How I did it and how you can do it too.

Following on from my last post of 2014 in which I spoke about the importance of putting in the work now to help with your future I have been actively looking for work experience placements and internships that will help me with my future career goals.

In order to fully maximise my chances of being successful in my search I decided to visit my university's careers service for some advice. If you are currently a student I highly recommend using your careers service, these people are paid to help us students find jobs and so you may as well take advantage of them while you can.

When I visited the office for some general career advice I spotted an advertisement for a social media internship, in partnership with my university,  with a charity that helps young people to create a more democratic environment in schools. As this role combines two of my main loves: Social media and Politics I knew that it would be perfect for me, I knew that the only problem was how I would effectively communicate my enthusiasm for the role.

During my meeting with my adviser, I said that I wanted to apply for this internship and she offered to help me sort out my CV and personal statement. So I booked another appointment for the following week and took with me my current CV. My adviser basically told me that I would have to completely rewrite my CV to fit in with the job role by showcasing the skills that they were specifically looking for in their person specification. 

I found this advice very insightful and so I looked through a few templates she showed me and thought of all of the examples of my skills that I could actually prove I had. So this involved a lot of thinking about how I could apply the skills I learnt from working at McDonald's and Primark and relate that to a social media position- which is as difficult as it sounds.

After a lot of drafts and editing I finally had both a CV and supporting statement that I was proud of and was so excited to hear that I had been offered an interview for the following week. So at this stage I knew there was only one hurdle between me and my dream job. So in order to prepare for me interview I revisited the careers office (I'm quite a regular there now) and also took out a few interview tips books from the library in order to feel as prepared as possible. 

The interview itself was not as scary as I thought it would be, I've never been interviewed by more than one person at a time before so it was quite daunting when I learnt that there would be two people interviewing me. I think the main two things that helped me to be offered the role was the fact that I took print outs of my most popular blog posts to let them understand more of who I am and also my writing style. I also asked questions that proved I had a genuine interest in the organisation after having researched their website.

All in all the main points that I have learnt from this experience and would like to share with you are:

1. If you are at university USE your careers service. If you aren't a student sites like Go Think Big offer tonnes of useful career advice.

2. When applying for a role, alter or rewrite your CV for each role  making sure that you highlight the key competencies or skills that are in the job description

3. Make sure that you quantify your skills or experiences as much as possible. My old CV said that 'I served customers quickly at McDonald's', whereas my new CV says that 'I managed time efficiently by completing orders within the 300 recommended seconds.

4. Research the company that you are applying for as much as you can in order to be able to fully explain why you would fit in. I would also recommend researching your interviewers too, if you are given their names. Knowing a little about my researchers definitely helped me. Doing such research can help you to ask insightful questions at the end of the interview

5. If you can, take proof of what is on your CV just so they know you are genuine and also that you care enough about the interview to go the extra mile.

6.Just be confident in your ability to do the role that you are applying for. Doing this helped me remain motivated when drafting my CV for the third time and also calmed me during the interview because I knew that I have the ability. If you don't believe in yourself nobody else will.

Do you have any failsafe interview/job hunting tips?
Let me know if you do, I could always do with more!

Who am I?

Identity is a concept I've been thinking a lot about recently.  I recently attended an event at my university's ACS (Afro-Caribbean society) where the topic of identity was brought up. One of the speakers as part of a 'provocation' stated that none of us (the audience) were British because our skin was not white.

Whilst this was a comment made purely to start a conversation, it definitely struck a chord with me. Personally I identify as being British first because this is where I was born and where everything I have ever known is. However, I also strongly identify as being black and I don't believe that the two are mutually exclusive.

I definitely think that identity is unique to individuals and that it is not up to anyone else to tell you who or what you are. A few weeks ago somebody told me that I wasn't 'black', instead he'd decided that I simply had brown skin as if I'd just been sat out in the sun for too long. It momentarily offended me that I obviously wasn't coming across as black enough, until I realised that the opinion of such an ignorant person was not relevant to me.

I know that I relate to parts of both British and black culture in a way that suits me. Though I am reminded that not everyone thinks the same way as me when I feel people staring at me, luckily this is not something I have experienced a lot of as I have lived in the very multicultural cities of Leicester and London.

I know that I am proud of my heritage and I love hearing my Grandma's stories about her childhood in Nevis before she boarded a ship to England aged 19, the same age as I am now. I know the sacrifices and hardships that both sets of my Grandparents went through to be accepted by the people of this country and I am forever grateful to them.