R E F L E C T I O N .

Mentees,

Using reflection in the e-Portfolio is important because it is another opportunity for us to speak about what we learned in life, and why that is relative and important to our future.

Our understanding of reflection: when we take time to examine what have done in the past (college experience...life experience...). Andres and I have talked about the difference between this and description because the latter is less personal and carries less weight.

Mentees: If you were to reflect on this blogging experience, what positive positive things would you say? How could it have been better..or worse..? What advise could you lend to your posterity (the future mentees)?

Your Capstone Mentors,
Rich and Andres

Interviewing anonymous

Interviews tend to be very standard. The reason for these scripted almost autonomous processes is the amount of interviews that companies go through. After a while the standard questions can seem to get a series of cliched responses from prospecting hirees. The standard questions vary but are never too far from:

Tell me about yourself.

Why should we hire you?

What are your goals? How will the company benefit you?

how has your education prepared you for the job?

Whats your weakness?

etc...

These are all questions to measure your ability to be brief precise and articulate. Good social skills to have in a hustle and bustle professional environment.

Non standard question seek to individualize you as a person rather than a possible employee:

How long have you been job hunting?

How did you prepare for this interview.?

What kinds of people do you have difficulty working with?

Why do you want this job?

When have you been most satisfied with your career?

etc...

These questions are often testy and are a sort of prying, opening-a-can-of-worms questions that will try and catch you off guard but show good character.

Your interview process will also include either a phone or a panel instead of one on one. Phone is a little more impersonal so make sure you project your voice well and are brief, theres a reason that you're not being brought in. On panel interviews though, theres the issue of having people all giving you attention. These are reserved for special managerial roles that require calmness and collectivity. Make sure you make eye contact with all people interviewing you even if they do not address you, not only cordial, but you never know who's decision will hinge their decision.

Now, let's talk about money. The reason why we work!

Do what you love and you wont have to work a day in your life. Unfortunately for many of us, we cant wakeup late with a hangover and eat cereal at 2PM and get paid for it. So working and money goes hand in hand. We want to get paid good so we want to ask, "so how much ya payin'?" right out of the gate, Doesn't work that way. The key is to leave it to the end, never put it on a resume or write on an application, you don't want to seem eager, and you also do not want to settle. Money may be important to your job process but it should never be the sole reason.

THE INTERVIEW

I hope you all had a most fun and safe Halloween (always remember to brush and floss daily as that candy is rotting your teeth as I type)!

Andres and I found the mock interviews both interesting and helpful... What did you all think? Were you surprised by any of the questions, and did you find the alternative answers realistic and/or helpful?

The interviewing process can be brutal! However, preparation is key.
Employers like to through questions out of left field -which may or may
not test your character. In today's society, where there is so much
interaction, social skills have become a integral part of the hiring
process; and to the misfortune of many, the screening process. See it's like
this': the workforce is complex and human resources is expensive.

As an education is increasingly readily available to more people as time
progresses, employers have a wider pool of prospective hires. They also have to figure out more and more categories from which to draw exemptions (this is where the background, credit checks, and the research done through social networks in the guise of 'maintaining a uniform image of the corporation'.

MY BEST ADVISE: before you interview, make sure you're "interviewable" (a social, outgoing and execeptional member of your community.

The Philosophy of Professionalism

Hello mentees!!

Philosophy and a professional life seem contradictory. But they both dwell well in the real of the love for something. To love something its important to understand it. We both look at what we want to do and feel passionate about.

BELIEVE in what you’re doing is my personal philosophy is concerning my professional life. If you’re a salesman and you don’t believe the product you are selling is not good, then you’re not going to have as much luck selling the product. When you believe in what you do, and you know why, the JOB and its processes tend to be more successful.

Also, breaking down the tasks and responsibilities of the job in order of priority, and having realistic goals makes this philosophy interdisciplinary. Having perspective in all areas of your life in general, and knowing how they interconnect and benefit each other makes it INTERDISCIPLINARY.

For Rich, career goals have changed in recent years mainly in regard to my perception and philosophy of work. Money is important, but MEANING and satisfaction take priority. In his future career, he knows he’ll have enough money to buy pretty much whatever he needs, but whether not he feels like he's making a difference in the job is going to be the challenging part. It only took him about 24 years to come up with this philosophy!

For Andres, he's gone through a series of changes. He's wanted to do movies, accounting, finance, engineering and has settled for marketing after dwelling into advertisement. Its a proces of doing what feels right. Some may say he's indecisive but but he's consistent in his endeavors to make sure he's not stuck doing something boring or unethical for the rest of his life.

Let's Talk Cover Letters & Resume!

Rich said:

As interdisciplinary students, it is important for our resumes to highlight our interdisciplinaity. For example: my resume lists previous jobs (salesman, clerk, hospital worker, customer service) and those job duties in a way that showcases my interdisciplinarity. A cover letter is no exception. In fact, the cover letter serves as an opportunity to explain how and why we are interdisciplinary people that are the best candidates for the job!

Fortunately, upon being laid off, I was offered free resume and job interview courses at Right Management in Maitland. There, I was instructed to hand over my current resume, and from there I was offered suggestions on what to change on the resume.

I also learned these valuable tips: KEEP THE RESUME UNDER ONE PAGE! DO NOT WRITE “REFRENCES AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST” because that’s a given, DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR AGE, etc.

Mentees: I suggest you take advantage of CAREER SERVICES because they will help with a resume. After all, your tuition is covering these services, so you should take advantage of them!


Andres said:

Hi Mentees!

We are in a stepping stone on our lives! The next step after or even
during college is a career. Or at least a job. A resume is an
essential tool to the development of you as a worker bee in todays
high demand society. Your unique advantage is your
interdisciplinarity. Mention your areas of study,make yourself as
multi-talented as possible. A tour de force, renaissance man or woman.
Cover letters are really an optional thing to me. However they are
particularly necessary if this is a follow up to a preliminary
meeting. Its a way to address the interviewer, a quick sincere preview
of what you're about, and most importantly, building rapport with the
hirer.

resumes are a scary word to many, who would have a problem 'selling
yourself' be it from wanting remain humble or not feeling confident
enough. This is why its important to have good resume building skills.
David Silverman over at Harvard business has a blog highlighting
important aspects of a resume. visit here:

http://blogs.harvardbusiness.org/silverman/

So, what do you do?

Mentees, Rich and Andres have taken the time to talk about our individual course as students/bachelors. We both have had a series of jobs that differ in the skill set necessary to execute within them. We have have also discussed what we have found out about ourselves as individuals in our roles as working students through out our lives as young adults. After you read letus know how similar your career paths have taken you. Let us know!

Rich says: I have used interdisciplinary skills in my professional life by incorporating what I’ve learned in college and other experiences into my former jobs and projects.

I have been working since the age of 15 when I was legally allowed to have a job. I began as bagging groceries at Winn Dixie, and then moved onto bussing tables at a five star gourmet restaurant called the Black Pearl in Vero Beach. After that, I worked for Samsonite (luggage company) and became the assistant manager until I graduated High School.

As I started college, I wanted a job that was more relevant to my studies, and I landed a job as a dispatcher at Indian River Hospital. Then, I graduated from community college, and moved to Orlando to attend UCF!

Upon moving, I landed a new job at AutoTrader.com, and later became a Supervisor of customer service for the website. I really enjoyed the job, even though it was difficult to work there full time and attend school. Ironically, it was announced that Auto Trader was really feeling the impact of the recession and our office was completely shut down. Now I don’t have a job for the first time in 9 years…

I hope my work history didn’t put you to sleep…

Next, I would like to talk about my strongest and weakest job skills: my strongest are reasoning with people, and that is why customer service suited me. My weakest skill is organization because I’m more of right-brained person. I also tend to plan how I’m going to attempt to organize things and/ or work on projects and assignments. Can you relate?

Understanding the way I tend to operate (know thyself!) is, I believe, the key to improving and developing my skills. Dan Pink’s book about positive side affects of using the right hemisphere of your brain has made me recognize how beneficial it is to always want to add a creative twist on things. What helpful things do you do to improve your weaker skills?

There are organizations and clubs that are useful to my career like the National Broadcasting Society (NBS), and the Future Business Leaders of America Club. Note: I am hoping to have a career in TV or Radio broadcasting sales.

Currently, I am interning at WMFE Public Radio in Orlando. It is monumentally to my professional development because I am actually experiencing work in the field, and have ruled out the jobs that don’t actually interest me. Not only am I gaining something good for my resume, I am learning some things that cannot be taught (understood in my case) in a classroom.

Andres says: Interdisciplinarity is not something I've had to think about. Its not like I stopped and said to myself, I'm applying three particular areas of my knowledge into one concise statement or event. I do however think before I speak. This is my communication and behavioral sciences working together to get my mind on track.

My professional history has not been very professional, Honestly I have not had much luck holding down jobs until I really had the need to for one. Before that, I've been a teachers assistant, shoe salesman, stock room employee, warehouse attendant, pharmaceutical representative, pizza delivery driver, server on two occasions, restaurant kitchen staff, bartender, valet server and other things that I did for a very small amount of time but never stuck. Point of this all is my professional history is far from that. But for the purpose of this blog I still share.

My set of skills differ from what I can do and what I refuse to do. I guess you can say that my pride and my ego are always first, I say this because they have cost me my job in a series of situations. But it also serves to display myself as someone who is strong of character, charismatic and willing to represent or defend a company. I guess I have higher standards for myself and I refuse to let myself be put down or degraded in any fashion. My "weakness" is anything but that... It is more like a sense of invulnerability that may get challenged from time to time but has yet to be defeated.

my chosen career is advertising and theres a club that used to be called 'quotes'. The club featured public speakers and open houses or presentations about the given field. It also talked about job fairs and career opportunities. But technically any club you join will yield a series of opportunities for you. Networking is an essential part of the college experience.

This all leads up to me being in college. I've seen a series of terrible jobs and I know that if I don't get a proper education I will be doomed to a life of mediocrity. I can't have that, I won't have that.

Critical Thinking!

Hello Mentees! Let's talk about critical thinking...

Andres said:
Critical thinking involves more like applying what it is that we have learned into our thought process. Interdisciplinarity involved the areas of study into one another creating a synergistic combination of information.
I unfortunately was not involved with the particular process of virtual philosopher but I can however relate to the fact that you don't really integrate your areas of knowledge purposely. It does overtime however, become second nature and you are able to properly and effectively utilize your knowledge in all areas.

Rich said:
I completely agree with Andres when he talked about critical thinking becoming second nature. Sometimes, however, you have to go with what doesn't come naturally (use deduction and logic instead of relying solely on intuition). Critical thinking relates to interdisciplinarity because it also involves steps or methodology to work well. To clarify, it is not enough for someone to simply say: “think critically. Are you all familiar with the virtual philosopher? If yes, what did you think? I personally haven’t had the opportunity to check it out.