My Favourite Things

Since we have a free topic this week I thought I would indulge everyone a little in the life of ME :)

*these are in no particular order - aside from the order they popped into my mind*

1. Cloudless days

2. Eating half-ripe peaches

3. Eating ricecakes with overripe bananas and strawberry applesauce- no comments allowed until you have tried one prepared by yours truly :)

4. Seinfeld

5. Gilmore Girls

6. The color green

7. My nose stud

8. Getting dressed up

9. The smell of cinnamon

10. My roommate, Juliana

11. Making (and eating) my own Hummus

12. Running in the rain

13. Laughing til it hurts

14. Whole Food grocery market

15. Watching people sneeze

16. Finishing a run

17. Wishing upon a shooting star

18. Sitting by a fire with friends

19. Sunbathing

20. Watching "the light bulb go off" when a child learns something

The D.L. on the C.L.

Overall, I found the readings to be helpful and I more or less agreed with the advice offered. While the concept of having a cover letter is not particularly novel to me, I would be lying if I said I did not learn a few new nuggets of knowledge concerning them.

Here is a run-down of the new things I learned:

• An employer looks at the cover letter AFTER the resume ~ Not totally sure I believe this. It is possible but the article made it seem like an absolute. Also, I fear it downplays the significance of having a good, strong cover letter if you go into it thinking it is merely going to be an "after-thought" to your potential employer

• The resume is the place to highlight me; the cover letter should focus on the company and how I can specifically meet their needs ~ Seems to be a logical point

• Mass e-mailing/posting is pointless; unsolicited people do not really stand a chance - the best they can hope for is to be filed away (not thrown away) and miraculously resurrected at a [much] later date ~ I think this came across as way too strong, absolute, and pessimisstic to be considered accurately valid. While it does help to know someone at the company, I do not believe I am destined to fail at any & all attempts of being recognized by an employed human being if I send out my resume to several businesses via the internet...

• Take time to investigate the employer and his/her business - why should they invest time in trying to get to know me if I have invested no time in trying to get to know them? I really liked this point! It was not an angle that I had previously viewed the situation from but it makes complete sense!

• A successful resume should specifically and personally address (1) What the product [me] can do for the customer [prospective employer] and (2) What the customer [prospective employer] needs to do to buy product [me] ~ Not being a business major, I had never really looked at the situation from this "marketing" stance before but I think it is a really neat way to do so and will help me keep my focus as I think about what kinds of things to include in my cover letter

• The "Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grease" is alive and well in the workplace ~ While I can specualte as to the article's motivation behind making a statement such as this, I am not so sure I agree with it. I believe that it is important to "stand up in order to stand out" [so to speak] but I also know that there is a fine line between ensuring you are recognized and just being way too presumptuous and forward. If you achieve the latter while attempting the former, you will most likely not get the job. It is also important to consider the personality and atmosphere of your prospective employer - a "squeaky wheel" attitude may be valued by some and abhorred by others. In job seeking situations, it is not very often that you know enough about personality or atmoshpere to take this risk...

Taking all the articles into consideration, I would say the most helpful/useful section was defintely the Sample Cover Letter one because it is one thing to read about all the "how-to's" but it is another to actually arrive at a product that utilizes all the information you just gathered. Seeing an example helps make the final product seem less scary and more tangible!

Learning a Few Tricks of the Trade

After reading several of the articles from the blog prompt link, I decided that the two I found to be most helpful were "Worst-Case Scenario Survival Tactics for Job Seekers" and "An Interview Strategy: Telling Stories".

The issues raised in the "Worst-Case" article were particularly helpful because they were the kinds of issues that are not your "typically addressed" issues when it comes to formal interviews, yet they are the ones that can really make or break it for you.

Not to mention, I have been unexpectedly late to an interview as well as been called the wrong name and I would be hard-pressed to believe you if you told me I would never again encounter one or both of those faux pas at some point down the line in my professional career. I know myself well enough to know that the odds are not in my favor in that respect so I am very glad that I now have some ammunition (i.e. this article) to combat these very delicate interview situations.

Whatsmore, It is very awkward to be called the wrong name on numerous occassions by an entire board of people, hence, I found it comforting to read this section of the article because it reminded me that the interviewers are human just like me. They are prone to mistakes just like me. That doesn't mean they should not be respected (they absolutely should!) - but it also means that I need not be afraid of them or feel so intimidated by them that I don't have the courage to stand up for myself.

As far as the other article is concerned, it covered an issue I already knew about, but none the less served as an awesome refresher. For example, it is so very easy to forget the real purpose of an interview. They really are not suppose to be interrogations -if they were they would be called interrogations and not interviews!

This article put the emphasis on answering questions via short narrations versus stiff, rehearsed cookie-cutter answers - and rightly so!

Even though it sounds like it might be alot of work to prepare "short stories" about yourself, I definitely see where the article is coming from. By formulating stories, you are able to paint a fuller picture of yourself than can be generated on a paper resume or through cliche question answering. These stories will, in turn, be more memorable and help you to stand out from the rest of the applicants.

A clear win-win!

In His Hands

When I first saw the blog topic for this week, the gears in my brain immediately started churning out hopes, dreams, aspirations, and the like. As a matter of fact, within a five-minute brainstorm session, I had almost entirely mentally constructed what I envisioned the status of my job, habitation location, house, car, (significant other?), hair, clothes, friends, and family to be ten years from now.

As fun as this was, I had to stop myself.

"Why?" you might ask.

Well, I am going to put myself out there a little bit (hopefully not in an inappropriate way) and be humbly honest.

I am a planner- Type A personality would be an understatement. There are definitely days when it makes me gutt-wrenchingly nervous to think about dealing with things I have no control over. In case you hadn't already guessed - my future falls into that "no control" category.

I know myself well enough to know that, in an attempt to cope with this anxiety, I often convince myself that I can in fact control circumstances that I cannot. The mind is a powerful thing let me tell you. Sometimes it works - like during that 5 minute brainstorm "future extraveganza" I mentioned at the beginning - and other times I don't even bother.

ok end of background introduction -here's what I was leading up to:

I am a fairly new Christian (I just began my walk with the Lord last summer), and, as such, I never before understood the notion that really I have no need to worry about my future. Part of the journey of walking with the Lord is learning to trust Him completely and ultimately to surrender and lay everything down at His feet in full confidence that He will take care of and provide for me.

In one way knowing that if I surrender my future to the Lord [admitting that I have no real control over it because ultimately His will will prevail and I will be most happy when I am on His path] I need not stress about what will or won't happen, where I will end up, or who I will be with is a HUGE relief; on the other hand, I am WAY scared to let go.

This sounds crazy because I know that God loves me and that He is the one who knows what is best for me (even though I like to think I do...) but it is very hard to change your thought process after 20 years, let me tell you!

In light of this, I have been making a concerted effort to trust in the Lord more. I still definitely have plans and goals but I am learning to not hold on to them with the death grip that I have been. Although I feel like the Lord has laid it on my heart to go to grad school next fall and pursue a Masters in Mental Health Counseling, I have been praying that I remain open and willing to His plan for me.

I hope this doesn't sound like a cop-out for this assignment, I promise you I meant it in no such way. I just know that making plans and mapping out my life to a "T" is something that creates a stubborn hurdle for me in my walk with the Lord and I am trying to put more trust in Him.

Ms Rogers, please let me know if I need to re-do this blog if it is in any way inadequate.