Promoting your work experience – Organisation

 

If you have been following  the blog posts on ‘Promoting your work experience’ and answering the questions posed then you should be building up some really good personal evidence to put on your CV, an application form or in readiness for  answering questions at an interview  or assessment centre.

So far we have covered the following skill areas:

• Communication
• Teamwork
• Self awareness
• Problem solving
• Commercial  awareness
• Leadership

For more details go back over the blog series to see any you may have missed.

Many of these skills do overlap but it is important to look at what the employer wants you to say and this is apparent from the ‘job ad’  or ‘job description’. Answer their specific requirements, this is what is known as ‘tailoring’  the CV or application. Some employers use software to scan the CV or application form for keywords so keep to these. It will make your application more likely to get into the ‘yes for interview’ pile if you address what they are asking for.

Number 7 in our series is organisation and we will also have 3 more after that to get to set of 10. But don’t be bound by these 10 that have been covered, there will be others you can show evidence of and also others employers may ask for. All through your career you should be reflecting on skills gained in the workplace.

So let’s focus on organisation, a skill that is often assumed and may also be taken for granted. But you may have to show evidence of this to show you understand what this means and how you are capable of demonstrating this.

So how can you do this?

Well firstly managing your course and other commitments can be a good way of showing this. Think about what you are doing over a weekly basis and consider how your time is spent on various activities. Explain what you are doing and how your time is spent, are you studying and working, perhaps involved in a sport or a leisure activity and maybe volunteering? Perhaps you are also training before taking part  in a special event such as running a marathon and you need to include this in your day to day life.

So that’s one area to consider.

But when you have actually been in work what did you do to show this skill? Organisation  can feel like second nature but there is a skill and a discipline involved.

We shall try and break this down further.

• Are you or have you ever been responsible for a certain area of the business you worked in, for example a section of a shop or restaurant, and your role was to help this clean, tidy and therefore appealing to customers?
• Have you had to keep paperwork or any other types of records up to date?
• Were there financial records to keep?   Did you for example do the ‘banking’ ?
• Did you have to do a regular handover to someone else who was taking over your shift or coming in when you weren’t there ?
• Did you need to let them know what had happened on your shift or leave any correspondence  for them?
• Did you have to report back on any critical incidents and have to keep careful notes relating to this ?
• Were you ever asked to initiate or redesign a filing system with paper records or on line?
• Anything else you can think of that demonstrates organisation?

There is lots more on our university of Brighton careers service website about applying for jobs and also about reflecting on your skills.

https://www.brighton.ac.uk/careers/index.aspx

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