specifications and think what questions they could ask 
- Quote examples using skills 
- Make good eye contact 

Do Not:
- Don't be arrogant and assume you've got the job 
- Criticise former employers 
- Be soft spoken. A forceful voice projects confidence.
- Offer negative information about yourself 
- Don't bring up family or personal issues


Some Example Questions:

Oral communication: 
What is the worst communication problem you have experienced?

Written communication:
What report are you currently preparing is the most challenging? Why?

Independence:
Describe an occasion where you felt you had to consult your superior before taking action?

Creativity:
Under what conditions do you display imagination and innovation in your work?

Self Motivation:
What do you like best/least about your current job?

Initiative:
Have you found a way to make your job easier or more rewarding?

Delegation:
Explain your biggest mistake in not delegating?

Persuasion:
What's the best idea you've ever sold to your peer? Why?

Planning/organisation?
How do you schedule your time? set priorities?

Employability Fortnight : Networking

Tips for networking

- Initiate conversation 
- Introduce ourselves 
- Be aware of networks we have already built 
- Find new networks e.g. networking events 
- Be effective at listening and speaking
- Effectively and respectfully be able to break rapport
- Maintain contact and follow up 
- Be interested in other people 

Networking opportunities in Leeds:

- The Yorkshire Mafia 
- Eventbrite 
- Leeds Chamber of Commerce 
- Simply networking 
- Unrelated events 
- Volunteer opportunities 

Elevator Pitch example:

"Hi I'm Alex, I'm not sure if you'll be able to help but I'm here today because I'm curious to find out what undergraduate internship programmes there are in Leeds. I think this would be extremely valuable to myself and other students to gain valuable industry experience. So initially I am just looking for any organisations you may know of who offer this opportunity?"

Employability Fortnight : Self Awareness & Making Your Experience Count

What do Employers really want?

- Certain generic skills like communication and teamwork you should avoid focusing on your CV. 

- Focus on skills your employer wants to see such as technical skills or commercial awareness 

- Evidence your skills with case studies on your CV 

- Use the STAR method - situation, task, action, result 

- Each case study should contain roughly five actions 

- If possibly include actual result or grade attained in result 

- By writing a career autobiography you can identify skills and achievements attained 

- A career autobiography also helps you to assess possible performance gaps- e.g. missing skills required for a job.

- Creating a career autobiography helped me understand what skills I do have and what skills I need to acquire. 

- The skills I have acquired from my degree outweigh the skills and experience I don't have.

- You can gain experience to plug the gaps in a number of ways including through work experience, volunteering and being proactive. 

Employability Fortnight : Presentation Skills

What I learnt from this session:
- How to present myself in public
- Exploring what we say how we say it and deliver it 
- What part confidence plays in this
- Awareness of our personal communication style and it's effectiveness
- Planning a presentation 

- I identified on a scale of confident to not with public speaking I am closer to not confident.

- Under pressure people tend to act in four different ways passive, passive aggressive, assertive or aggressive. I identified myself falling between assertive and passive aggressive depending on the circumstances. 

Passive Aggressive : 
Behaviour that reflects hostility or resentment through indirect non-violent means such as procrastination, inefficiency, forgetfulness and stubbornness, Gossiping. 

Assertive:
Behaviour which enables a person to stand up for herself or himself, to express honest feeling comfortably, without denying the rights of others.


Creating a Presentation

Content 

- Talk about head stuff (who you are, what you do, how you do it, what skills you have etc)
- Also talk about heart stuff (what I do and nobody else does, what's important about it what difference will it make etc)
- Talk about content we believe in.

Structure

- The bones of a presentation - how many parts are there
- Think of telling a good story 
- Let's audiences know what to expect 

Power of 3 

- Overall structure - think how traditional stories are structured e.g. Three little pigs 
- Within sentences e.g. 'The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.' 

Bookending 

- Introduce something at the start of your presentation and return to it at the end. 
- A quote, picture, object or rhetorical question 
- Makes your presentation stand out


Planning a Presentation

- Consider using the Disney strategy, Dreamer, Planner, Critic

Dreaming (anything goes)

- What is your presentation going to be about? 
- Why is this important to you?
- What difference do you hope you will make by delivering the presentation 
- How will it be structured 

Planning 

- What will you need to carry out this successfully 
- Who is going to do what and when/roles and responsibilities 
- How many different parts will the presentation have

Criticising 

- What might go wrong with this plan?
- What have you not considered?
- How will you know you are on schedule?
- Are you aware of the benefits of doing this?


Delivering a Presentation

Speed - Increasing our awareness of how fast we speak helps us speak at an appropriate speed and so ensure our audience is given enough space to be able to properly process what we are saying. 

Volume - We may have prepared an outstanding presentation but if we can't hear anything it's all for nothing! You can project your voice it just takes practice. 

Emphasis - Without emphasis you can come across monotone

Using pauses instead of 'crutch' words - Many of us fill sentences with crutch words such as um, er, so, right etc. using a pause instead makes it easier for the audience to process the information.

Non-verbal behaviour (body language) 

Awareness of unconscious tic's - Many of us have unconscious habits or micro-movements e.g. touching our hair or face or shifting weight from one foot to the other. 

Gesture - hands and arms - do they complement what's coming out of our mouth? e.g. moving hands aimlessly when explaining a  point  

Eye contact - This is an important way to connect with the audience. In a way it creates rapport. It can be useful to make eye contact slightly longer than normal. 

Positioning/spacial awareness - What is an appropriate distance dependent on room/event. It might be useful to create a triangle between ourselves the slide and the audience. 

Professionals Feedback : Life's a Pitch Idea

- If people pay they will definitely turn up 
- Partner with school or college?
- Advertise a month in advance e.g. social media 
- Target school students going through UCAS
- Could it be run over the course of a week instead of gaps in between
- Could it be run in one session
- Make an incentive people want to come - e.g. take away pack 
- Is there a reason it has to be free?
- If it's a business you need to make money with it 
- Refund ticket price could be an incentive to turning up 
- Could connecting with Uni gain more insight into the target audience 
- A longer workshop is more valuable e.g. 4 hour workshop
- Finding one venue easier 

Group discussion - Refining the idea

- 1 day workshop
- 3 set of posters that link
- Can be displayed on a wall in uni - welcome incentive
- Incentive is it's a competition
- Target Audience - Foundation students 

Updated CV : After Employability Fortnight

After the CV Workshop I updated my CV as seen below using the tips and knowledge gained from the workshop.

Official Internship with Elaine Biss

As I have been in constant contact with Elaine and working with her. After employability fortnight having re written my CV with the intention of applying for internships over the summer relevant to my practice. I asked Elaine could she write me a recommendation, Elaine agreed and also offered me an internship opportunity with her and her business. This internship will involve learning how to write and read contracts, deal with clients as Elaine has informed me she will be sharing her own clients and jobs with me. Elaine's role in the internship will also include creative direction enabling me to build a portfolio also suitable for jobs. Given the opportunity to travel New York I would be able to meet clients and attend events with Elaine. This includes major events such as New York Fashion Week. This would benefit my practice and develop creative networking opportunities. 


Below is one of the three contracts signed by me as part of Elaine's Internship:

Visiting Professional : The Plant Room/The Archipelago

-       Design philosophy – simple, functional, everyday

-       Pare down to the essence but don’t remove the poetry

-       Write a list of clients you’d like to work for – be good and consistent and they will see it

-       Keep a studio small always, work with like-minded people and make your own projects part of studio life.

-       Build a studio that isn’t solely based on client work like freelance

-       Has to be a starting point - think of areas that interest you

-       Articles and spaces such as nature can increase creativity

-       Consider types and styles of design

-       Think about how can you change a space?

-       What makes you stand out and makes you different – this can create a connection

-       Accept everyone works at different speeds, be aware of how this can affect time management

-       Could the exhibition be part of a series?

-       What is the exhibition based on e.g. a book?

-       Document and photograph things, they can be used across alternative or other formats

-       How can you apply existing themes of exhibitions to your space?

-       Cross collaboration really helps to bring together an idea

-       Collaboration can be a way to develop your business and build a relationship

-       It’s ok for an idea to develop and be inclusive of other things

-       Growth of a creative network is helpful when developing an idea

-       Small companies can provide better paid jobs on some occasions