Learning How to Own My Interview

Picture of a laptop and pen and notepad
Picture via Pixabay.
What's your one-minute success story? This was the first question we had to ponder at the Career Centre's Own Your Interview workshop, and I had no idea what to say. In my defense, it was 10 am, and I was incredibly sleep deprived. It was certainly a wake up call that I was NOT prepared to own my interview any time soon.

Planning for Uncertainty

A picture of different ice cream flavours: strawberry, mango, bubble gum, cotton candy
I didn't plan to have ice cream today. But sometimes uncertainty can be a good thing.
When I signed up for the Career Centre’s Planning Your Career workshop, I was ready to plan. And planning I did. I plotted out my career goals for the next three years with the help of a nifty linear diagram. My plan even had a pretty good end goal: landing my dream job after university. This was all fine and dandy (I’ve been making colourful five year plans for the past ten years), until I remembered an underlying theme of the Planning Your Career workshop: it’s almost impossible to see the end goal of your career, since a lot of jobs are found through chance. In other words, plans are a good way to explore your career options and help develop your goals, but they don’t factor in all the unpredictable elements that go along with actually landing a job.

Navigating My Skills with Navigating the Workplace

A picture of steps leading to a door When I signed up for Navigating the Workplace, a workshop offered by the Career Centre, I didn’t know what to expect. This was the first Career Centre event I had ever attended, and the event description only vaguely spoke about building goals, understanding workplace expectations, and learning effective communication skills. However, at the end of the event, I gained insight into how to effectively communicate my qualities, and about the different ways to approach career exploration.