Friday, Mar. 14

Timeline

• Project 2

  • • Activity 2.8 due by 11:59pm, Friday Mar. 14

• Project 3

  • • Activity 3.6 due by 11:59pm on Friday, Mar. 14

    • Activity 3.7 due by 11:59pm on Sunday, Mar. 16

    • Activity 3.8 due by 11:59pm on Friday, Mar. 21

• Final Reflection

• Reading Responses

  • • RR 20 due by noon on Friday, Mar. 14

    • Any outstanding RR assignments need to be submitted by Friday, Mar. 14 at 11:59pm

Applying for Jobs

Understanding the Job-Application Process

• It takes weeks and months, not days

• You have to learn about organizations, select among resume styles and develop those, drafts, revise, edit, and proofread; letters should develop on resume but also add new information and narrative

Establishing your brand

What employers want

• Honest, 

• hard-working, 

• competent, 

• problem solver, 

• able to work alone and in teams, 

• will share information with others, and 

• will learn

Identify how others present themselves. 

• Be honest and professional. 

• Describe your skills. 

• Focus on problem solving and accomplishments.

Crafting your brand

• Have an online presence

• Have a business card

• Have an elevator pitch, or 20 second statement that summarizes your credentials

Finding the right position

Planning the search

• Do a self-inventory: 

  • strengths, 

  • weaknesses, 

  • subjects, 

  • organization you would like to work for, 

  • geographical preferences

Learn about employers: 

• learn about its website, 

• do information interviews, 

• follow it on social media and sites, 

• attend job fairs, learn about field trends

Prepare a resume and default letter

Put a portfolio of items online

Understanding job search strategies

• Search through an organization’s website

• Search through job boards

• Search through network

• Use university resources

Writing Résumés

Chronological

Should include identifying and contact information, a summary, education, employment history, interests and activities, references, and other elements (skills, military experience, language abilities, willingness to relocate)

Skills

The employment section becomes a brief list of information about your employment history that highlights skills and accomplishments. This tries to highlight skills an employer is seeking

Plain text

For applicant tracking systems

Uses limited formatting and a limited character set so it can be stored in databases

Make a plain text version of your resume, removing special characters, ensuring a line length of 65 or feet characters, using a non-proportional typeface like Courier, with information left-justified and using ALL CAPS for emphasis

Writing Letters

• Preparing for Interviews

• Following Up

Reading Responses

Pippa

How do you balance authenticity with professionalism when crafting a personal brand? For example, is it better to focus strictly on career-related content, or should you also share personal interests and hobbies that might make you more relatable to potential employers

Henry

Should job seekers be required to maintain a public online presence to remain 

competitive in the job market?

Nick

If you were reviewing someone's LinkedIn profile, what are the first things you would look for in terms of credibility? Does a platform like LinkedIn inherently degrade our credibility by being a social network?

Jake

how much we need to change our documents per job? The text analyzed how important it is to tailor your document for the application it suits, but how different should something be? Does it ever border on being untruthful?

Kosuke

How many people have professional websites or use social media outside of LinkedIn to promote their professional work?

Reflection ActivitY (20)

Individual Work (5)

Search for jobs. You can search within an organization you would like to work for, or search on LinkedIn, ZipRecruiter, Indeed, Monster or some other site. 

• using terms related to technical communication.

• in a field or role you hope to go into

Pick 2-3 jobs that look interesting or appear to involve technical communication in some way.

Group Work (5)

Share the jobs you found. Pick 2-3 as a group, based on which ones are most related to technical communication. Ideally, you will pick jobs you could apply for one day. Paste them into the shared document.

Group Work (5)

Discuss and be prepared to explain what technical communication skills fit into this job, or how this job asks you to perform technical communication.

Class Discussion (10)

Explain what technical communication skills fit into this job, or how this job asks you to perform technical communication.

Discussion (10)

Individual Writing (10)

1. What from this project connects to the most important ideas for technical communication? 

2. Why are those the most important ideas for you? How do they help you understand technical communication as a subject and practice? 

3. Which of skills are you most likely to implement in your future academic, professional, and community work? What are some specific ways you can see yourself implementing those ideas and practices?

Group Work (10)

Groups: 

1. Kosuke, Henry, Kyle, Kendra, Helen

2. Migo, Nick, Agustin, Langston, Kathan

3. Ethan, Liam, George, Jake, Anabelle

4. Anzhuo, Kira, Birtu, Esperanza, Michelle

Share your statements in groups of 4-5. After everybody has shared, develop a group statement:

1. The most important idea(s) about technical communication are...

2. The idea(s) are important for technical communication because...

3. Some specific places we can see ourselves implementing these ideas and approaches are...

4. Some specific ways we can see ourselves using these ideas are…

5. Some individual members also mentioned some of their most important ideas were…

6. They found it important because…

Write your group statement on the shared Google Doc. Use your group's document tab (left panel, #1-6)

Share (10)

Narrative