• Career Corner Session 1
    March 15, 2023 - March 27, 2023
    12:00 PM - 9:00 PM
  • Career Corner Session 2
    March 15, 2023 - March 27, 2023
    12:00 PM - 9:00 PM

 

Please select ONE topic for each session (1 and 2).

 

Topic Description
Interviews The key to nailing your interview is confidence and preparation. The two go hand in hand; the more you prepare, the more confident you will be!

Preparation: Practice makes perfect! Have a mock interview with your more experienced friends.

Do your research! Look at the experience current and previous employees have had. Find what they are looking for and cater to that. Also, look up company specific interview questions on Glass Door. Have questions prepared for them. Remember, you are interviewing them too. It also shows that you care about the company. Make sure you study the company and role you applied for extensively. Speak in detail about everything on your resume, and how those experiences apply to the role.

Practice the STAR method. Write out generic questions and have 2-3 examples prepared per question.

Confidence: Be engaged and practice active listening. Treat it like a conversation and you’re trying to get to know someone. Your interviewer is not only looking for an employee, but also a good coworker with a good personality.

Relax and show confidence. Hype yourself up! If you’re feeling nervous before the interview, assume a power stance for 30 seconds.
Continuous Learning in the Workplace     Continuous learning in the workplace is critical because even if you understand the core responsibilities of your job, if you’re just doing the bare minimum you’ll never be considered for promotions or other opportunities in the future. Additionally, if you’re not continuously learning in the workplace your job is going to stagnate and you will likely get bored. Here’s how you can find learning opportunities in the workplace:

Try to build a relationship with your supervisor. They’ll be able to offer you insight on where you can stretch beyond your role and garner more diverse experience. They may also be able to assist you in shifting your responsibilities if you’re interested in transitioning your career focus. In general, try and establish rapport with as many people in the workplace as you can, as more people means more diverse perspectives for you to tap into.

Don’t be afraid of asking about opportunities for yourself. You are your strongest advocate! Look for ways or projects within your area of influence that you can work on.
Look into company programs. Lots of companies have funds that you can use to enroll in graduate school, training courses, certifications, classes etc. That’s free money sitting around you can use for your professional development. Beyond that, continuing to learn and aging out of your entry level role is critical to earning those higher paying jobs.
Resume Building and Cover Letters   For many opportunities, your resume will be one of the first things a company or school sees about you. Here’s how to make a good impression:

Keep your resume a standard, professional format. Resumes with crazy designs will stand out in a bad way and come across as unprofessional. Also, it should be one page, unless you have over five years of experience.
Use strong action verbs and metrics to highlight your accomplishments. For example, instead of writing “sought out sponsors”, write “implemented fundraising techniques, raising over $3000 in donations.”
Gain experience that sets you apart from other applicants. It doesn’t have to be related to your industry- it can simply make you look interesting. Great examples are leadership experience, volunteer work, and study abroad trips. Be unique!
If your GPA is below a 3.0, don’t put it on your resume. Experience is far more important- let your experience speak for itself.
Get that high school stuff off your resume by sophomore year!
Changing Career Paths    Remember that it’s never too late to switch paths! Make the most of your time and don’t force yourself to fit into a field or role that doesn’t fulfill you. When you’re unhappy in a role, the suggestion is to change AT MOST 2 of these 3 items – function, industry, geography. Going back to networking advice, you don’t need to do it alone. People are willing to help, if you are willing to ask and be clear on what it is you need. You have tons of options; you could look into boot camps or certification programs that could help offer you learning and experience opportunities without the time investment of something like a degree program. You could even become a social media influencer.

All that said, these changes take quite some time to prepare for, and once you get started, you’ll want to have an idea of how long it’ll take to fully execute and follow through. You want to give yourself enough buffer, support (financial, mental, emotional), at least 1 possible backup plan for the inevitable rough patches. If you are considering a change, do know it’s quite difficult to start over but it helps to know why you want to do it.
Finance    When it comes to personal finance, it’s important to have a positive mindset. With a little bit of effort, anyone can be financially literate. Ignoring your finances or assuming you aren’t the kind of person who can be financially responsible is only going to lead to more problems. If you have no idea where to start or what to do, here’s a quick guide.

Know your “worth.” Take time to understand your expenses. Be aware of every transaction you make and all the places that you have money. Having a spreadsheet or using a financial planning application are easy ways to look at all of your money in one place. Use all the tools at your disposal.
Now that you have sorted your finances, plan out a budget. Where do you spend the most money? What could you cut down on? An easy rule of thumb is the 50/20/30 rule. 50% of your net income (or less!) should go to essentials (groceries and rent), 20% should go into paying off loans and savings, and 30% can go into miscellaneous spending (eating out and shopping).

Once you have the first two items in order, you can look into investing. Start looking into retirement options, if your company does 401k match, add just enough to utilize it. Max out your HSA and RothIRA, before any personal brokerage. If you have loans/debts, find a manageable rate that you can afford to pay. Paying these off should be your highest priority before retirement contributions. Make a mutual funds stock portfolio.

Lastly, pay your credit card bills and loan payments early. You can start building good credit now and thank me later.
Building a Personal Brand     Be you. When you start this adventure, ask yourself why? Why are you doing this? Is it worth a long term investment? Do you see yourself doing this as a career? Ask yourself what your goals for the first few months are, 1 year, 3 years, 5 years, and 10 years from now. Network and understand that it’s all about community and have the passion to do what you love to do.

Here are the simple steps: pick a concept; coming up with a brand either personal or professional. it has to have SWOT analysis, personality and ways how to monetize it. You can create a brand a monetize it but only if you want to do it for yourself and think through every details ahead of time. What’s important to remember is the core value of your brand. Personal branding and business branding is no different at all. It’s the story behind YOU and who you are and who you want to become and how you set your brand differently.
Stress Management & Burnout Prevention    Burn-out can affect morale and decrease productivity in the workplace. Burnout can happen due to prolonged periods of stress and uncontrollable variables. In this hustle culture, our society practices overcommitment and are experiencing signs of burn-out at a much younger age. When experiencing this burnout, you may feel that you are losing yourself or feel the need to break down. You can’t avoid the responsibilities, but you also don’t have to do it in a stressful manner. In order to reconfigure the stressful process and prevent burn-out, you must first figure out the cause of you stress. For example, are you stressed because of the report you are working on, or is it the time constraint that comes with it because you chose to prioritize other activities until there is less time you could spend on working on your report? With this mindset, you are creating a lot of unnecessary stress on yourself. Let’s talk about some ways we can work through the burn out and even prevent long term stress.
Empathy    You can be a good leader by assigning tasks to your team members and meeting goals or you can be a great leader by delegating tasks while simultaneously supporting your team emotionally. Emotional intelligence is so important to have when leading a team since you need to understand how your team members process things and help them navigate through the obstacles to achieve their goals.
I have seen my share of leaders who take up space in the VSA community that do not possess both abilities: task delegation and emotional intelligence. When organizations go through challenging times, leaders depend on their team to help the organization come through strong. Empathy allows individuals in leadership roles and builds connections that leads to a better understanding of their team. This contributes to creating a positive work environment.
Conflict Resolution    Conflict in the workplace or any team setting can sometimes be hard to avoid. You can evaluate your own thoughts and feelings on the situation and listen to the other persons point of view. You may not have to agree but understanding where the other person coming from can help you navigate through the troubles more effectively. When you feel ready, you can talk to the other person but don’t forget to control your emotions before you come into the conversation.

In the conversation, you can identify the issue and state your needs. Then, you can give them a chance to talk and that you actively listen to them. Once you both voice how you feel, then you can move forward with some kind of resolution or compromise that you can both agree with. If you cannot solve this on your own, then you should bring in a nonbiased third party such as a manager or team lead to help resolve the situation.

Conflicts are hard because it requires having hard conversations but as long as you keep your emotions in check and keep an open mind, then resolving conflicts might just get a little easier.

 

Please select ONE topic for each session (1 and 2).

 

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