When applying for my summer internship which has just passed, I sent a simple email to my supervisor stating my interest and he replied to ask for my resume. That is when I panicked because I did not know how to write a good resume. So, I searched high and low on the internet between the difference of a cover letter and a resume. Then, I painstakingly whipped out a resume which myself is not very impressed of but due to lack of training and time constraint, I needed to submit it.
That was when I realized I needed to learn effective communication skills.
To me, a person with a good degree but without proper communication skills is far behind a person with an average degree but is able to sell herself. With proper communication skills, I believe I will be ahead of my colleagues even, when I start to work next time. A good resume is the first step to getting the job I want. At working environments, effective communication skills conveys my messages clearly and efficiently instead of creating misunderstandings and offending colleagues and worse, bosses. Besides that, well written work also shows professionalism. I do not want to be the hardworking person that submits poor written which because it will not reflect the efforts I put in. I am sure many of you have encountered people who do not put in much effort in pre-report stage but presents a very well written report and still get good grades for that. I have seen that happen and it is really not a nice experience.
I am not a very good in terms of scoring As but I am sure I do not want to lose out further in terms of professional communication.
That was when I realized I needed to learn effective communication skills.
To me, a person with a good degree but without proper communication skills is far behind a person with an average degree but is able to sell herself. With proper communication skills, I believe I will be ahead of my colleagues even, when I start to work next time. A good resume is the first step to getting the job I want. At working environments, effective communication skills conveys my messages clearly and efficiently instead of creating misunderstandings and offending colleagues and worse, bosses. Besides that, well written work also shows professionalism. I do not want to be the hardworking person that submits poor written which because it will not reflect the efforts I put in. I am sure many of you have encountered people who do not put in much effort in pre-report stage but presents a very well written report and still get good grades for that. I have seen that happen and it is really not a nice experience.
I am not a very good in terms of scoring As but I am sure I do not want to lose out further in terms of professional communication.
6 comments:
Hey Audrey,
When I first entered your site, I got shocked by your Vivaldi music, because I had a few windows opened and was wondering where that piece of music was coming from. (ok, that was random but its a pretty neat piece of music.)
Anyway, I totally agree with your point on having effective communication being an advantage over another who even though has a better degree, cannot measure up.
In modern society like ours in Singapore, though degrees do serve an edge, degrees are becoming far too common. The thing that distinguish the better ones are thus how you "sell" yourself as you have put it.
I am sure employers now are not only looking for the IQ, but the EQ is also important.
Hello Audrey! (:
Yes i totally agree with you on the importance of having to write and express ourselves well.
Especially as Science students majoring in Biomedical and Biology, report writing takes up a large portion of our grade. Being able to convey our ideas effectively is of utmost importance, we definitely do not want to put in so much effort and yet lose out just because we can't express ourselves poorly in writing do we!
Therefore, i strongly agree with your opinion that professional communication is an essential skill to master not only if we want to secure but also excel in our career in the near future!
Hey Audrey,
I just want to comment on your resume story. I worked in a HR dept of an Engineering firm once and I was asked to screen through some resumes and to put some crucial details like job experience, education level on an excel sheet so that the management didn't have to look through piles and piles of resumes themselves. And I realised that a lot of job-seekers don't know how to write a good resume (haha, that's not to say that I know how to though)! Besides resumes that are a visual turn off, there are resumes that leave out information like detailed prior job experience and scope or simply just put irrelevant job experiences down. Even a temp staff like me had difficulty getting the information ready from these resumes. I can only imagine what sort of frustration the employers would go through to find a decent resume. Which goes to say that the ability to write a good and informative resume will really help us stand out in the working world.
Thank you, Audrey, for this post.
You make a very convincing argument here for the value of "professional" communication skills, which is the category a resume would fall into. Your initial example illustrates that well. There are more fundamental skills, however, that are equally important. I see writing in that basic category. Writing might be an area where I can assist you the most, I thought as I read through this post. You've got the ideas, but a few language issues. can you find the problems here?
1) Then, I painstakingly whipped out a resume which myself is not very impressed of but due to lack of training and time constraint, I needed to submit it.
2) To me, a person with a good degree but without proper communication skills is far behind a person with an average degree but is able to sell herself.
3) I do not want to be the hardworking person that submits poor written which because it will not reflect the efforts I put in.
4) I am sure many of you have encountered people who do not put in much effort in pre-report stage but presents a very well written report and still get good grades for that.
Let the process of refining your skills begin! (It's my pleasure to help.)
Hey Audrey, I can definitely relate to the experience that you have described, because I have a resume that is sitting on my computer that I have used before but have yet to receive any response from these companies. Probably says something about my resume.
But I am curious to know, if you have thought of how being able to communicate more effectively could extend beyond contributing towards your own grades. Cheers!
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