Self-less selfies

Spotlight blog post
The phenomenon of taking a picture of oneself to post on social media has been part of internet 'life' for a long time now, whether we are advocates of it or not. Yet recently any adversity that I may have had towards this vain practice has been changed into wonder at the sheer amount of publicity the the #nomakeupselfie campaign has managed to create. Enjoying a kind of passive snowball effect, the campaign left to its own devices has led to over well over '£2 million being raised in the space of a few days' according to BBC News.

This has struck me as a very clever campaign. It has taken something that half the population loves and half the population loathes and let it spiral, even bad publicity and selfies that miss the point of donating to the campaign have only added to its success. The nomination aspect of it has meant that people have felt obliged to continue the trend, but furthermore it has overshadowed the previously horrible nomination trend to drink too much and made the nomination idea have a much more positive impact.

Personally, I hope this trend does continue to have success, but moreover I hope that charities are able to continue to find other equally innovative ways to motivate the general public to donate. I look forward to seeing how this idea progresses.

Source:
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-26683817

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. 

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.