I’m about to start a new job as a TEL Adviser at York St John University and I was reflecting recently on the whole process of applying for the job, preparing for the interview and then reflecting on the interview and presentation after the event.
As I was filling in the application form for the job I became aware – probably more than I have ever been with applications in the past – that thinking through all of the things you’ve done and trying to put them into a coherent order that aligns with the person specification is really worthwhile in terms of taking stock of everything you’ve done in your current and previous jobs.
Perhaps I feel this way because I’ve applied for a lot of jobs over the years and have ended up transitioning from one field of work (libraries) to another (technology enhanced learning/e-learning/educational development – whatever you want to call it) so I’ve really had to think about how the skills and experience I’ve built up over the years are transferable.
I would definitely say that applying for jobs, or even going through the process of reflecting on what you’ve done and mapping it to a person spec for a job in a similar field or perhaps a job that would be a step-up from your current one would really benefit anybody from a development point of you. It’s easy to get bogged down in the day-to-day stuff at work and get frustrated or feel like you’re stagnating and nothing ever changes. I saw someone on Twitter a few days ago tweet something about how change is one of the only constants in life. Perhaps it’s just that we don’t notice it at the time and we don’t make time to reflect on how far we’ve come and what we’ve achieved.
Even if you like your job and have no intention of leaving, but on occasion feel a bit frustrated or stuck, doing a ‘skills audit’ would maybe be a good way of making you think about all the things you’ve done and perhaps help you see things from a different perspective.
What does everyone else think?
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