Hello everyone and welcome back to another blog post. recently in our careers class, we’ve been working on marketing ourselves, and this is something I want to share. What does “marketing you” mean? it’s basically just building a portfolio that represents you in a work capacity. So, we worked on resumes, cover letters, business cards, and even a mock interview. Throughout this post, I will be taking you on the journey of this project. I’ll be sharing the ups and downs of this project as well as what I enjoyed and what I didn’t enjoy.
To start off the entire project, we did some career tests. I feel like this was a really fun and educational way to start off the project because it helped us think about some jobs that we might like going forward. Me personally, I’d like to be in the entertainment industry or some sort of Engineering/design. By doing these quizzes, I was able to see other jobs that might fit me that I’d never thought of. A couple platforms told me I should be like, a clown, or a busker, which is kind of funny.
Next up, we chose our dream job and our realistic job. I thought that a dream job would be becoming an anesthesiologist, as it pays well and I’m inspired by the medical field. As a realistic career, I chose electrical/electrical and computer engineer, because I like to build things, and I’m confident in my math skills. I also looked at the average pay for both professions, plus the cost of university tuition to study them.
After doing this, we started working our resumes. I already had an existing resume but it definitely needed a little revamp. This part of the project let me do that. I spent a lot of time choosing a template that I thought would be able to fit all of my work experience in a format that I liked. I also wanted a template that I could customize to my liking. Eventually, I found a template that I was really happy with. I did two different versions of it. One with a head shot, and one without. I learned a lot about being able to write concisely and being able to sell myself. I’m already employed and plan on working this summer, but I now have an updated resume on deck:
Next, we worked on our business cards. I really like how the one I designed came out. I spent a lot of time picking out the right font, colour, writing, size, etc. In the end, I really liked this part of the project because we got to have an interactive feedback kinda thing. all the time, we were just consulting each other on what we liked better. “Do you think I should centre this, or leave it?” and the like. I made two:
Finally, we did mock job interviews. While I had already been to several real interviews in the past, this helped me learn how to be more prepared in the future. I tried to pick some classic, yet inspiring questions to try to get a thought provoking answer. To be honest, my interview is quite bad, and I know I could ave done a lot better, but I think social situations like interviews are one of my best strong suits. I’ve already done some in real life, and I was also more focused on the other parts of the project. I think that my questions are pretty good though.
So, that pretty much concludes the meat of this project. Mr Harris though, being the mysterious teacher he is, added in a little game at the end of this project. drum roll please….
…The Uber Game!
This was a game we played a couple rounds of to understand what work is like in the Gig Economy. the Gig Economy is one of the largest economies in the world, but it makes for very unstable work. During this sim, we learned the pros, cons, and difficulties of being an Uber driver.
Overall, this project was super fun and useful. Now, I have a professional resume and business cards. Along the way, I picked up some skills for interviews in the future. I also learned about the gig economy and learned that that is not something that I want to pursue in the future. Thank you for reading this reflection on my latest PGP project!
Thanks for reading gang,
-Declan