A personal statement is an essay detailing your creative and intellectual capabilities.It can be frustrating to write however can be an essential tool for employers to help better select the candidates they wish to select for a job.
A personal statement gives evidence of your achievements which is not included in other parts of your application. When writing your personal statement you need to think about how the events described in your personal statement have helped shape your attitude, focus and intellectual capability.
Your CV is what sells you. In 2015 in Ireland it is an employers market. You are now in a more competitive market for jobs than in 2006. As a result, you may be competing for a job against someone with 10 years experience. Your potential employer hasn't met you yet and you are one of a bundle of CV's. At this stage your CV and cover letter is the only piece of information they have about you. How are you going to promote yourself? How are you with your CV, going to make the difference between getting an interview or not? Is there spelling mistakes? Over 80% of CV's have spelling mistakes in them. What signal are you sending out to your employer about you if there are a lot of spelling mistakes?
Youtube Video
Jobs Club 2: CV Preparation - TV3's Ireland AM with Brightwater
Is there anything else that could have been included in the topic to make it easier for you to understand?
Was the topic explained well or not?
Are there any video links from Youtube that may also be useful? (if so please copy and paste the link in the comments section with a sentence explaining what it is)
demonstrate the ability to take ownership of tasks and show
initiative in order to achieve their effective completion
Initiative
Demonstrating initiative in your personal or professional life can help indicate to an employer that you have the skills needed to be hired or promoted. Your initiative may even allow you to set up your own business. Here is a link to a dictionary definition of what the word initiative means and here is another definition of the word initiative.
Initiative is a leading action, where you don't wait to be told what to do. It is the ability to motivate yourself to follow through with a plan or task. Demonstrating your initiative can involve self-directed learning to help you achieve your goal. To demonstrate initiative, is a key leadership skill. Here is a video showing you some of the leaps in our society and world as a result of initiative:
3 Traits of Great Leaders - Execution, Perseverance, and Initiative (motivational video)
For most of us, how we demonstrate our initiative, even in a small way, at work or at college or even in your personal life can help us improve our current situation. It may be something like fixing a photocopier, printer at work without being told to do so, dealing with customer enquiries when other work colleagues are absent, delegating work to help maintain control over a situation, working on a team building exercise, writing a report on something you were never asked to do, staying calm and helping to control an argument until it reaches a positive outcome for both parties, or inventing new ideas for how to work more effectively in an organisation.
Quiet Desperation
How do you show initiative? Can you give an example? How could that demonstration of initiative help you in your personal and professional development?
Here is an example of how many people have demonstrated positive initiative in their workplace if you just click on this link.
You have probably heard the phrase "thinking outside the box". To think outside the box is setting yourself apart from everyone else. You are seeing a problem a different way. Maybe you see a problem or a threat as an opportunity?
Class Exercise
As a class exercise to develop our initiative skills we are going to engage in a survival exercise. Look at the video below first to get an idea of the scenario we are going to roleplay. It is a 1 minute clip of the TV show Lost.
The scenario we are going to roleplay is our plane has crashed on a remote island on a beach somewhere.
You need to as a group decide from the plane wreckage what the 12 most important items are in order to survive (as you have no idea where you are or how long it will take you to get rescued)
Try to reach consensus without voting
Everyone in the group must at least partially agree with what is on the final list.
Watch and see if any group members have changed their minds to come to agreement
Watch and see if any group members need the answers to be 100% accurate.
Watch and see if any group members minimally contribute to the discussion.
You have 15 minutes to decide on the 12 most important items to survive
Afterwards write down what you learned from the exercise
Responsibility, accomplishments and ownership of tasks
With initiative comes responsibility. We are often more hesitant to admit our failures if we are responsible for something that went wrong. What if we took the initiative with something and it failed? If you own your own business, if you are studying for your exams, if you have come up with a new idea at work that you want implemented, you are responsible for it.
Often at work it is easy to fall into the blame game to deflect a negative perception others may potentially have about ourselves. However admitting responsibility for something that went wrong can also be something positive. Facing up to our mistakes and learning from them can be a key to our drowth and development.
Often a fear of responsibility can put some people off certain tasks eg presentations in front of a group of people. You are responsible for it and that may make you nervous.
Responsibility can also be a very rewarding role to have. People are listening and perhaps even trusting what you say. You are in charge of something or someone which can have rewards or consequences.
Another word for responsibilities which can demonstrate more positivity is accomplishments. Accomplishments are what you have achieved. In a CV you need to be able to sell yourself. So, what have you accomplished?
Here is a definition of the word accomplishment as well as at the link here. Accomplishments are something which is achieved successfully. For example, perhaps you have accomplished enough money saved to purchase a car. Now you are responsible for it.
Your accomplishments don't have to have changed the world to matter mentioning them. They can be things like regular daily duties at work or duties you wouldn't usually have. Accomplishments are when hurdles are overcome and goals are reached. For example maybe you took many phone calls at work and helped to represent the company, maybe you worked on a particular project and reached a goal you had. Are there any statistics, figures or numbers you can use to back up your claims? What skills do you have for each job you worked at? What did you accomplish from your work experience?
Class Exercise
As a class exercise to develop our initiative skills we are going to engage in a exercise which looks at responsibility.
Get in groups of 5.
Create a variety of obstacles in the class to walk around.
Blindfold one member of the group.
The rest of the group must take turns guiding each blindfolded member across the classroom
Once everyone in the group has taken the blindfolded member across the room, decide on who is next to be blindfolded
Take 10 minutes until everyone has been blindfolded once
Afterwards write down what you learned from the exercise
The following video below is a good example of using initiative, taking responsibility for yourself and making your own decisions. The advert is from a Pantene commercial made in Thailand about a deaf and mute girl who learns to play the violin.
Extraordinary Pantene Commercial
1- For next week, prepare for a question which asks you to give an example of where you have shown initiative
2- Give an example of where you have taken ownership of a task
Skills you have used may have been through work, education or during your leisure time. Categories of skills include:
1)Interpersonal
2)Personal
3)Practical
4)Technical
1) Interpersonal skills involve how you deal with people. Your communication skills with fellow employees, management, customers and suppliers. Demonstrations of these skills can involve working as part of a team, telephone skills, negotiation skills and feedback
2) Personal skills involve your ability to work on your own initiative. Demonstrations of these skills could include meeting deadlines, punctuality, confidentiality, attendance as well as organization skills.
3) Practical skills involve skills that demonstrate your ability to perform certain tasks. Demonstrations of this could be designing flyers, editing databases, producing profit & loss accounts and cash flows and having an ability to analyse them, knowing another language etc. You may be currently learning these skills as you progress through college.
4) Technical Skills involve a specialized skill where you can demonstrate an ability to use a technical product. Different courses will have more specific technical skills. General examples could include word processing or being able to operate a switchboard.
How do I find out what skills I have?
For each job you have worked in, take a seperate sheet and brainstorm all the tasks that this job involved. List everything you did that was associated with that job. Break down your duties into subpoints egbarwork- managed orders, interacted with customers, negotiated with suppliers, in charge of stock control, liaised with kitchen and restaurant staff etc
What skills have you learned as a result of carrying out these tasks? What skills were needed?
Research Project (30%)
• Wide range of sources of information explored 10
• Appropriate career path proposed 10
• Well researched profile 10 Learner Record (30%)
• Comprehensive account of personal planning 10
• Detailed account of taster activities 10
• Critical reflection on course activities 10 Documents (40%)
• C.V., Skills Audit, Personal Statement 20
• Letters of application and enquiry 10
• Completed funding application 10
