Reflection

Joseph says:

First I want to say thanks for being a part of our blog because I believe this is the last new posting we will contribute to the blog, but not necessarily the last comments we will make on it. When you take Capstone in your final semester, you will need to have a finished e-portfolio, which happens to be our last assignment due in it. I say take the time now to add content to your cells so they will be available to you once you have to actually assemble the rest of the e-portfolio because I did not do so, and I am scrambling with finding material to add to it. After I had written a paper that was saved on my computer, I typically put it in the recycle bin and consequently deleted it at a later date, so I really do not have much to put in the content cells. It is much easier if you put it in the cells as soon as you are finished with it.

I think reflection has more of a personal feel to it, with more emotion and hindsight applied to it than just description. Reflection seems to have a little more right brained activities (like synthesizing, seeing the whole picture, understanding context and feeling, and recognizing patterns) than description, which I feel leans more towards the left-brain (like logic, sequential learning, organizing, etc.).

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Ada says:

I'd also like to thank you guys for giving such great participation in this blog; you really thought about the prompts and we had some pretty good discussions. I liked hearing about everybody's different paths and experiences at UCF.

To me, reflection is very different from description. Reflection, to me, implies going further and critically thinking about a subject... thinking about its implications, its significance, its causes or effects. Joseph makes a good point about using different parts of the brain; I think I might agree... it takes a different kind of thinking to examine events in a different way and try to understand their significance and reflect upon their meaning to you instead of just the events themselves and what happened. (And if your capstone class is anything like ours, you'll be spending a lot of time talking about different ways of thinking and the different sides of the brain.)

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Share how you're planning to use reflection in developing your e-Portfolio content pages.

Share your understanding of reflection. How is it different from description?

Interviewing Part II

Joseph says:

The best way to answer some of the standard and non-standard interview questions are honestly, but you can always prepare for these and many other questions by looking at the wealth of resources online. Also, in the Career Services and Experiential Learning offices, there exist people who will do interviews with you. They will also look over your resumes, cover letters, and CV’s (curriculum vitae’s) and help you craft better ones. Again, I will say this, use these offices to the fullest potentials because they can and will help.

What I feel the best way to handle a phone interview is to have a genuine smile throughout the entire interview because they can hear it. It will spread to all parts of speech and have an uplifting overtone to the entire conversation. And when in panel interviews, listen intently to whoever is talking, making eye contact, and show body language that shows you are interested in what the person is talking about. Show that you are an engaging person because not many places want to hire an antisocial person.

I am not too sure about when to talk about salary, but you should make it obvious that you are not only there about the money, even though that is most likely why you are there. I typically don’t talk about money until after they see what kind of candidate I am and I can tell they are interested in me. Please resond to the questions at the end of our posts.

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Ada says:

I'll admit, while I've been through a lot of interviews, I haven't been to a wide variety of kinds of interviews. Never had a real phone interview, never had a panel interview... generally it's just the basic one-on-one where they ask about my experience and ask for more information about things on my resumé. This might actually be the most important piece of advice I can give based on my own experience: be prepared to talk about everything on your resumé. If you say you can speak certain languages, be prepared to speak some. Be prepared to talk about your responsibilities and accomplishments at your former job. Be prepared to solve hypothetical problems, like "If this situation happened to you on the job, how would you handle it?" I've never gotten a question that was extremely crazy, but the point is: be able to think on your feet and have a good attitude while doing so.
As far as salary, I think a general rule is to not ask until you've actually been made an offer, but I think this is a little flexible. You really have to use your own judgment; depending on the job, it might be acceptable to inquire about salary after the interview's over, or in some rare cases, when applying. If you're not sure, though, and you really want this particular job, I would say don't ask until you've been offered the job.

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Do you believe it is wrong for employers to check your credit, and why?

When do you feel is the time to talk about salary?

Interviewing Part I

Joseph writes:

In both practice interviews, the interviewer asked very pertinent questions that I have heard in real interviews before. I realize that I have almost no experience in jobs other than serving, and even though you can kinda make a connection to any other job, most positions ask for real experience that translates. I have done many interviews, and applied for hundreds of jobs, and I feel quite comfortable in the interviewing situation because you have to come up with answers to questions immediately, and from serving, you definitely learn to do that. For the most part, I had similar responses to the alternate ones provided, and if I had any reservations about the question, the Coach helped a great deal. Here are my practice interviews:

http://www.perfectinterview.com/online/review_gateway.asp?id=3020929&type=standard

http://www.perfectinterview.com/online/review_gateway.asp?id=3020931&type=standard

One piece of advice I have is just do your research on the company and show them you have a vested interest in them because you took your time to research the company.

Ada writes:

In a lot of ways I think these practice interviews are good, well, practice, but they're a little too generic to properly prepare somebody for an interview. I'd like to see some different versions of these interviews available that are at least somewhat tailored to particular industries. It's also hard to answer some of these questions without knowing exactly what job you're interviewing for. Questions about education or previous work experience are fine, but what about a question like "How does this job fit into your long-term goals?" (Which, of course, was the first question I was hit with in my first practice interview.) I could answer this several different ways, depending on what kind of job I was applying for. I had some jobs where I ultimately wanted to climb to management, or others where I eventually wanted to specialize in some particular part of the field... I think, overall, my answers were comparable to the example responses. (Some of them, unfortunately, only gave me question marks "???", so they weren't entirely helpful.)

I think that researching the company you're interviewing with is extremely good advice, as well as being able to ask questions about the work itself. This really shows that you're interested in the company and the field.

Here are links to my interviews:

http://www.perfectinterview.com/online/review_gateway.asp?id=3020911&type=standard

http://www.perfectinterview.com/online/review_gateway.asp?id=3020912&type=standard

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Complete the Informational Interview Assignment provided by Capstone mentors.
Discuss the results of your interview practice.