UCC Careers workshop talk

1. Springboard and
Jobfinding
imogen@ctc.ie
What happened last year
What you might do
We have limited time as I have to leave at 10:50, so
take down my email – you are welcome to contact me
afterwards, and if I can help or make individual
suggestions, I will
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2. Who’s yer one?
• Ran a network of self-employed teleworkers involved
in publishing 1985-2005
• Temporarily paralysed by
Guillain-Barre Syndrome in 2004
(like a one-off attack of MS) and had
to learn to walk again as well as create a new career
• Pieced it together out of teaching, IT, horticulture
• Taught the digital modules of the Springboard
Creative and Digital Marketing certificate last year
• Studied on the Supply Chain Management course
• Now working at Apple (disclaimer...)

3. The portfolio career (Handy 1989)
✦ Wage or salary work – money paid for time
given (what employees earn)
✦ Fee work – payment for results delivered
(what professionals charge)
✦ Study work
✦ Gift work – work done for free outside the
home eg for charities, friends or in the
community
✦ Homework – care of the home and family
The first three = your career portfolio

4. What happened last year?
• Supply Chain Management:
• New employment
• Further educational course
• Internship
• No change/other eg maternity leave/family care
• Creative and digital marketing
• New employment 6
• Further educational course 2
• Internship 4
• No change/other eg maternity leave/family care 5

5. Finding out about yourself
• Professional is best, but you can do it on the net DIY
if you can’t access or afford that…
• Myers-Briggs personality tests on web
• Learning styles relate to communications styles eg
Silver Felderman http
://www.engr.ncsu.edu/learningstyles/ilsweb.html
• Ask your family and friends
about your good and bad points.
• Be honest and work
with the positives

6. Assess your abilities
• The realities are the same whatever your ability.
Employers and clients want:
– Communications skills including telephone and email
– Punctuality and politeness
– Reliability
– Teamwork*
– Good IT skills especially
personal productivity
– Competence in a skill
area that's in demand
• It’s up to you to get out there and create your
portfolio to convince them you have it!

7. What did people find helpful?
• Targeted searching of job websites
(can also be time-consuming and depressing...!)
• Practice at presentation skills
• Creating a portfolio (CCDM students)
• Networking eg it@cork http://itcork.ie and Skillsnet
(you have free membership while you are at UCC)
• Facebook group UCCNewMedia (free...)
• Contacts built through the course (especially SCM
course which also had students who were in
employment)
• Help with LinkedIn profiles – buddy up with someone
you trust to “peer review” for each other
• Careers interview and cv preparation help

8. Be open to new ideas
• CSO website is full of information on what sectors
recruit what skills and... gender and age-groups
• Expert Group on Future Skills Report
http://www.skillsireland.ie
• Glassdoor.com – find out what
others think of the company that
you are applying to.
– Interview questions and process
• Do interim and voluntary work
• Don’t be shy to do other work
– being in a job helps you to get a job
• Careers interview and cv preparation help
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9. What are you doing so far?
• Searching job websites? Which ones?
– jobs.ie irishjobs.ie recruitireland.com fasjobs.ie
• Recruitment agencies – pluses and minuses?
• Updating your cv – are you taking account of the need
to make it machine-readable?
• Researching companies and their recruitment
procedures eg “panels” in the public service
– I once got a job because I was the only candidate
who had looked up the company online, and knew
what it did, and who the CEO was
• Join relevant “interest groups” on LinkedIn
• Social media - have you linked your various accounts
and created an “about.me” page?
• What is your “bottom line” on location as agreed with

10. Curating your portfolio
• Get your ECDL (UCC Computer Centre)
• Always have a note-taking device
about your person (eg the voice
or note memo on your phone)
• Keep a contacts database and use it
– after this session, make notes of
who and what was useful because
you won’t remember in a month
• Do voluntary work and keep notes of what you’re doing. Treat
it as a “job” – be professional!
• Take opportunities to write and speak publicly however hard
it is – consider joining Toastmasters to get free training in
public speaking as well as networking opportunities?
• Join stuff eg IT@Cork network

11. Curating means neglecting too
• I don’t often tell people I worked on
the post for a while the year after I had
GBS… unless of course I am after a job
that involves driving…
– Eg I have a licence to transport hazardous
chemicals: very useful for gardening work!
– Think about using an ePortfolio to record
your work and study because you don’t know when you will need a piece of
portfolio “evidence” again in the future.
– Most professions now require a record be kept of continuing professional
development, so start collecting now!
• Takehome: Dan Pink’s YouTube on motivation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc
• What one thing are you now going to do as a result of
today? Deadline? Next action to make it happen?

12. • Thanks!
• Sorry I have to rush...
• Email again: imogen@ctc.ie
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