Deja Vu Once More…
Posted in Daily Musings on Aug 11th, 2010
Once more I step into the realm of job hunting. Actually no, not ‘job’ hunting, but instead ‘career’ hunting, ‘mentor’ hunting even.
After lengthy discussions with the other half, we have decided that the only place I’m going to really get an opportunity in the PR/Communications industry is in either Sydney or Melbourne. Newcastle, unfortunately, just doesn’t have the opportunities here, and I’m simply wasting my time by hoping otherwise. So Sydney it is. Relocation is the easy part, we have family homes available to us, so it’s all focus on the employment part of this adventure.
I recently had an interview, that I was ecstatic about and truly excited for the prospects of this potential new job and the company behind it, only to be rejected on the basis of experience. This was a really shattering moment, after all the positive feedback I had received from the company first seeing my resume right to the interview process; and it’s quite frustrating, to say the least, as these are entry-level opportunities I am opening myself up for.
It’s a challenge. I almost feel too ‘old’ for an entry level opportunity as many people throw back the ‘Oh you’ll get bored, you’re over-qualified’ line because I have a decent amount of skills and work history behind me, or most disappointingly, I get told that I don’t have XYZ-experience.
It’s a funny thing about experience, you can only gain it by someone being willing to give it to you.
So as I edit my ‘Link Me’ and ‘LinkedIn’ profile to attempt some networking to meet this rare person who may give me an opportunity to gain experience, I think back on this blog I wrote in 2009 about ‘Things I Wish Uni Taught Us…’ which is still so relevant to how I feel today in my quest to kick-start my career and get my foot firmly wedged in the door.
The more I ponder about my career and where I want to be in five years time (cliche, I know), the more I think about what topics could have (and perhaps, should have) been brought up at Uni during my studies.
In my third and final year, we did an internship, this was a year long unit split into the two semesters. The first semester was where you actually did your internship and the second semester was all about discussing what you had done, learnt, and how to proceed in the ‘real world’ once you had graduated. This included ‘professional seminars’ from real-life practitioners and how to build a ‘portfolio’ and resume.
Looking back on it all, I can’t help but feel that it’s a great shame that they didn’t spend more time including these teachings in the beginning of the degree. They never really encouraged us to think deeply about where we wanted to do our internships, or what to think about regarding a career path or networking, we were simply advised that we would do it in third year and would get more information on the details (timing, hours, location, learning goals, assessments etc) and access to the database which included all the approved employers who had taken part in the internship experience previously.
We didn’t get to speak to previous students who had done the internship who could muse over what they found was invaluable, not only as a student, but as a new graduate going out into the world. We were never really given much advice on what areas of public relations to think about, and whether Canberra was a suitable place to experience all the different facets of the industry. It felt rushed.
Now that I am almost a year out from graduation, I can’t help but feel frustrated, that I didn’t think of my internship as more than an assessment. It was such a rushed activity with trying to fit in 150hours of unpaid work into my schedule of working full time and studying full time that it became more of a burden than a great experience, and when you think about it, 150hours isn’t a lot of time to really understand and build on your practical experience within such an industry.
I am grateful for my internship, and whilst I did gain some valuable knowledge out of it and have a small handful of things to show for it, at the end of the day, I don’t feel that many potential employers put much stock in it. There seems to be this idea that if you didn’t get a job out of you internship, then you didn’t do a good enough job, and it’s disheartening to think of how many students measure themselves by this.
If it were financially viable, I would love to do further internships in Canberra and Sydney which relate more to where I want to be in a career, just for the added experience and skill building, unfortunately there are bills to be paid and very few people can afford such luxuries.
That’s it, for today… back to Seek for me!
xoxo Ash