As part of a Career Exploration unit, we're going to explore the idea
of "persona construction." At the end of the unit, every student will
have created a professional persona that potential employers will want
to hire. Please follow the steps below to complete the Unit. At the end
of the Unit, please post a comment on this post and paste in your
About.me link. Of the many apps that you can attach to your About.me
page, you should have at least three apps linked to your page.
Part 1:
First, let's see what kind of a person you are.
Self-awareness is one of the keys to leading a good life, or at least
that's what Socrates said... Anyway, you can find out your personality
type
here. The results of this test are pretty reliable. After you've taken the test, record your four-letter personality type and do a
Google Search for
"Careers for (your four-letter type)". E.g., Google: "Careers for
INTP". and you should be able to find some possible career paths for
you. This is an example
Personality Page for an INTP. Notice the possible careers listed at the bottom.
Combined with the Authentic Happiness questionnaires, you should now be starting to really get to know yourself.
Part 2:
Now for the construction. You are going to need a
Gmail account
just to make things easier. Eventually, you are going to have to
create a professional network; having a Gmail account to centralize
everything makes things efficient.
Let's make an
About Me page,
and construct the image that you want potential employers see. This
will be your electronic business card. From here, you'll want to link to
external apps that are following people in your chosen career path.
You'll probably want to connect with people on
Linkdin, make
a resume and start to create a network of professional contacts. These
should be people who know you and could even be a reference for you.
Link this account to you
About.me page.
Your resume itself can take various forms, but one great one is on
VisualCV.
A picture is worth a thousand words, they say; the images that you put
on this service can have a powerful way of getting what you could
potentially contribute to a company.
Another way to
publish your personal awesomeness is with a VERY short YouTube video.
This can be as short as a Vine (6 seconds) and up to 1 minute, but any
longer would be less effective.
Here is
an explanation of why video is an important, powerful tool in building
your online persona. And, of course, there are numerous examples of
video resumes that you can look at yourself to get some ideas.
These
are the most important things that you can do, but remember that even
on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, or any social media website,
you are accountable for your image. If you want to have a good public
face, it needs to be cultivated. All of the social media websites can be
useful for employers to get to know you, but they have to contain only
things that you would want employers to know about you.
Part 3:
Finally, you need to write a cover letter. Here are some
examples of three different styles of cover letters. You should address your letter
To Whom it May Concern,
and then write your letter to a potential employer in the field that
you've chosen to pursue as a career. Your first paragraph should be
about your
personality and what makes you a good employee.. Your
second paragraph should be about what makes you suitable for the career
you've chosen.
You should write this in a word
document, save as a .pdf file and upload it to your Dropbox account.
Then share the link to that document, and copy and paste that link to
your About.me page.
