In order to be
more successful when applying for placement year vacancies ERPD students were
required to do five tasks. These were- develop CV’s, write a Cover letter for
one of the organisations, do a psychometric test to better understand ones learning
and working habits, create a BrandME poster and attend a cv/cover letter review
appointment in Purple Doors. I would like to discuss these parts separately.
I developed my
CV last year when I was applying for part-time jobs in Portsmouth. Although I
thought that my CV was alright, after a meeting in Purple Doors I did a lot of minor
changes to it- changed layout, expended in more detail about my previous work
experience, added new ‘other skills’ section. In my case this was the easiest
part of this assignment.
After third ERPD
lecture I started to work on my cover letter. I followed guidelines and used
tips that lecturer told us about, for example- found small details about
company and wrote about them in my cover letter, discussed relevant skills that
I have gained in my previous jobs and tried to talk about my unique selling
points. Purple Door meeting was quite useful too, I had a chance to talk about
my cover letter in more depth with other people (peer mentor, staff assistant)
and hear their opinion and thoughts.
After all what
I mentioned before, I would like to say once more- review appointment was very
useful and I will book at least one more appointment to improve my cover letter
even more.
Most difficult part for me was BrandMe poster. I feel very
uncomfortable when talking about myself and I was not sure how to structure my
BrandMe presentation so I decided to do it a bit differently. I shared a story
about how I decided to study abroad and how it has been going so far. I talked
about my strengths/ weaknesses, past experiences, other people thoughts about
me, my biggest successes and failures. By doing this I did not have to talk
about myself directly, I talked about my past experience and what have I
learned from them. Furthermore, I saw this presentation as a job interviews imitation
and I think employers would appreciate different approaches and thinking ‘outside
of the box’.
Although I
enjoyed doing psychometric tests I did not find them very useful when writing
my CV, cover letter and BrandMe poster. But I gained some useful information. I
have always thought that my learning style is a bit chaotic and ineffective at
times, but while reading my test results I thought about ways to improve and
become better student in general.
After
completing these tasks I feel more comfortable/ confident when talking about
myself.
I have gained some insight on how employers look at CV’s/Cover
letter’s, I have received wonderful tips how to stand out when applying for a
job and how to leave good first impression without actually meeting your
employer. I believe that all this has prepared me for job hunting in the near
future.