[PERSEF3 Blog #4] The Things I've Learned from PERSEF3 Seminar

PERSEF3 students were required to attend a seminar on personal effectiveness. I attended mine last Saturday on February 28, 2009. Even though I wasn’t used to going to class early, the thought of past students not allowed entering the venue because they were late pushed me to.

We started by dividing the class into three groups. We were assigned to write an ideal resume on manila paper from co-curricular activities to seminars attended. We chose to apply for a job in the Information and Communications Technology field. We found it important to exclude irrelevant information from the field being applied to and only include those that apply like professional organizations of the College of Computer Studies, La Salle Computer Society, and show the achievements and projects headed. The seminars we included were relevant to the field such as I.T. Lounge and programming seminars and conventions. We then presented our work.

The other groups were assigned to the other parts of the resume. The first group was assigned to make a resume from the objective to education. The applicant should include as straight-forward as possible, his purpose for applying for the position in company in the objective section as it is the first to be seen by the interviewer. The picture attached should be 2 by 2 inches. The education section should include the schools or colleges attended and should show clearly the important awards received like dean’s list and others of the like.

The last group presented an example of the proper resume from personal background to character references. Personal background should include personal information which the interviewer may need to know like the birth date, to determine the applicant’s age, address, technical skills, working habits, and other useful information. Character references should be those who are credible and not biased like the applicant’s thesis adviser or college dean.

The facilitators then explained some career concepts. One of them is the types of employment according to a famous author. One could be employed, self-employed, business owner, and investor. The employed has a job, the self-employed owns a job, the business owner works for money, and the investor has money working for him.

When we got back from our 15-minute break, we had an interview simulation. There are several types of interviews. Some of them that I could remember are one-on-one, group/panel, case analysis, stress, and intimidating interview. The first group had one-on-one interviews. Most of the questions asked to the applicants came from the resume. So it is important to be careful on what they put on the resume. The second group was a panel interview where there were several interviewers interviewing several applicants at a time. Our group was assigned a case analysis interview where we were to discuss a case study of a boy having attitude problems. We discussed our thoughts with each other as the company representative observes us and looks for the most competent applicant.

I learned a lot from the seminar and it helped me prepare for future activities after graduation.