cHRistie

  Salary negotiation is important for any career path, a common issue with internships or recent grads is however overwhelming it is to find a job after graduation and to know your worth. Since my internship has been in human resources I've done a lot of recruiting, screening resumes and have been able to sit in on some interviews. Looking at resumes has opened my eyes to all sorts of people in different stages of their career and to see their expected salaries for what they have to offer. The salary negotiation link stresses the importance of knowing your worth. You should know exactly what your skill sets are and what you can add to an organization so spending some time to really think about this is important to negotiating a salary. It’s also important to know the market value of the job position for the area that you live in, obviously some cities are going to be much higher or lower so it’s vital to take a lot of time researching where your place is compared to the average whe...

When searching for an internship I definitely came across a few red flags. Interning is tricky as I feel that some employers feel that they can take advantage of the intern being naive which is why I’m really happy I did my internship through ASU and not independently for work experience as it adds a layer of safety and protection. The main thing that I noticed with internship postings was that the job description was either not in depth enough or it seemed like very clerical work and not anything to do with the actual position. When interning you want to learn about the actual position and get a feel for what a career would be like in this field, and not doing reception or office work to help them out. I also noticed some internship postings that had spelling mistakes and the wording didn't really make sense. This made me feel that it wasn't a well thought out posting and made the organizations seem unprofessional. I looked into one posting that had a great job description and...

I have been very fortunate with my internship where I haven't experienced any major problems as I get along very well with everyone and they also see me as a professional, however, through my own experiences as well as learned experience from others my biggest tips for someone about to start an internship or starting an internship in the future are  1. If the internship involves too many hours or too few hours, speak up: Let your mentor know if you feel that the hours or the work is going over your allocated internship hours and it is becoming a work-life issue where you don’t have enough time for your studies, work or a social life. If you are working enough hours for your internship then your mentor should be understanding that this is an internship and not a full time position. I had an instance where my mentor wanted me to send emails after 5pm once I had got home, I politely told them that I was happy to do that during my working day however my time outside of the internship i...

Writing for work is a lot different from writing for school and I've not had some first hand experience with this as part of my job is to send out job offers to people and respond to emails. The job offers have a standard format however I like to personalize each one depending on if I met the person and had some input in their interview process. With school I believe that things can be a lot more personal as we can go from opinion based papers to facts or papers/speeches about things that interest us. The 5 things that stuck out to me in chapter 6 of the textbook were 1. Make efficient use of your time. 2. Do your homework. 3. Keep your eye on the details. 4. Avoid jargon. 5. Use transitions.  Making efficient use of your time is incredibly vital not just for writing but for everything in an internship, when i’m not busy I like to make use of my time by finding something to do or learning a new skill. For the parts of my internship where I do writing I have Friday afternoons for th...

Resumes can be extremely stressful, the fate of our future depends on how we look on this one piece of paper. My previous positions have both been serving jobs, one of which I've been with for 7 years and the other one I was only with for a few months. The positions were both fairly similar however one was open morning and evening and the other was just open for fine dining evening service an addition to one being italian and one being a steakhouse. When writing about these positions I wasnt too sure what to say, I initially felt like my experience there wouldnt matter in the real world but I stopped selling myself short, longetivity, hospitality and customer service are definitely great skills that can be applied to jobs other than restaurants. In terms of my experience in different careers, this internship was the first time that I've done something other than serving and I was worried that my resume would hold me back. Everywhere wants you to have experience but finding that...

Planning for the first few days of my internship were incredibly exciting but also nerve racking. I’ve been working for the same restaurant for 7 years with the same people and performed the same job functions and all of that was changing and the anticipation of learning something new was sky high. The text had some great tips and tricks for navigating your first few days and making the best impression possible. One tip given by the text was to take pride in your appearance and give some extra detail to clothing, grooming and accessories. I felt that this was especially important for this specific role as I’ve never had to dress business professional before and now suddenly I needed to wear a suit and heels to work. I took a lot of time to research business professional outfits and hairstyles and went shopping in advance to make sure I had some new clothes to get me started. I had my first outfit placed out and steamed the night before, I set my alarm for extra early that day so I coul...