College Activities to Build Skills for Your Career!
March 31, 2017
Making the transition from college to starting your career can be an exciting yet stressful time for fresh graduates, depending on their planning, chosen field, and a whole lot of factors beyond one’s control. In a market where a bachelor’s degree is considered the minimum requirement to get a job, smart college students develop relevant skill sets to discrete them from the pack and help them stand out.
Here are five activities you can get involved in college that will help you develop valuable skills to lift your resume and improve your post-graduation job prospects.
- Join career path-related societies– If you have a well-planned future career or clear idea of what you would like to do after you graduate, join a related society on campus. For example, if you want to be a paramedic, you could get involved with the campus emergency services while in college. Apart from learning and application of some of the real skills, you’ll also develop valuable contacts and networks that may serve you well later. There are societies or organizations in most universities covering the major areas of study, for example law societies, engineering societies etc.
- Attend campus talks and networking events– Talks organized by student societies or academic departments are great places to interact and blend in with your peers, professors, and outsiders who attend. Get on the email lists of any department or society you are interested in to see what events are coming up.
- Get involved in student administration– This could be associated to the particular organization relevant to your degree or to student life at your college in general. Skills you can develop here include leadership, project and event management, and networking. If you have leadership or management aspirations, this is a good way to kick start.
- Check out local meet-ups – Getting involved in activities off-campus is a great way to expand your network beyond your circle of peers and classmates. Meet ups relevant to your area of interest and degree would give an objective understanding and perspective of the job market. The main skill you’ll be developing at meet-ups is networking, though depending on the meet-up you choose to go to, you could be learning skills and put your oar in a wide variety of activities.
- Give back with community work – Giving back to the community adds great value to a resume, and getting involved with a cause that you personally feel about, gives you something to talk passionately about in an interview. It will not only help you learn career skills but also let you polish your human skills like interpersonal communication, empathy and teamwork.
The collective theme that follows in all of these activities is networking. If you identify an area of interest or activity you are enthusiastic about, the best thing to do is to get involved and develop a network. Analyzing today’s job market, job hunt success is reliant on who you know, what you know, and the commitment you have towards sustained learning and development of new skills.
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Don't Be AFRAID!
October 13, 2016
Have the Courage to Follow Your Dreams
Successfully landing a job constitutes three main ingredients: skills (qualification and what students actually learned through their life experiences and academia), positive attitude which is very essential for students while looking for a job, and the most important ingredient for you is your motivation (how motivated you are when you have to appear for the interview and how you convinced the employer that you could be the best resource for their company).
Important thing for students is that there are some open-minded employers out there who look beyond academic transcripts and grades. For Employers if someone is motivated to learn and have the right attitude then they are willing to give them a better opportunity through which can further polish yourself for achieving your career goals. There are many employers who will take a chance on someone who may not have exactly what the company is looking for but the employer believes that candidate will pick things quickly and learn the important tasks of the job. You have to show that how willing and motivated you are when you meet or speak the employer for the first time.
Many of us are familiar with this phrase: “First you get your license; and then you learn how to drive”. This concept can be understood well in the world of recruitment and career development. Under supervision of someone who has more experience you can pick the basic skills which can help you to polish yourself in a better way but it is only possible through practice of many hours for doing it yourself that you become more confident and competent for the job. You should not be afraid for applying to any position that might at first glance appear to be slightly out of reach. With some close supervision someone (employer) might still be willing to give you your license (job) and with right attitude, motivation and skills you can achieve your career success.
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Developing Career Resilience and Adaptability
September 05, 2016
“When defeat comes, accept it as a signal that your plans are not sound, rebuild those plans, and set sail once more towards your coveted goal.” ― Napoleon Hill
Everyone wants to develop clear career goals that can be beneficial for them at every stage of their career, but rarely career goals are accomplished in a way as they were imagined or planned. People continue to plan and analyze their career goals but they couldn’t predict those unexpected developments which can bring unforeseen changes in their career.
One has to understand that such developments are driven by processes within you, such as Fortuitous opportunity (Shock), External events which you did not expect or plan and changing personal needs. So, it is a wise decision to always expect the unexpected developments to occur in your career at any point of time. Therefore, it is very important to build resilience and adaptability in your career.
In terms of career, resilience is the capacity for making progress towards your existing career goals from the previous resources and strategies which you have developed. The motto of resilience is: TO KEEP CALM AND GO ON. On the other hand, Adaptability involves reformulating your goals and strategies to change your plans to overcome with the previous types of shocks and more aligned with the new work environment.
Major focus should be towards evaluating, how you can build your capacity to predict and respond to career shocks so that you are more resilient to face the unexpected events in your career and more able to change your career goals and strategies to adapt new environments when it is necessary for you.
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Importance of Emails
August 13, 2016
In this era of technology, a number of new modes of communication are available to human being. Every passing day, a new application or communication website is launched to make socializing faster and easier. Despite the fact, nothing could possibly so far replace the importance and authentication of an ‘Email’.
The point to ponder is the significance of reading and answering these emails by the individuals. According to a research more than 3 million emails are delivered every minute across the globe.It is of great important for individuals to read and respond to emails regularly, as they generally transmit the information; not to be missed.
Various institutions, companies, and social website use emails for delivering legitimate information to their clients and other users. Particularly within an institute, very systematically; a number of important emails are delivered by management of Library, accounts, career services, academics, security, discipline and a lot more to their concerned public
A useful tip to catch important emails is checking out the subject-line of the emails. In this way, more concerned information is gathered in less time. Moreover, a regular response to official emails makes it easy for an organization to figure out the public response to their message being conveyed.Concluding to this, make it your habit to checkout & respond to your emails exactly the way you checkout your Facebook daily.
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Your Work in YOU!
June 28, 2016
Human beings are born with the craving of change. Sometimes, this craving forces people to switch their jobs, surrounding and even country. But, it is a fact that we all are meant to stop at some point in our career to learn, work and earn. You may get exactly into you’re desired job, but at times apathy will strike you hard and make it hard for you to reach the same office, for the same job, five days a week.The question now arises is, How to keep yourself connected to your work?
There are a number of tips that can help you out to deal with this dilemma. The very first step towards the solution is-finding a solution itself!Realizing that you are bothered by something at your work place and there is no way out of it is probably the worst mistake ever. Never think this way. Rather, simply figure out the things that are bothering you, make ways out of them that makes them interesting for you.
Try to list down your tasks for whole week, divide them over alternative working days to avoid boredom, but make sure to turn down the side of your ‘to do list’; literally it creates less panic. During your office hours, take out some time, entertain yourself. Take a short break; talk to your colleagues,play a short game, use social media, and serve yourself with a fresh juice or a chocolate. This will help you to recharge your energy for the remaining working hours of the day.
The cure of boredom is curiosity. Stay hungry for learning-stay creative! Challenge yourself for; learning new things daily, accomplishing your targets and serve yourself at the end with a worthy reward. It actually nourishes your skills and participation at your organization. Eventually, you will stay connected to your workplace.
