Tag Archives: Interviewing

How I Made My Story

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Along the same lines as last week’s post, my post draws inspiration from How I Met Your Mother. For those of you who missed an epic 10 years, last year one of my favorite television shows ended. Ted Mosby told his kids the story of how he met their mother–for the purposes of my sanity, we are pretending that the alternate ending was the ONLY ending–for a really long time.

The ending of this show was horrible and never happened.

The ending of this show was horrible and never happened.

 

The great thing about Ted’s story is that he crafted his life into a narrative. It was not always smooth, but Ted made it seem linear. And while Ted was not applying for an internship or job, we can learn something about building narratives and drawing connections from Ted. In cover letters and interviews, your future employers want to see a story, growth, and that the position you’re aiming for builds upon your narrative.

Sadly no....

Sadly no….

I’m in no way saying that you should lie or make up a story about your career path. DON’T do that! But I’m sure there are connections between your positions that you may not see. For instance, I’m a Beyond the Elms blogger and a Phonathon manager. How do those relate to each other? As a manager, a huge part of my job is to coach and give callers advice. I don’t write a blog about it, but I use oral communication to achieve similar goals. By participating in both activities, I’m able to develop my leadership and communication skills.

See? It's legendary!

See? It’s legendary!

See? There are reasons you do what activities, internships, clubs, etc. that you do and there are connections, but you need to be able to communicate those connections in cover letters and interviews. Having a narrative makes you sound more confident and like this position will really advance your career in the way you say it will. This week, try brainstorming the connections in your life and discover your own narrative!

Good Luck :)

Good Luck 🙂

Feelin’ Good On A Wednesday

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GUYS I GOT A JOB AND I’M REALLY EXCITED ABOUT IT. that’s it. post over.

I feel bad because I still haven’t actually posted anything containing actual information or advice, but I think that will just make it all the better when I finally come up with something worth advising y’all on. So in traditional fashion, this will just be a series of terrible jokes that only vaguely relate to my future career options.

So I’ve been on the job search basically since I got here, but for all type of reasons (I’m poorly motivated when my other option is Netflix) I’ve been pretty unsuccessful. Plus after a series of interviews that went rather less well than I’d hoped I was feeling pretty nervous about my options for the term. EXCEPT THEN SOMEHOW EVERYTHING WENT REALLY WELL. I wish I could give you a step by step to nailing group interviews and all, but I’ve bombed as many as I’ve aced, which sounds like something a WW1 fighter pilot would say.

i don't actually know what ww1 fighter pilots say, or if they even had group interviews to ace *sigh* the world may never know

in my head ww1 fighter pilots also say “boy-o” a lot, but i’m pretty sure that’s inaccurate

I’m honestly still riding a weird high off of that night. I don’t know if y’all ever get that feeling where you know that you totally killed something (and yes, I am from Texas, and yes I’m actually very good with a gun, but I don’t mean literally), but it’s a pretty awesome feeling. If you haven’t I highly recommend revisiting your childhood and totally pwning all those K-8th graders who think they can play math based internet board games better than you can. But basically I killed it.

outfits

preferred aesthetics include (from left to right): 40’s camp counselor core, high school rom-com girl next door, normcore forest deity, and naturally, nightmare dressed like a daydream

how-to-draw-louise-belcher-1-000000007042-5-jpg--imgres-4-jpg

kill it. kill it with fire

It’s probably because I was riding a major confidence high. My hair wasn’t doing that thing it always does where is pretends to be curly so it can get stuck around things and I managed to put together an interview outfit that still fit one of my many aesthetics. If we’re being honest, my real aesthetic is somewhere between like, Oscar the Grouch and Louise Belcher, but that looks like this so….

 

I dunno, I guess maybe this post could be about confidence? When you’re around so many talented and intelligent people it’s easy to get down on yourself. But none of y’all look like that > (thank god)

 

and maybe that’s what’s really important in job interviews.

also make eye contact

(BOOM. that was advice (i think i’m really getting the hang of this))

Perception and Professionalism

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This post was prompted by a discussion with my mentor, who was also on the panel for my phone interview. She was describing why they chose me, and made a comment that unnerved me a bit. She said that at first it seemed strange to do just a phone interview, but she saw now that in some ways it was more fair.

I wasn’t sure what she meant–was she referencing my height, my disability… or even my nose piercing? I knew the sentiment underneath was positive–that they loved my phone interview, and that my supervisor was very happy with my performance–but I was scared, and even slightly shocked by the implication that I would not have gotten the job with an in person interview.

I don't wear this dress to work. But the rest of me, professional or not, is pretty inescapable.

I don’t wear this dress to work. But the rest of me, professional or not, is pretty inescapable.

 

It never seriously occurred to me that my persona–tiny, quirky, and as I tend to say, vaguely disabled, could be dragging me down. I think of myself as professional: I try to be tactful, appropriate, and focused at work. I don’t show lots of skin, debate politics, or talk about wherever I danced or slept the night before.

At the same time, I want to be me, not bland corporate worker #237. I do have a nose stud, I dye my hair, I’m politically active, and I was raised with an ethos that many would describe as hippie-dippie. Of course, I know it’s not professional or appropriate to bring all of my experiences and identities to every situation. I try to walk that line as best I can. I don’t want to sabotage my reputation professionally or academically, but I’m also critical of the homogeneity of “professionalism”. A lot of advice to young people about being professional really seems to be telling us to hide who we are if we fall at all outside the norm.

Right now, the way I’m handling this is to be politely myself. I wear appropriate clothing, but my business casual is perhaps slightly on the earthy side (I have a lot of scarves.) I’ve tried to wear more makeup and sheath dresses, but I feel uncomfortable and less confident when I don’t look like myself. And ultimately, my professional strength depends on my confidence. It doesn’t matter how great my ideas are if no one hears them. And to my surprise, despite all of the ways I don’t resemble a generic young professional, people listen to me at work because I know what I’m talking about. They see that I work hard, that I ask questions, and that I speak with clarity and confidence.

I’m getting to know myself pretty well–my weaknesses (real and perceived by society) and my strengths. I can compensate for my weaknesses and capitalize on my strengths. That doesn’t stop me from freaking out occasionally, but it helps.

How to be Adaptable

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Everyone talks about elevator pitches and the 7 seconds it takes to form an impression of a candidate. Often times, students don’t have the ability to practice impromptu speaking because of the lack of opportunities available in college. Here’s a thought: If you think of the number of new people you meet each week in college, you’ll find that you’re constantly introducing yourself to people who will, just like an employer, make some judgment about you. Use these opportunities to practice speaking to people who all have different personality types. In my opinion, this is key for interviews, especially if you’re interviewing with many different people.

1) Pay attention to the body language of the person you’re speaking to

Is the person really expressive? Is she using her hands often?

2) Watch for changes in facial expressions

Is the person interested at all in what you’re saying? (Hint: If she’s not, change the topic ASAP!)

3) Keep track of key areas the person refers back to often so that you can respond appropriately

If this person has a strong interest in skateboarding, for example, coming up with personal experiences and/or interest areas related to skateboarding will probably make the person happy.

Being really observant of how other people are responding to you and changing your behavior accordingly can really make a difference.

Practice, practice, practice!

An interview can take 10 minutes, an hour, or somewhere in between. Because you’re not establishing a long-term relationship with your interviewer (not yet, at least), mirroring your interviewer’s personality and also showcasing your strengths might mean the difference between an offer and a rejection.

A First-Hand Account of the Internship Search

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Now that the internship search is over, I finally have time to reflect on what I should have done better and what I should do in the future. If you’re thinking about applying for an internship grant in the future (or soon, because you can!), I hope you find this blog post helpful. I would have saved myself much time and energy if someone had told me these things.

1) Seek internship opportunities from your personal network.

I submitted my applications to organizations I had never heard of before and foolishly expected responses regarding the status of my application. This didn’t happen for most of the places I applied to. When I had less than two weeks to secure an internship (don’t put yourself in this kind of position, it’s really bad…), my amazing friend (and #1 fan of my blogs 😉 ) suggested that I reach out to a senior that we both knew through a 5C club who had done internships in areas I was also interested in. A casual, semi-desperate Facebook IM turned into me receiving two internship offers from organizations that our mutual friend had interned with. During the last two weeks, I also reached out to two people I had met at CP&R’s wonderful networking panel during Family Weekend. I found out that one of the parents I contacted was good friends with two members in Congress and would help me set up an internship. Though I didn’t end up taking his offer, he was tremendously helpful and offered to help me again next year if I wanted an internship.

2) Be very clear about your deadlines

This is actually really simple. Last week, I sent my interviewer a thank you email and included a few (very important) sentences about the internship grant deadline that was only three days away. She never responded to this email, but I was sure that she had read it. The night before the grant was due, I sent her a reminder email but changed the subject line to “Status of Internship Application” instead of “Thank You” as I had previously written. My interviewer responded the next morning apologizing for missing what I had written in the previous email and immediately offered me a position.

tl;dr: Subject lines in emails can make a huge difference! Something like “Action Requested: [………….]” would be effective.

3) Learn how to make a realistic budget

I will admit that I didn’t take this section of the internship grant as seriously as I could have. Now that I’m forced to think about travel, housing, transportation, and food, I’m realizing that certain areas (HOUSING) are significantly more expensive than other areas. If you’re currently writing a grant, make sure you know the cost of living of where you’re planning to intern. Fun fact: If you live in a home stay in Spain for the summer, you can actually save much more than if you intern in Washington, D.C.

4) Double and triple check all cover letters and resumes for minor errors!

5) Always express your gratitude and write hand-written thank you notes to anyone that went out of their way to help you!

6) Don’t wait until the last minute to do things! I literally got my two offers the day before and the day of the internship grant deadline. This was a extremely stressful.

7) Remember to do your research about your organization! Tips from an article I read recently: In a phone interview, print out everything you’re going to plan on looking at; i.e. your resume, the “About Us” section of the website, the job description, etc. so you’re not switching between screens. This helps!

I think this is longest post I’ve written this semester. I hope this information is useful to you in the future!

Good luck on finding an internship! 🙂