Career Services Informer

“When you’re wrong, you’re right.”

These words, spoken by a student I saw recently, gave me pause. They were talking about confidence – or at least the appearance of confidence – in this instance pertaining to the context of a job interview.

When you’re wrong, you’re right. It’s not what you say that matters, but how you say it. You could be making something up on the spot, and be totally wrong on whatever it is you’re talking about, but if you appear confident in what you’re saying, you’re more likely to be seen as right.

What exactly is confidence, and how do we get more of it?

What is confidence?

I’d like to make a distinction between what I see as different kinds of confidence. There’s confidence that’s similar to a personality trait, deriving from an overall sense of self esteem that is fairly constant; and there’s confidence that comes from performing certain tasks repeatedly such that you become more and more certain that you will be able to perform those tasks effectively, which obviously fluctuates significantly according to the nature of the situation. For the sake of this post, we’ll call these two confidences “trait confidence” and “task confidence.” Let’s think of them as existing along two separate continua. I’ve created a crude diagram depicting this spectrum below, where the vertical axis represents trait confidence, and the horizontal axis represents task confidence.

I don’t really think it’s as simple as the graph above would suggest, but if we’re talking about where confidence comes from, I think these different quadrants might be helpful.

So, according to my theory, your overall level of confidence in any given situation is going to be dependent on your overall tendency to be confident  (trait confidence) combined with your sense of efficacy in that specific situation (task confidence).

It’s obvious that the place to be is in the top right quadrant, where you’re generally confident in your abilities and outlook, and you feel well practised in the task that you’re accomplishing. Barring that possibility, you either want to be in the top left quadrant or the bottom right quadrant, where you’re high in one kind of confidence but not the other. The place you really don’t want to be is obviously in that lonely square in the bottom left, without any confidence whatsoever.

How do we become more confident?

The seemingly intuitive thing to do is to practice. If we take into account our model of confidence above, however, we see that practising a task likely only improves your confidence as it applies to that task. I’m not convinced that becoming really skilled at playing chess, for example, will in and of itself make you a more confident person outside of that context.

So, the answer to the above question seems to be, as my supervisor so likes to say: “it depends.” If you want to feel more confident during job interviews, it makes sense to do lots of practice and try to go to as many interviews as possible, just as playing lots of chess makes sense if you want to be a more confident chess player. Simply by becoming more familiar with the process, and learning from your experiences and mistakes, you will become more confident in your abilities over time.

But what about that other kind of confidence? You know when people have it – they just seem to carry it around with them wherever they go. They inspire trust. They don’t seem to really ever get fazed by anything. They’re Confident, with a capital C.

How can you be more like that?

I believe the first step lies in something that humanistic psychologists have long been calling the self actualization tendency. In essence, self actualization is a fictional end state (we never get there, that’s why it’s a tendency) in which a person has totally fulfilled all of their humanly needs (starting with survival needs and escalating hierarchically to more spiritual and collective needs), and meaningful growth as a person is no longer possible or even desired.

Again, according to humanist psychology, the tendency to self-actualize is innate and automatic. We’re already trying to do it, all of us, from the moment we are born. The problem is that we encounter barriers to our growth, and we spend most of our lives figuring out ways of getting around them.

So, what does this have to do with confidence?

Sounds like a good topic to delve deeper into next week, doesn’t it?

David Lindskoog is a career advisor with SFU Career Services, and Dave’s Diary is an ongoing series of journal entries touching on various aspects related to careers and well-being. Look for updates every Friday.

Want to hear my thoughts on a particular topic? Send me an email, and I’ll do my best to include it in my next post!

With a semester of co-op experience, I figured finding my next work term would be a breeze. After all, now I had relevant office experience to add to all the volunteer and part-time work on my resume. Unfortunately, I was mistaken. I didn’t get hired on a work term, and while my story comes from a co-op standpoint, what I learned is relevant and important for anyone looking for work.

I figured this seeking semester would be a breeze – after all, I had a good amount of experience, and pretty well-written application documents. Without doubt, I’d have a second co-op in no time. Well, the months passed, and I still didn’t have an offer. Sure, I got a nice number of interviews thanks to my strong resume and cover letter. I’m even confident I was a strong interviewee, based on feedback I’ve received from others in the past.

Still, no offers. So what was I doing wrong? When I followed up with my advisors and coordinators in an effort to get some feedback, I was rather surprised and confused about what I learned.

I realized that I had been falling into two different traps: I was either a very promising candidate, but simply lacked directly applicable experience; or the recruiters had liked everything I’d done but just didn’t think I was the right “fit.” I learned that even if I did everything right in the application process, and had lots of experience on my resume, there was no guaranteed job waiting for me right away.

It might be the same for you. If you didn’t get that job you really wanted, the reasons might be completely out of your immediate control: you can’t instantly gain experience you don’t have, and you certainly can’t change who you are. Simply put, it’s a buyer’s market: there’s heavy competition for students and new graduates, and companies can afford to be very picky on who they select.  I don’t want to discourage looking for jobs right now; rather, I hope that this can help you to avoid obsessing over why you didn’t get an offer, or stressing out about what you did wrong.

No matter what happens, never give up. If you can’t find the paid work you want, think outside the box for alternatives. Can you work towards your goal by volunteering part-time to gain the direct experience you’re missing? How about taking on a less related role that would develop some transferrable skills? There are more possibilities than you might think, and Career Services and Volunteer Services on campus can help you learn where to start, both on and off campus.

Seventeen applications, seven interviews, and zero co-op placements later, I ended up taking classes and volunteering with two positions on campus. You might imagine that I would be pretty depressed about all the rejections and failures I experienced, but I managed to stay positive throughout the process! If I learned anything from this, it’s to avoid getting emotionally attached to a job possibility when the outcome is still uncertain. At the end of the day, you don’t know what’s going to happen, so why hop onto an emotional rollercoaster?

Jennifer Gutzmann

Jennifer is a Career Peer Educator at SFU Career Services, and a fourth-year business student pursuing a career in Human Resources. She loves being with people, and wants to do something to help others.

Image via Wikipedia

Conflict is an inescapable and completely necessary part of life.

There’s no denying it – people see and understand the world differently, and it’s only a matter of time before perspectives clash, right and wrong get mixed up, and feelings get hurt.

But it’s pretty clear that different people handle conflict uniquely. Some seem to be completely unshaken in the face of conflict, while others go to great lengths to avoid it, knowing that they don’t handle it well at all. Then there are the people who seem to be great friends with all kinds of trouble – everyone knows at least one person who always seems to be in some kind of drama. They probably don’t really seem like happy people, but underneath it all, they thrive on all that discord. Without it, they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves. (more…)

Image via Flickr

Conflict. Why oh why do you plague us so?

You are an inevitability – it’s just a matter of time before someone or something disagrees with someone else, and they’re suddenly in a position of deciding between actions towards resolution, mediation, antagonization, or blissful ignorance. They may have to swallow pride, “take one for the team,” lose face, or spend extra time doing something they didn’t plan on. They may have be assertive when they would be more comfortable not doing so. We may not like conflict, but conflict is there, waiting for us to make our choice.

I can certainly recall times in my life that would have been much more pleasant had just one little thing been different – if only I got along better with this person (or they got along better with me), things would have been easier. If only that setback hadn’t happened, things would have been so much more perfect. If only more people saw things my way, we could all be in agreement and live more peacefully. If only conflict didn’t exist, everyone would be happier. Right? (more…)

Exams on the long weekend…

For those of you in this situation, you have my utmost sympathies.  Though, you’re probably too busy studying to be reading my blog.  In any case, I’m sending all the positive vibes your way that I can.

It’s kind of ridiculous.  Back in my day (which really wasn’t that long ago), they were just starting to flirt with the idea of weekend exams.  Unless you were an engineering student, though, you were probably safe.  Weekends were a kind of safe zone – a sacred place you could retreat to knowing that there would be no barrages of multiple choice questions, no paralyzing hand pains as a result of your iron death-grip clenching your pen for 2 or more hours.

And now it seems that nowhere is safe.  The is no ultimate respite from the rigors of formal post-secondary evaluation.  Even the word examination has a cold, unpleasant, medical feel to it.  That’s why some friends and I took to the euphemism “knowledge exploration invitations” to refer to exams, which has a much more pleasant feel, wouldn’t you say?

Just imagine: when your friends ask what you’re up to this weekend, you can say, “not too much.  I’ve been invited to explore my knowledge.  Kind of looking forward to that.”

Sure beats having to go write an exam. (more…)

Busy week!  Sometimes it seems like there’s a never-ending stream of students to see, employers to contact, people to follow up with, meetings to attend, and… well, blog articles to write!

We had the good fortune up here at SFU to be a part of Sean Aiken’s “Discover Your Passion” tour on Wednesday evening.  Don’t recall the name Sean Aiken?  You may remember him as the 52 jobs in 52 weeks guy – a few years ago Sean started a project called “One Week Job,” in which he decided to try out a bunch of different jobs after he graduated from his university degree.  Right now he’s doing a tour of schools and colleges, sharing his story with generation Y.  On Wednesday night up here at SFU we got to see an educational cut of the documentary he made about his experience.  He also shared many personal messages with the lucky students in attendance that echo not only many of the sentiments that I have written about here, but much of the underlying philosophy of how we do things at Career Services.  Overall, it was definitely a thumbs-up experience.  Thanks Sean and the “One Week Job” crew!

Last week I started to talk about empathy, particularly as a mechanism for personal growth.  This week I thought that looking at a more specific and practical application of empathy would be useful – namely the role that empathy might play in a job interview. (more…)

There was a time when I didn’t know what informational interviews were.  Little did I know that I could contact people who had positions that sounded interesting and ask about what they did! Can you imagine how shocked I was when I found out? I wondered why would anyone want to meet with me and want to help me? And how come I didn’t know about this sooner?!

Well, well, well. After taking Info Interviews 101, I realized that people generally want to help out others and help them in their careers. When asked to share previous work experiences with a partner in a career planning class, I was initially skeptical. Through the group work though, I found that I really enjoyed listening to my partner talk about his experiences and I was happy to share mine with him even though we weren’t even interested in the field the other worked in. It felt good talking to others about what I did previously and knowing that little bit of information could help someone on their career search.

With my newfound knowledge on informational interviews, I hit the phone and sent off emails.  I’m not going to lie and say it was easy.  The first few calls I made, I was nervous and it was OK too, because I made sure I was prepared with a script.  After setting up a few informational interviews and meeting with people, I found information that I would never have found anywhere else unless I talked to the person in the position.

Every meeting was informative as I learned so much about the nitty gritty and things that aren’t found in job descriptions, including dislikes and stressful situations. There were some positions I ruled out and some that really interested me. Through the meetings, I wondered why I never thought about doing informational interviews for potential careers I thought I would be in “when I grew up” while I was in university? If I had, I would have been better prepared and would have made decisions after doing my research and due diligence.

Are there any jobs you are curious about? Why don’t you contact someone working in a career that you’re interested in and ask for an informational interview?  If you don’t know what an informational interview is, you can Google it online or go to Career Services to receive more information.

- Helen Kim -

Helen is a graduate of the Career Development Practitioner Certificate program at SFU and former practicum student at SFU Career Services.

Going to an interview used to be so simple.

1)  Walk into the room.
2)  Introduce yourself.
3)  Shake hands.
4)  Sit down.
5)  Brace yourself for trial by fire.
What could be easier? Well, maybe a lot of things, but at least steps 1 through 4 were pretty straightforward. Right? I mean, what could possibly go wrong with introducing yourself and shaking hands?

…Or so I thought, until the H1N1 flu virus hit. (more…)

You’ve done all you can do to prepare for that big interview. You’re professionally dressed, confident and ready to roll. Here are some last minute tips that will ensure you make the best impression possible.  (more…)

You would think a BA in Psychology, an MA in Social Sciences plus several years in the work world would somehow exempt me from being nervous about interviewing for a job.   As it happens, I ’m currently completing the SFU Career Development Practitioner Certificate Program so job interviews are definitely in my near future.  And even though I don’t have any interviews lined up yet, I find that I’m starting to sweat.   The challenge for me is not that I don’t have good interview skills; the challenge is that I feel like I need to amp myself up to “make the sale”.

Well, as luck would have it (is it luck?),  I have been working as a  practicum student at the SFU Career Services Centre and as I was standing in the resource area, a Career Advisor pointed out a book called, “Not For Sale” to one of the students.   I found my ears perking up and my inner valley girl was saying, “Yeah, like I’m sooo totallee not for sale.”   Hallelujah!  There’s a book out there that gets what I’m feeling!  I was all over that book.   After reading it, I felt a renewed calmness and enthusiasm about how to approach my future interviews.

Now I won’t go into all the details of the book, you’ll have to check it out for yourself, or better yet drop by the Career Services Centre (shameless plug) and maybe you’ll discover something that makes you less sweaty too!

By Rosa, Practicum Student