Final Reflection on Learning

An important skill set that I improved through the ES2007S course is that pertaining to a position search. Here, I shall organize my review around the various components of a position search, namely researching the job and organization, writing a cover letter and resume, and performing at job interviews.

The main objective of a job application is to communicate effectively to your prospective employers how you and your experiences can contribute to the organization and the job itself. This in turn has linkages to an over-arching principle of effective communication, which is to be mindful of the context and target audience.

As such, the first step in a position search is to research on the particular organisation and job in order to find out about what is being desired. Only after understanding what is being sought, can we craft our job applications appropriately.

Moving on, the peer teaching session and readings were effective in introducing the general principles of writing a resume. Even though the resume is a relatively structured piece of writing, its format is by no means fixed. Rather, it should be tailored to show how an applicant’s strengths can satisfy the job requirements. Furthermore, more is not necessarily better and only relevant information should be included. Once again, by placing ourselves in the shoes of the target audience, we can understand the importance of this – job selectors typically have to go through numerous applications so a concise resume will stand a higher chance of attracting their attention.  

Last but not least, I feel that the mock job interview ranks as the most enlightening portion of the entire module. I was able to gain valuable insights via all 3 roles that we had to play, be it observer, interviewer or interviewee. For example, as an observer, I discovered that an interview is indeed very revealing of an interviewee. Both the verbal (content of responses) and non-verbal aspects (posture, eye contact etc.) can tell the interviewers a lot about the candidate. Most importantly, as an interviewee, I thought I performed relatively okay but peer feedback from the observers indicated much room for improvement! For example, my responses were often badly organized and unsystematic!

In my opinion, what better way to hone one’s job application skills than to go through a mock job application? I am grateful that ES2007S offered us an opportunity to do so. Although the greatest challenge throughout was the constant effort to link my experiences to the prospective job, the regular peer feedback enabled me to make improvements to my work and enhance the relevant skills. As such, I am now better equipped to select appropriate content to include in my application documents as well as draw the necessary linkages. Interview-wise, I have become aware of the need to improve my thinking process so that I can translate my thoughts into coherent and systematic responses!

Reflection on Oral Presentation

As an oral presentation is a multi-faceted process, I shall seek to organize the review of my team’s presentation broadly in terms of its strengths and weaknesses in the various aspects, both individually (myself) and as a whole.

First and foremost, in terms of preparation, I could have spent more time individually on preparing for the question and answer (Q & A) session, namely by predicting possible questions from the audience and generating appropriate responses. I have to admit that I am not a person who can think quickly on his feet. As such, during the Q & A, even though I had the answers in my mind, I was unable to provide a clear and well-thought out response. For future presentations, I definitely need to invest more effort in Q & A preparations as compared to my other team members.

As a whole, even though my team’s presentation was generally professionally delivered, we could have done more on the emotional and persuasive aspects of things. In a business environment, where every proposal is just as competitive as the next, a presentation that tugs at the heartstrings might just be the one that gets the nod. As such, a little more enthusiasm as well as personal anecdotes could have made the presentation more emotionally appealing to the target audience. For example, Ms. Fazilah pointed out that we could have used our very own experiences with crowded shuttle buses to further emphasise the intra-campus transport problem.

That being said, our presentation had a number of strengths as well. On the overall, I felt it was concise and to-the-point, hence maximizing the 20 minutes that were given to us. To this end, the presentation slides were able to achieve a synergistic effect as all content was in point form and illustrated with appropriate diagrams.

Most importantly, I felt that the presentation was highly coherent which aided in understanding. There was a clear flow from the problem to the solution and then why the proposal should be adopted. Throughout the entire presentation, constant references were also made to our research findings, which offered much credibility.

In conclusion, I believe that the number of rehearsals that we had helped us greatly. An oral presentation is a highly sophisticated process with many aspects involved, and we were only able to deliver satisfactorily because of the constant self-critique and refinements within the team.