I spent the first part of today in our annual Campus Convocation Day. Translation: The day the entire Staff and Faculty are mandated to attend professional development. Usually there’s an irrelevant speaker, bad food, and awards of service giving out. This year, I’ll admit the food wasn’t bad, I enjoyed seeing my coworkers public ousted for their years of service, and ultimately, the guest speaker was actually not too bad. Although, those who make part of their living from public speaking engagements should really rely on outlines. Once again I let the communication major want to be in me pick apart the speaker. To defend myself, the information was great and relevant but not organized great. He tended to jump back and forth. Still, I got the information and found it engaging.
If you’ve ever had to sit through a day like this, I’m sure you’ve found yourself trying to solve the problems of the universe or at least taught yourself how to write with the opposite hand. This I did quite successfully one year. I felt so accomplished afterwards.
This year I shared my table with my new supervisor, who I actually love to work for, and one of my nerd girl buddies. (This is a nickname several of us have for one another who share the same love for homesteadish living, technology, learning, and general weirdness). As we discussed this and that throughout the morning everything from babies to education prolonging life to the need for support in the local school systems, community college, and the local area in general, my mind latched on to something I had once thought of doing but filed away under “not qualified” to do.
What’s my profound thought? I want to work with people who need communication skills. Not just public speaking which is a requirement for graduation at the community college level in this state but overall communication skills. I’ve watched work studies come in to interview for the office I work in. They are not prepared to interview. Even if they had a class at some point in high school to interview, it didn’t take. Maybe it’s the culture or maybe it’s the times.
I remember my first interview involved pantyhose and heels. This might give away my age but I don’t think so. It wasn’t that long ago...only a couple of decades ago. ha! ha! Regardless, society has relaxed its standards when it comes to how we carry ourselves in public. I’m not just talking about dress codes. I’m talking about how we speak to one another. Rarely do we hear the words yes ma’am or no sir. It’s ya or naw. We’ve relaxed ourselves to the point that we either don’t notice that our workers aren’t presenting themselves professionally or we care.
But I think that people view a business by the presentation of its workers. In turn, I’m sure businesses view its potential employee by the way they present themselves as they walk through the door. Would you hire someone to assist with PR if they walked in slumped over, shuffling their feet, and “um”ing their way to their point? If so, good luck with it.
Now that I’ve pointed out what I see is wrong, let me tell you what I want to do. Teach people how to not only do an interview but how to use body language, verbal language, and eye contact to show their abilities. We live in a virtual communication world but at some point we need to reinforce the face to face, verbal communication process as well. With advances in technology, we will continue to use nontraditional methods for meetings and communication. However, we need to have the confidence to conduct ourselves just as we would face to face. At some point, the employee who relies on virtual communication will have to have that face to face conversation.
I have a son who’s been out of high school for a year, starting college in a few weeks and has zero communication skills. He’s intelligent, quick, and has a great sense of humor. None of these would come out in a first time interview. All anyone would ever see is a nervous kid who couldn’t possibly be competent enough to do any job. This makes me worry for him but I also wonder how many potentially great people are over looked because they don’t have the communication skills?
I have a great plan in my head. I won’t go into great deal especially since I’ve already made you read all this for no real point. My plan is set in my head. Now I have the long road ahead of me to get myself qualified to do what I want to do. After all, I will basically have to create this on my own. There’s nothing in this area that does anything like this. I have a list of to do’s and a lot of time a head of me to either come to my sense or hone my plan. Who knows though. Maybe someone else will come up with a better plan and maybe just maybe a supernova will pass over the planet, causing everyone to speak properly and carry ourselves like we have some sense.
What Composes Cat?
- Cat
- An avid reader, life long writer, and lover of life, I am here to shares my love of books and writing in hopes to spread a little knowledge and entertainment to the rest of the world. (and truthfully...to help make sense of it all) A common theme is the ramblings of my bipolar world which I share without shame so no one else has to hide or be ashamed of themselves or the ones they love. Knowledge is power and the more you know the more you grow.
I DID IT!!
1 comments:
Just stopping by all the blogs I follow – Thought I would check in with everyone! Stop by The Wormhole if you get a chance!
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