Preparing
us for the ‘real world’?
Employability, Research and Professional Development
My
second year at University has rolled around and the time has come to learn how
to really ‘sell’ myself in order to
get that all important placement job for my year in industry. To help us with the
enormity of this task, we have an Employability, Research and Professional
Development (ERPD) module which has included tasks such as CV writing and a
BrandME! Poster in order to emphasis what looks good to a prospective employer. But, have I really gained a lot
from it? The answer is mainly yes!
To
start with we were set the task of writing a CV and Covering Letter for a live
job in a company which we then had to take, in pairs, to an advisor in Purple
Door for feedback. I felt quite confident about this as I had always kept on
top of my CV, making sure it was up-to-date and that it read well. However, I
was a little concerned with the standard of my Covering Letter to accompany
this as I had never really had to write one. As a result of the meeting, I
received some good feedback, such as the need to really emphasis why I
want the job, which I was then able to incorporate into my writing.
Having said this, I didn’t feel like I really gained the knowledge of how I would go about emphasising it.
Alongside
this task we had to produce a ‘BrandME!’ poster with the aim being to sell ourselves. This task made me quite
uncomfortable as I didn’t like thinking and indeed talking about my good
qualities and therefore found it pretty hard to display this on paper, both
coherently and artistically. However, I made sure that I noted down all my
relevant experience, as well as my strengths and weaknesses and then started to create the poster. This
made it a whole lot easier as everything was right in front of me, and at the
end gained me a pass in this section. However, I felt like it was just another
form of my CV which I didn’t really see the point of.
Overall,
the tasks themselves were somewhat useful as I learnt that I needed to be more
concise, especially in my Covering Letter writing, but also how to layout my CV
in a way to invite the reader in and really show off my relevant experience.
The BrandME! Poster also encouraged me to think about my positive and
weaknesses and think about how I can potentially overcome these and use them to
my advantage. However, in regards to actually applying for jobs, I think that
application form help and interview help would be a lot more useful and
relevant to the majority of job applications currently on the market. If I am
presented with this or a similar task in the future, I would definitely make
sure than I am both answering the question in which I am being asked and reply
in a concise manor.
