Career chats: How professionals turned early experiences into career skills
About this video
Three professionals explain how early experiences became career skills. A residence hall desk attendant learned to greet strangers and break the ice, a sorority president gained management experience and had tough conversations that led her into HR, and a former teacher found managing adults easy after caring for 210 kids and their families.
You'll be able to
- explain how jobs, leadership roles and activities build transferable skills.
- connect a specific early experience to a later career skill.
- identify skills I am building from my own experiences.
Key words
- break the ice
- To start a conversation and help people feel relaxed.
- management experience
- Practice in leading, organising and taking responsibility for other people.
- HR
- Human Resources, the part of an organisation that looks after hiring and supporting employees.
- transferable skill
- A skill learned in one situation that is useful in another.
Transcript
(bright upbeat music) - I think being naturally outgoing and a very social person, like that obviously helped, but also working in a job like I did as a, you know, residence hall desk attendant where, you know, for, you know, six, seven hours a day, you know, my job was to greet people and greet stranger, break the ice.
Get them to feel comfortable, welcomed, you know, in the residence hall. And its having conversations, getting to know people and, you know, little did I know that all of that, you know, experience would end up coming in handy. You know, gosh, at this point, I mean, I don't dunno, like almost nearly 10 years later, like, it's cool to think about it that way.
- Honestly, the greatest learning experience of my college career was being the president of my sorority. And that might sound trivial, but very early on it gave me a large sense of responsibility for other human beings. I was legally responsible for over 90 women in college, and so that gave me management experience.
It made me have tough conversations very early on, even before I was out in the workforce. It made me get to know people on a personal level and be able to apply what I learned to help them get along, which is I think what led me into HR.
- But I think that teaching really taught me management skills. I knew that if I could take care of 210 kids, as well as their parents and grandparents and aunties and uncles and siblings, and everyone else who adores them, I can manage adults. I remember my first job after teaching, they were like, "Can you manage five interns?"
And I'm like, "oh, that's easy. That's way easier." (bright upbeat music)
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