Reflections on my Leicester Award Journey

As the Leicester award for online networking that I am currently undertaking draws to a close, here is a video presentation of my reflections on my progress. 

Please have a listen, and excuse the poor audio!

Presenting faux-pas!

Today I took part in a Leicester Award (see previous posts) Webinar, aka virtual workshop and lecture, on the subject of 'How to best present'. It was particularly useful as it not only gave information on the structure of a presentation, the dynamics and the content, but also the use of visual aids.

This video shown in the Webinar particularly stuck a chord with me, especially after sitting through many Powerpoint presentations that made ALL of the errors mentioned during my school years. It made me think, similarly to social media, Powerpoint is something that has been there practically all of my schooling life, but rarely has it been used right (even by teachers!). The humour in this video, makes it even more memorable! Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpvgfmEU2Ck

Studying Abroad

As any linguist will tell you, studying in the country of the language that you're learning, makes the world of difference. So as part of my degree I am doing just that.
From September 2013 I will be studying at the Université d'Avignon, in the south of France and then in February I will move to Barcelona, to study at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona: UAB.
These are adventures that I am extremely excited about and I know that they will be a brilliant opportunity to not only improve my French and Spanish Language respectively, but also my independent organisational skills and my ability to adapt to new situations as they rise.

So feel free to take a look at my travel blog!

lucytraveldiary.blogspot.co.uk

Leicester Award for Employability: Online Networking

By undertaking the Leicester Award for Employability: Online Networking -my second Leicester award- I was hoping to understand more about how to best utilise social media and what should be posted online. I chose it mainly because I already used many social media sites and with my study abroad period coming up, I knew I'd be using them a lot more and I wanted to be able to best use them to my advantage.

The first step on the award, researching myself on the internet, instantly highlighted the importance of security to me. Although on the whole I did not appear many times in the search result, it made me aware of how public my profiles are. Therefore I changed privacy details and edited what I wanted to be made readily available. I have now developed my awareness of internet privacy and how profiles can also be found via images and videos, not just search results. Other peoples' experiences of this, as detailed in our online discussion groups, have only made me more conscious of the issue and how anything that you post on the internet could be made accessible. 

However, on the flip side, I have learnt about how it is still necessary to have profiles on social networking sites in order to create an Online Digital Footprint for oneself. For example, I did not realise that employers can be wary of people that are not part of any social media website or have incomplete profiles. This pushed me to update my LinkedIn and Google+ accounts so that potential employers have all of my current information and the sites portray an up to date reflection of who I am. Furthermore I have linked them up, via this blog so that my online 'brand' is accessible all in one place.

Another lesson that I have learnt is how to connect with employers and the ease of connecting with them through social media. Each platform is used for different reasons, be it to connect with others or to promote their product. Therefore I understand that each site has different etiquette that should to be adhered to and shouldn't be forgotten. For example if I wanted to contact an employer I would use a platform such as LinkedIn or Facebook, rather than twitter where I may not be able to express everything I want to say, with the correct grammar in 140 characters. 

Finally, I believe that I have been able to better my reflective writing style and blogging skills through taking part. As the content should reflect me I have worked hard on my writing style and in order to work on it more I will continue to blog any transferrable skills that I gain and soon I will start a blog to document my study abroad period as previously mentioned.

I think that I have learnt about what I originally thought I would, and now I am learning more. These are commercial awareness skills and networking knowledge that I will continue to employ in the future, to make sure that the content that I put online is both well thought out and accurately reflects me.

Three golden words: 'Good customer service'

Learning about the interview process and how to better present oneself throughout the first Leicester Award I completed (Experience employability) helped me to grasp an understanding on how the job interview process works (having only had more informal interviews up until that point). This enabled me to better prepare myself; researching the company I was applying to, researching potential questions and planning answers, as well as taking care of my appearance to give a good first impression, all of which resulted in a good interview and then receiving a job offer to work as a sales assistant, at Tommy Hilfiger. 

However the real skill I was hoping to practice further, through working in a retail environment, was my customer service skills and as an added bonus, improve my interpersonal skills. 

Recently I had a situation in which to give good customer service was a challenge. A lady that had wanted to try on several dresses, had a fitting room curtain pole fall down on her. On top of this she had a difficult outfit to find on a very busy, hot day and when she came to pay, the till stopped working. 
Despite all of this I remained cool and calm, and took each issue as it came- as well as making light of an unusual situation and having a laugh! Firstly I put discarded the pole and instead engaged the lady in conversation by asking about the occasion for which she was buying the outfit (unusually she needed to find the ugliest dress for a bizarre hen night- the incident only got more and more strange...). By communicating effectively, I was able to find out the issue she was having and then use my knowledge of the store to give her quicker answers. Also dealing with each problem in order, meant that neither her nor I became too overwhelmed. I was able to build a mini rapport with the customer, which led her to also buying another item. Furthermore it meant that when there were problems at the till point I could continue the light and slightly humorous conversation, so that she still left the store in a positive disposition and therefore more likely to shop there again.  

I felt that I was able to further my ability to provide good customer service in difficult circumstances. There is always a way to help a customer and make a positive impression even if it is a bad situation. Overall this experience taught me how good customer relations and service can keep a customer happy against all the odds. Now I make sure that I know what each customer is looking for or if they are not searching for anything in particular, I let them know that I am here to help. 

I believe that by continually working on my customer service skills I am also bettering my interpersonal skills. This in turn has given a boost to my own confidence and I know that it is now a skill that I can call upon in any part of my life. 

After doing a little research on the matter of Good Customer Service, I realise that I have learnt more through experiencing it first hand rather than learning through reading or talking about it in training. This has highlighted how useful reflection has been.
However this website has some good concise points that consolidate what I now put into action on a daily basis. 

http://marketing.about.com/od/relationshipmarketing/a/crmtopten.htm

Therefore I feel that over the course of working at Tommy Hilfiger, training on the job, but more importantly taking action in real life situations, have both allowed me to build upon and refine the foundation that I already had. 

University of Leicester Student Awards

Recently I attended the university's annual student award event, that gives recognition to both individual students and student led societies that have been successful or had achievements over the course of the academic year. I attended due to the fact that the Modern Languages society had been nominated for Academic society of the year.
Being part of the committee as a social secretary has been both rewarding and good fun, which is in part, the reason for the success that we have had this year. I primarily chose to become part of this committee in order to try my hand at organising events in a society of which I already enjoyed being a part of. Furthermore I knew that it would be an ideal chance to enhance my team working skills.  I have worked alongside like-minded hard-working committee members and under the leadership of a dedicated president. Our common goal was to create enjoyable academic and social events for our members, in particular a formal Summer Ball, so that we could be nominated for a Society award.

In order to achieve this goal we each worked on projects or certain aspects of an event independently to utilise our time well. However we also came together to work as a team, offering a wide variety of knowledge and mutual support to each other. For example when we planned the Summer Ball together, we each had certain tasks to organise and then we would report back to the committee to make a final decision. I researched venues, pricing and menus, collecting together a selection of possibilities to put to the committee vote. This meant that everyone was involved and it was voted on fairly. We also worked together on table decorations, selling tickets and preparing the venue on the day. Working in a team did not mean that there was always somebody to rely upon should somebody not be pulling their weight, but rather that everything ran more efficiently because everybody was ready to work together.

As well as being able to balance independent and team work, this developed my awareness of  balancing planning and organisation with flexibility; often certain things could not be planned for (such as numbers of people attending events or in the case of the Ball, last minute drop outs) and therefore I would have to be ready to adapt to the situation to ensure it still ran smoothly.

I believe I have since been able to call upon these honed team work sills in my part time job, as I now have a better knowledge of when independent work or supporting a colleague may be necessary. Being part of the UoL Modern Languages committee has been an experience that I have gained an awful lot from and I learnt that by enjoying what I was doing meant that I got a lot more out of it that if I didn't.

All of our work paid off as we won the award, the second time in the society's short 4 year history. I am proud to say that I was part of such a wonderful society.

(From left to right) Me, a publicity secretary, the president and the vice president with the award.

Leicester Award Workshop 2: Part 2

Networking:

  

A large part of our social lives, I hadn't really thought about it as a part of our professional lives.

The lecture that was given during the second Leicester Award for employability workshop, provided some useful insights into how to create your own personal 'brand', by using networking sites. The very first tip that I took away from the session was to Google yourself occasionally to check that there isn't any false or unwanted information about yourself on the internet, that could potentially harm your employability. It was emphasised that in today's accessible world, the majority of employers turn to social networking sites to determine the type of person an applicant might be, before interviewing them. Although not the best source of wisdom I certainly remember this being a storyline in sitcom How I Met Your Mother, which just goes to show how common place it has become.

The other useful thing that I got out of the lecture was how networking can be useful to you. There are many a story that details how people found their job simply by tweeting, but those are always a fluke occurrences. However it is true that these sites allow an applicant to interact and ask questions with an employer, make themselves known and promote themselves outside of an interview environment.

Finally, it was suggested to revise the sorts of things that you post on the sites mentioned here. This might mean making your posts a little bit more PG and less 18+, but also making it more interesting to those who come into contact with it. In a survey shown to us, it was said that tweets that have thought provoking ideas, or random questions that might be in the news or that people can relate to are more interesting than an update of daily life, i.e 'Going to Nando's'. Yet once again a balance needs to be struck, between making yourself sound like an intelligent soul, but also one that has a life and interests.

Here's that How I met your mother clip!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bkO2mHwNSn4

Leicester Award Workshop 2: Part 1

The second Leicester Award for employability workshop focused heavily on the job application process and the interview technique, which I personally benefited from immensely.

Firstly I learnt about the fact that nearly all graduate schemes hold interview days or workshop days in order to meet the group of applicants face to face and to see who works well. From the employer presentations, such as Enterprise Rent-a-car,  I found out that small things count, such as body language, introductions and punctuality, and can go a long way. Furthermore you do not want to be known or remembered for the wrong things such as being too pushy or loud; it is hard to strike a balance. 

The majority of the afternoon was dedicated to speed interviews, which proved very useful as well. We were paired up and told to move around the room from station to station. The first station would be a prep station where you prepare your answers to set questions that they may or may not ask at the next station where there would be an interviewer, and then you continuously move from prep stations to interview stations to prep stations etc. I found the prep stations challenging as they often had questions that forced you to think. For example I had this asked of me:

"Describe a time when you failed at something and give the reasons why." 

Now on the surface this looked difficult as it is extremely negative and not something you'd particularly like to share with a potential employer. However if you look deeper, it is really a twist on the classic, most loathed question: What would you say are your weaknesses? I decided that I would give a short anecdote of a time I failed at completing an extra dissertation project (AQA extended project) as I actually went on to complete it a year later. This meant that I could demonstrate that I was dedicated at overcoming my weaknesses; turning a negative into a positive.

At the end of the session I received some feedback, from both my partner and the interviewers. It was noted that I often had good ideas, but needed to explain them further and just have the confidence to continue and promote myself. These are all things that I feel that I can work on easily and so the afternoon was very much a success!

Leicester Award Workshop 1

30/01/13

Any workshop in my opinion is a class where apart from learning more about whatever the subject may be, you are able to extend your interpersonal skills by working with others on a variety of projects in order to achieve the same common goal. For me, the first leicester award workshop, based around getting along in the job market, did just that. 

During the workshop, we were given the task of working in a team to complete a realistic challenge that a consultancy company might face. The task involved, as a consultancy company, finding a solution to building better relations between a large scale corporate race track and a nearby village, and then presenting a plan of the ideas to a panel of representatives from the racetrack so that they can choose which company’s plan they would like to implement. 

Initially the task was difficult due to the fact that I had never worked with my team before, and therefore we had to work out how the team was going to work together as we went along. I decided to take a leading role, by putting forward my first idea for the project in order to get the project off the ground. I suggested the idea of allowing the residents to voice their opinions at a meeting as a way of giving the residents a medium to pin point the exact problems they may have. This idea was well received and initiated a brainstorming session, in which I put forward other ideas. Shortly after we collectively decided on a 9 point action plan, that included economic actions, social actions and environmental action. Thus, I decided that splitting into three in order to work on each idea in more detail would be more time effective. This became one of the reasons towards our ultimate success, as we were able to create a more in depth plan that made it easier for us to not only present, but also to answer any queries that the panel had at the end. 

In smaller teams we prepared each aspect of the ideas and began to write a mini speech or a dialogue to explain them better. Then we came back together in the last 15 minutes of the challenge in order to collect our work side by side and make a powerpoint. It also meant that we had time to practice our presentation together. By having the last few minutes to do this, it meant that we were able to give reasonably well rounded, professional presentation, given the timeframe.  

Finally, although something new for me, I felt that by taking the lead in this task it was able to progress more efficiently. On a personal level it enabled me to try my hand at a different role in a group and I was able to get a lot more out of the workshop because of it. Now I believe that if I were to face a similar task to this at a selection day event, I would not have any qualms about performing in the same way as I did during this challenge. 

Mentoring: International Buddy Network and training day.

May 2012- Ongoing.

Late May 2012, I signed up to take part in the University of Leicester's International Buddy Network scheme as soon as it first came to my attention. In its basic form, it is a university run scheme to aid international students coming to Leicester to settle in and find their feet. This is done through allocating each new student that signs up, a mentor. The 'mentee' student can then meet up informally with their mentor, as and when it is felt necessary to chat or discuss any issues they may be having. As with any transition it is likely that the new student might have questions about university life and the culture in Britain, so ultimately the mentor is there to offer support and to help them find a solution.

In order to better equip us to do that, there was a training day to attend. The day, split in to different workshops, comprised of : Mentoring skills, Cultural and Diversity awareness, Signposting, Career skills and Specific training/details for the International Buddy Network itself.

The day taught us the general overview of becoming a mentor (i.e listening, keeping in contact, becoming a friend but not too close, professionalism.) but it also taught us us where we should direct mentees in order to fulfil different needs, (i.e finance, health etc) and made us aware of the transition that international students go through. 

During the day we acted out many role play situations. For example I, in the role of mentor, was given the task of responding to a mentee’s plea for help after suffering from insomnia for days. I then had to use the knowledge that I previously had and the knowledge that I had gained that day in order to respond a) in the correct manner and tone, and b) with the correct information. I decided that I would show compassion, yet I would not tackle this issue by myself. I would provide the mentee with information on healthcare at the university, advise them to speak to their personal tutor and finally potentially discuss some simple tips that I may have in the meantime. This exercise was both insightful and useful, an experience that will be useful to draw upon when the situation calls for it.

For me the day was useful in numerous ways, the first of which was the communication skills employed during each workshop. On many occasions it was necessary to work in teams to collect ideas together and this brought into play many interpersonal skills. Furthermore as the day ended with a small talk on careers and organising CVs and work experience. Although not a success the first time I created one, it did make me think about creating a blog for a short period of time. This last part of the day helped me to start focusing on my employability skills and gather together examples of these, almost a prelude to the Leicester Award I later undertook.

As a result of this day I contacted my mentees to make myself known to them and provide them with any information they might need. I have since found out from feedback that this has proved invaluable for all of my mentees, especially during the first few weeks. Additionally I feel that I have made many new contacts, with my mentees, which has been especially useful as I have also had the opportunity to practice my language skills with them.

UoL Modern Languages Society

A University of Leicester Modern Language Society Film event and committee meeting.
November 2012

At the end of the last academic year I was elected by my peers on to the University of Leicester Modern Languages Society committee as a Social Secretary. I applied as I wanted to make a difference within a society that I was already part of and had a passion for. After adjusting to the role and its pressures, I feel that it has become a very worthwhile part of my experience at university and it has provided me with. 

The role, as it suggests, involves mainly creating and overseeing events for this academic society, as well as supporting the society in other aspects and helping it to grow and mature. Therefore in the first semester of year 2, I took on the task to create an event with the aim to have it centre around our academic field.

 At first this proved difficult as the university department already provides many resources and puts on events outside of classes, such as debates or talks. Due to this, I had to come up with a fresh idea that would fit into the academic category and yet also still attract students to take time out of their busy schedule to go along. The idea that I came up with was to hold a foreign film evening, with food.

The first obstacle was the venue. In order to make the event more appealing to members, it needed to grab people’s attention and the way that I went about this was to add the added incentive of a meal as well as the film. This meant that the film viewing had to be at a suitable venue, either with kitchen facilities or nearby to them. After some research the best venue seemed to be the local arts cinema, The phoenix arts centre. http://phoenix.org.uk/

As it is a cinema purpose built for world films, and art exhibitions, complete with a cafe/restaurant, it ticked all of the boxes. Furthermore the organisation was a start up business that was looking to make more connections with the university of Leicester. 

In order to make the event a success, I met with both the manager and the restaurant manager to discuss the film options, food options and discounted tickets and drinks. As the society is funded by the students’ union to conduct academic events such as this, I was able to make the decision to discount the tickets even further for our members as the society could pay for the difference. Finally the event was publicised through word of mouth, social media, posters and the students’ union. 

At certain points in the process of setting up this event and afterwards I presented my research and results to the committee. This was invaluable as it aided the progression of the organisation and also provided time to brainstorm with other members, to get feedback and new perspectives. Furthermore it aided with my time management, as each week leading up to the event I would organise a different part of the event.

Ultimately, the result was a successful evening for all. Over 30 students from all years came to the event to watch the french film De rouille et d’os, (Rust and Bone) and enjoyed a meal. I feel that organising this event broadened my mind, as I networked and made contacts at the phoenix centre, I learnt about professionalism when meeting to discuss the event and it built my confidence, showing that I was capable of organising a sucessful event such as this. There have already been plans to create an event similar to this, building on its success.