Getting the Most from Career Events
Hopes, Fears, and Your Call to Adventure
That moment you begin to consider a change, taking a chance, thinking about committing to an action in your career development. Is there a moment of pause in you, doubt, hesitation. The thoughts of can I, am I able, do I belong, will I not succeed again, is it worth trying? That uncertain space between thought, feeling, and action. These are the stories you are telling yourself. Do you feel your StoryPower is limited? Let's approach this together.
Some job seekers are becoming over reliant on the oracle of AI to tell them what to do, how to apply, and fundamental career management skills are being lost.
These career management skills are:
1 Your capacity to reflect on the stories you are telling yourself.
2 The stories others are telling and selling you.
3 How to represent your stories.
Let's start with a challenge. When you begin to think about attending a career event, open day, jobs expo. What number/s skill are you picking as a strength? What number/s are you picking as a difficult challenge for you?
Reflections done, challenges identified, a career event approaches. All 3 of these skills and areas of your career story will be tested and expressed.
The stories you are telling yourself. When you consider attending a career event, what thoughts spring to mind? Crowds, competition, fear, failure, doubt, hope, excitement, opportunity, goals, chances, choices? This spectrum of thought is common. When we approach change, we essentially do this from two mindsets. Fixed and open. A fixed mindset is not all bad, it's in place in evolutionary terms to keep you safe and secure, your comfort zone of a safe space. This becomes negative if unchallenged, leading to being and feeling stuck and resistant, in a changing world. An open mindset embraces change, looks upon feedback as opportunity. Open to new things. This in a reckless nature, can be harmful too, flitting about from job to job, never taking time to grow, careless in awareness.
Approaching career events to get the maximum benefit
Whatever the event, business, educational, networking, or informational communication is key. Goal focused behaviour and targeted communication. In drama terms, what is my motivation?
- When is this event on?
- What do you want and need to hear?
- What can you learn?
- What can you understand about yourself and your career?
- What career talks are there?
- Who do you need to connect with, speak to, make an impression upon?
- Who is there offering employment options?
- Why do you care?
- Why are you connecting with this career event?
- How will you present yourself?
- How much time will you invest in each area of the career event?
- How will you know you have benefitted from the event?
- Where are the stalls, stands, talks based. Room layout.
- What are your needs?
- What are your targets?
- What is your key message you want to communicate?
- What are your key outcomes from this event?
StoryPower top tips to be prepared for Jobs Expo
- Book your Jobs expo Galway ticket/ plan your journey/ leave enough time to do what you need to do at the event.
- Identify what you want to say about you, for your career development, who you want to say it to, why it's important to you, and clarify what your next step is.
- Have a printed spell checked copy of your CV to bring to the CV clinic, and for employers.
- Don't fall into the 1 page CV trap, 2 pages is not a sin, don’t leave out valuable keywords & experience.
- Have your key information & questions clearly defined to ask in the CV & career clinic or at the career talks (as time is limited).
- Review the listing of employers, and do some research on the presenting employers before the event.
- Update networking profiles like Linkedin.
- Do some sectoral research on labour market salaries, working conditions. (this helps with knowing your value and matching with what employers are offering).
- Rate your qualifications clearly on the NFQ and update your CV (National framework of qualifications).
- Review your progress at this event, with a kinder gratitude to yourself for having the courage to try this time.
- Be sure of your questions, and ask, ask, ask. This way you will Learn, Understand, Connect, build Knowledge. If you are uncertain, realize this, the employers and career coaches are there to find you, hear from you, answer you.
- Remember, you are networking with career coaches, employers, and also other attendees at the event. Your next colleague and opportunity could be in the coffee queue.
- Have an after career event plan, your next steps, what career advice and support are you planning to connect with. Before you launch into a course, get impartial objective support from a careers advisor to be sure your investment in a company or a course of learning is matching your career goal. Invest in advice for clarity if a learning journey is really worth your time, effort, energy, and money.
- The venue, Stay safe and comfortable, if you have sensory challenges, or differing abilities, check out access options, and safe or quiet spaces to retain a balance and connection.
- Keep an open mind. This is day one page, in this chapter, of your wider developing career story.
You can move from doubt to belief, confusion to clarity, not knowing to skill building, from today till tomorrow.
Start with what you can do today, then do tomorrow, and onwards. It sounds simple when said like this, but each day a page, write what you can.
Every hero seeks support, before moving from ‘regret to regreat’. Keep going, you are gonna be ok, keep writing, your story is just beginning. I look forward to learning how your story develops.
