At first I was not very interested in reading these articles about a cover letter. I thought I understood the goal of a cover letter, to introduce yourself and your strengths. Thankfully, I did sit down and read through these articles because they bring up a very good point. The goal of a cover letter isn’t to introduce but to sell your strength in accordance to their needs. This is wonderfully helpful advice, especially to someone like me who has never been a fan of “personal advertisement” as I like to refer to the concept of selling yourself. Now however this seems like a more obtainable goal since I have something to focus on.
That being said these articles also brought to light the dire need to be proactive during a job search. A final paragraph which requests action from the reader and promises that I will take action in the event that they do not is a wonderful suggestion, and the example cover letter showed how such a thing can be written without sounding snobbish or aggressive.
I am now extremely excited about working on my cover letter and resume this week. Also, I think I have some really out of the box ideas about how to present them. Hopefully, these ideas will help me stand out in a field that is based on innovation and graphic presentation.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Job Interview Advice
The two articles I chose for this week's blog were entitled "How to Handle Illegal Interview Questions" and "How to Answer the Toughest Interview Questions." As you can tell from the titles of these articles, I was looking for articles that would advise me on how to answer the difficult questions. Saddly, these articles fell drastically short of their headline's promise of information.
The article about illegal interview questions simply identified commonly ask illegal questions and the laws that prohibit them. While it was interesting to learn about the specifics of the age discrimination law; I had really been hoping for more advice on how to anwer quesitons about marriage and childern. The only good advice the article provided was to strive to answer the intent behind an illegal question by restating the question in a legal format and then proceeding to answer.
Likewise the article on how to answer the toughest interview questions did not satifactorily advise on how to answere questions. Instead this article focused on the importance of these questions and the desierable impact of your answer. I am glad to learn from this article that the "silly question", for example "If you were an animal what would you be and why?", is really stiving to see how you act under pressure and in unexpected situations. Also, the article gave very good advice on how to answer the quesiton about where you see yourself in so many years. By answering this question baised on your values and acheivment goals the employer can get a better sense of where you want to go in life.
In the end both articles succeeded in making me realizes that at some point in the near future I really need to sit down and aswer these questions before I go into an interview.
The article about illegal interview questions simply identified commonly ask illegal questions and the laws that prohibit them. While it was interesting to learn about the specifics of the age discrimination law; I had really been hoping for more advice on how to anwer quesitons about marriage and childern. The only good advice the article provided was to strive to answer the intent behind an illegal question by restating the question in a legal format and then proceeding to answer.
Likewise the article on how to answer the toughest interview questions did not satifactorily advise on how to answere questions. Instead this article focused on the importance of these questions and the desierable impact of your answer. I am glad to learn from this article that the "silly question", for example "If you were an animal what would you be and why?", is really stiving to see how you act under pressure and in unexpected situations. Also, the article gave very good advice on how to answer the quesiton about where you see yourself in so many years. By answering this question baised on your values and acheivment goals the employer can get a better sense of where you want to go in life.
In the end both articles succeeded in making me realizes that at some point in the near future I really need to sit down and aswer these questions before I go into an interview.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Ten Years (Jan.27)
I foresee that the next ten years of my life will be extremely hectic. My goals for the following ten years involve getting married, starting my career as an architect, going back to school for my masters, and possibly starting a family. To achieve all of these things and retain my sanity will be a miracle. (Although, my boyfriend Torrey says that first I will need to obtain sanity.)
The first milestone for me in the next ten years will be my graduation in August. After that I plan on finding a job in a construction related field while I wait for the following May to arrive.
May 2009 is the month that Torr and I have decided to get married. He will be graduating that month and then get commissioned with the National Guard immediately afterwards. I will of coarse move with him and find a job near the base that he gets posted too.
After that plans get kind of blurry for me and Torrey. At some point I will make my way back to college in order to become a licensed architect later down the road. However, I don’t believe that I will be getting my license in the next ten years. Don’t get me wrong, I really want to be licensed, but starting a family and being with Torr are one step higher on my list of priorities.
The next ten years of my life will be focused on our family because I firmly believe that this is the strongest foundation one can lay for the rest of their life.
The first milestone for me in the next ten years will be my graduation in August. After that I plan on finding a job in a construction related field while I wait for the following May to arrive.
May 2009 is the month that Torr and I have decided to get married. He will be graduating that month and then get commissioned with the National Guard immediately afterwards. I will of coarse move with him and find a job near the base that he gets posted too.
After that plans get kind of blurry for me and Torrey. At some point I will make my way back to college in order to become a licensed architect later down the road. However, I don’t believe that I will be getting my license in the next ten years. Don’t get me wrong, I really want to be licensed, but starting a family and being with Torr are one step higher on my list of priorities.
The next ten years of my life will be focused on our family because I firmly believe that this is the strongest foundation one can lay for the rest of their life.
Belated Blog (Jan. 20)
This video was extremely interesting because it highlighted the fact that not only has the internet created a whole new means of high-speed communication but it has provided us with the unique opportunity to reorganize the way the record our information. This in turn leads to billions of new opportunities with which we can connect with one another.
For the person entering the workforce these new connections mean that the fraternity of “good-ol’ boys” no longer holds the key to any one person’s success. There are even sites that were created solely to match employees to employers.
For those in the workforce it has become easier to stay in touch with the most recent developments in their fields. For example, my mom is an X-ray Tech. and she is able to learn the newest technology for her field from her couch at home. This helps her to not lose her job to techs that have recently graduated college.
Overall the idea that prevailed the most to me throughout this video was that we have to rethink the way we set up databases so that this abundance of digital information can be successfully navigated.
For the person entering the workforce these new connections mean that the fraternity of “good-ol’ boys” no longer holds the key to any one person’s success. There are even sites that were created solely to match employees to employers.
For those in the workforce it has become easier to stay in touch with the most recent developments in their fields. For example, my mom is an X-ray Tech. and she is able to learn the newest technology for her field from her couch at home. This helps her to not lose her job to techs that have recently graduated college.
Overall the idea that prevailed the most to me throughout this video was that we have to rethink the way we set up databases so that this abundance of digital information can be successfully navigated.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
First Note
The first week of classes has come to an end and ... well that means that the rest are about to begin. Being that this is my last semester in college I hope that this business writing class will leave me with some real world skills for proper communication in the work place.
Fingers Crossed
-Jessica
Fingers Crossed
-Jessica
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