ACE Training and Career Development Project
On Tuesday, 6 November 2018, we (Level 5 Digital Media Design Students) made our way down to Watford Football Stadium for the ACE Training and Career Development Project. For clarity, I’m listing the submission requirements here along with their respective links to Google Drive before the 1500 word written report and reflection:
1. Completed ACE Training Sessions, Evidenced on Learning Blogs – This post
2. Cover Letter – https://drive.google.com/open?id=1InGUUenRaXiiOWm2a3uDVkoWp5cHpV1r
3. A General Personal CV – https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Fif-zskyA3tfyuA4qtM3VMv8hrCNHT9t
4. Presentation Slides – https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1AbO_Or8U9RG17VdDN9deTD6n1iff1mWhwU3dqoSNONw/edit?usp=sharing
5. Attend Assessment Careers Experience and Participate in Group Activity – Done
6. 1500 Written Report and Reflection on Learning Blog – This post
7. Pre-Event Survey – Done
Note:
The link in my CV is to an old portfolio that I did two years ago. So don’t worry about it, the link will be changed to the website that we’re making for Mobile and Web App Design.
The day at Watford Football Stadium started out with us being handed our schedules and groupings. It was slightly nerve wracking to not have known beforehand the order in which we were going to be put through the three assessment exercises, but I guess this could be one tiny detail that could reflect a real-life interview where we may not even know what methods of assessment will be used.
I was assigned to Group 30, and my three assessment exercises were completed in the following order: Interview Exercise, Presentation Exercise, and Group Exercise.
For the interview exercise, I chose to interview for the Ogilvy Junior Account Manager. The reason for this choice was mainly due to my being relatively more interested in this position over the Creative Technologist position. Either way, this was something that was rather out of my comfort zone and I was fairly nervous going in. Thankfully, the assessor was friendly and welcoming.
The interview went fairly well, I was able to bank on some of my past leadership experiences and relate them to the role of Junior Account Manager. Some of the pointers that I received before going into the interview that I found useful were the following:
1. Research about the company
2. Read and assess the job description carefully for qualities that they may be looking for implicitly
3. Prepare questions for the interviewer
Knowledge of the company and analysis of the job description allowed me to frame myself and my answers more clearly. With most of my answers, I tended to think of an intended quality to be showcased through an example, then chose an example and ended the example accordingly.
I used examples of when I was the Social Director of my school’s Student Club, as well as examples of when I was President the next year. As the Social Director of the Club, I was in charge of organizing events for the student body, and often the role also included being a liaison with external vendors for different purposes. As menial as the role can sound, it was a definitely a good learning experience. It was a role of balance, where we had to find out what the student body wanted, then try to get what they want from the vendors at the lowest price. The following year as President, I also had an added responsibility of managing the Student Club and making sure that our members were satisfied working with each other as well. I likened all of this to the client-junior account manager-design team relationship, where I talked about forming a balance between keeping the clients happy for future partnerships and making sure the design team isn’t overworked from client demands, to ensure employee retention.
As cliche as it may sound, I found it to be ideal to view everything as a learning experience. Even smaller leadership roles can give us the foundation to build our experiences on, and in this case, it can help the interviewer understand more about us and our interpersonal skills.
Preparing questions for the interviewer was a pointer that I once read on an article on medium. The premise is that by asking questions of the interviewer, we show a keen sense of understanding and genuine interest in the job. Asking questions isn’t always easy, especially in an interview setting. We may forget out question from the nerves, and may not always find the right time to ask a question. In my opinion, having questions can also show that we have the confidence to sit through an interview well.
After the interview was over, I reflected on my performance and felt that I spoke a little too fast at times and mispronounced some words because of it. I knew I also nearly messed up one of my answers. This was when the interviewer asked about which parts of the job I think I wouldn’t like. I took a short moment to think about it and I answered honestly, which really could have ended poorly. I said that I notice that the job may involve interactions outside of office hours (after all, we’re talking about maintaining client relationships) and I said that it could potentially be my least favorite part of the job considering that I’m an introvert. I tried to save my answer by saying that if I didn’t exceed my capacity for interaction it would be fine. In hindsight, it’s not a good thing to announce that I’m an introvert, because while myths are being debunked everyday about introversion, there is no guarantee that the interviewer will not associate me with the common stereotypes of introversion. Perhaps I could instead say that I still have the confidence to get my job done even if I’m exhausted? Or I could just prepare myself for this question for the next interview that I have.
I’m uploading a scanned version of the feedback here:
Next up was the Presentation Exercise. I chose to present on the importance of sound in film. Here’s the link to the slides again:
In preparation of the slides for the Presentation Exercise, I decided to follow some of the common pointers for presentation slides. Less words, more pictures/graphics. I also chose a black background for less glare, for it to be easier on the eyes.
There’s not much I have to say about the Presentation content. It was something that I was interested in, I attended a few lectures on Sound Design, and the content was well suited for an interactive presentation. I would say that I did kind of well in choosing the topic for my presentation, but I may not be so lucky every time to find something that could fit into my criteria. In that case though, I would then have to be careful of the various pitfalls such as 1. not being interested in the topic, the audience won’t be able to be infected by your energy, 2. it’s something that you have little to no knowledge about and won’t be able to answer questions accordingly, 3. a boring topic that the audience cannot relate to. These pitfalls can be avoided by the respective methods: 1. pretending to be interested and invested in what you’re saying, 2. RESEARCH!, 3. if it’s a topic that’s too simple, frame the presentation to leave them with a question about future prospects regarding that field, or linking it to real life application, if it’s a topic that’s way too difficult, boil it down to be easily understood.
It was, however, a challenge to fit all of the content I wanted to show within 5 minutes and I did exceed the time. In the future, I’ll make sure that my presentations do not exceed the allotted time.
Here is the feedback from the Presentation Exercise:
Finally, we had our Group Task Exercise.
This was by far the exercise that I was most unfamiliar with. It was a pleasant experience in the end, where we all bounced off our ideas off each other. From the feedback that I received, I learned to be more conscious of quieter members of the group and to try to include them in the discussion. What I find is the challenge of doing that is that it’s difficult to find a time to ask quieter members for their opinions when there was always at least one person speaking about their idea and the reasoning at any one point of time and at times it was really difficult to wait for the person speaking to finish before giving a time check. (Advice pls @Julian)
The other behavior that’s ticked for development was that I demonstrated little creativity to the task and relied on others to make suggestions, and again this was really difficult considering the time limit. I did have an idea, but decided not to present it to the group for two reasons: 1. I wasn’t sure if my idea would be effective implemented locally. (for instance, Instagram and Influencers are a huge thing in my home country and would make for an effective ad campaign, but it seems that Snapchat is far more used here, while Snapchat is already dead in Singapore) 2. There simply wasn’t enough time. Reflecting upon it, I guess it would be extra important for me to immerse myself culturally and do my research should I choose to work overseas in the future.
Here’s the feedback from the Group Exercise:
Overall, I found the ACE Training session to be very fruitful. The feedback that we receive from these exercise will go a long way towards our future interviews and I’m thankful for this experience to practice. This was especially so for the Group Task, where we may not be able to get enough people together for practice and even so, it would be very different if we were in a group with strangers on a real interview. The presence of professional assessors and their feedback is highly valued.
To be honest, my home university has an online module on careers, but it doesn’t even come close to this. The content is outdated, and it’s a general required module for the entire school (including medicine, science, environment etc degrees..) so it was pure torture going through a module that perpetuates stereotypes and just isn’t catered to Art students.
So, well done UH, and thanks Jo, thanks Julian! This is an experience that I would bring back as a suggestion to my home university.
