darcylear.com
February 10, 2016 - In This Issue:
How will you reverse engineer professional development and career prep into your language courses?
CAREER PREP & THE HUMANITIES IN THE NEWS

An outdoor classroom at Kutztown University. Are your students ready for the much bigger transition from college to careers?

Language learning is making the news; I look forward to the ripple effects these reports have on college campuses.

from Forbes
-by Shellie Karabell


Karabell looks at the links between study abroad and leadership. The results won't surprise most language educators:  

It's nearly impossible to avoid a globalized workplace and Americans are underprepared compared to counterparts from around the world.

Transcultural competence, a tolerance for ambiguity and an ability to listen closely to what other says and mean are increasingly essential to "get business done."

from The New York Times
-by Clayton Lewis


This opinion piece argues that relying on others to know English or a third party to interpret is a dangerous precedent that can only damage American students' ability to succeed in a globalized world.  

It's not so much about memorizing verb conjugations; it's about networking, negotiating, and understanding what's going on in a globalized marketplace.

The comments section is longer than the piece and some rightfully point out that this view is out of step with trends in both K-16 education (where language & cultures studies seem to be losing ground) and the status quo within many American places of employment.


What's going on in the world of student career prep? 

The biggest trend in career transitions for 2016 appears to be the use of networking and internal hires over job boards.


from JobMob
-by Jacob Share


Finding jobs in 2016 is all about referrals and networking. This article provides a list that does a lot of the brainstorming for candidates so they can find some of the hidden jobs. 

An added advantage is that there will be a lot less competition for the hidden jobs than the widely advertised ones!


from Career Sherpa
-by Hannah Morgan


This article goes into detail on a single aspect of networking: finding a way to a referral, which is up there with inside hires for preferred ways to fill vacancies.

from Career Sherpa
-by Hannah Morgan


In this post, Hannah Morgan offers "accurate, contemporary information and guidance from job search experts."

As the trends and methodologies change, you don't want to be stuck looking at the big job search engine from your previous job search many years ago (think: Monster.com).  This article provides updated, curated information, some of which is sure to lead any job seeker in the right direction.

from Pathfinder
-by Dawn Rasmussen


The job market is better than it's been in a long time, but this means it's more important than ever to maintain a good reputation, be appropriately humble, and use networking & referrals to find your way to your next job.  Job boards are dying.


I've continued to post "before" and "after" answers to common job interview questions to YouTube.  These are designed to highlight the difference between walking into an interview unprepared and delivering practiced, polished answers to commonly-asked questions.

Of course, of interest to language educators are the interviews conducted in the target language such as this, this, and this.

My favorite recent post is one in which the candidate makes a strong case for combining engineering with languages! The beauty of her answer is that with minor tweaks, it can be used to answer many different "broad" interview questions, such as "what makes you unique?" "why should we hire you?" "tell me about yourself."


WEAVING CAREER PREP INTO THE HUMANITIES CURRICULUM
Start with a Problem, then Design a Solution
Brainstorming with faculty at Indiana State University after the faculty workshop on integrating professional skills training into language courses.

In 2016 I've been posting daily professional development and career prep tips using the hashtags #CareerPrepLangs (English) and #CareerPrepSpan (Spanish).

Regular blog posts explain how those 140-character tips manifest in a Spanish 2 class I'm teaching. Here's one on networking and numbers from the first week of classes.

In addition to using some of the examples I've provided, think of how you might design professional development and career prep activities that meet your own needs:

Start with a problem and reverse engineer a solution.

My hashtag idea got started with a problem: the flurry of end of semester grade-grubbing emails ("Can you round up?" "I swear I submitted that online assessment back in October" "Can I do extra credit now that the course is over?!"). My own experience coincided with a Facebook feed full of frustrated faculty members dealing with similar situations. 

This was a problem I wanted to solve. But I didn't want to start a new year and a new course scolding students about their future grade grubbing nor complaining about previous students.  

Over winter break, I designed the hashtags and #CareerPrepLangs blog posts. The in-class professional email writing activity coincided with midterms and trained students to solve their own problems in a professional manner. 

After midterm grades were recorded, I let students know that they should contact me with a professional email if I made an error grading or recording in the electronic grade book--I want to make that right. But I won't reply to any grade grubbing emails before deleting them (my actual wording was more professional: "I won't be able to accommodate requests to retroactively improve grades that have been accurately recorded.") 

What problems do you have that you can reverse engineer solutions to? 

Here are a few that have come up in recent conversations with faculty:

1- Letter of recommendation requests 

The quantity of requests and amount of time each one requires is a problem for a lot of faculty.  In addition, I found that the resumes students sent along with the requests for a recommendation had little or nothing to do with our shared experience--and therefore almost nothing I could use in the letter. Another problem.

The solution:  require that students provide three things.

1- Complete demographic information: full name, semester(s) of course(s) with me, and titles of course(s) with me.

2- A concise summary of  the content of assignments and projects they completed in my class (this is not the generic content of the course as presented on the syllabus, but rather the unique features of the individual's work). 

3- How my course and the work they did in that course is connected to whatever they're applying to.

If they can't do numbers 2 and 3, how can I?  It is challenging, but an entirely appropriate challenge with which to task students.  

I add two more pieces of information for students:

1- I will quote them--even if they provide low quality content. I've seen things like, "I liked Spanish because Spanish is important and your class was fun, you are peppy." So the corresponding letter of recommendation would say: "When asked what this course has to do with this job/program, Joe said, 'I liked Spanish because Spanish is important and your class...'" 

2- If they don't provide the information I request, the best I can do is fill in my generic letter of recommendation. I've posted it here and highly recommend having a similar document so that when students can't be bothered to provide important contextual information, you don't waste your time either. 

Finally, it is important for students to know that providing this content to faculty in college is excellent preparation for writing cover letters. Those letters have to do much the same thing as the recommendation information I request: convince the reader that you are the best candidate, get that person thinking about you, and--most important--show explicit connections between you and the employer/company.  A good cover letter puts the employer first and says, "you need X; let me illustrate for you that I have that" or "the problem your company has is Y; here's a detailed explanation of how I solve that problem."

2- Memo writing as accountability for in-class group work

A faculty member at a recent campus workshops wanted an idea for holding students accountable for effectively reporting back after in-class group work. 

Analysis and synthesis were the key soft skills that students would have to develop to succeed. Throughout the course, her students will be directed to deploy those skills to generate a professional memo that summarizes their group's accomplishments.  This should look like a bulleted list or talking points and the reporting group member should be able to communicate them in writing or verbally.  As this activity is integrated into the course, students will be prepared to rotate through the role of reporting member, have a system for presenting their results in writing (either on the classroom electronic screen or board) or verbally (by standing up and being prepared to deliver the information). 

This reversed engineered solution gets at a) the analysis and synthesis work that is foundational to the humanities and b) the kind of independent analytical and communication skills employers want in new hires who are recent grads.

3- Emotional over-commitment --especially with female faculty, especially in the humanities, where increasingly the instructional burden falls to adjunct labor. Here, the expectation is that students can deposit their problems with you for you to solve in the context of your course. 

For me, this led me to reverse engineer the in-class activity on professional email writing mentioned above. It includes: professional salutations and sign offs in the target language, presentation of the problem, your offered solution that is considerate of my time and availability--all in a short form that just gets at the who? what? when? where? and why? of the situation.  

The complete lesson (in Spanish) on professional email writing in the context of a missed assignment is on my blog here. This was a productive way for me to channel my frustration at the expectation of emotional over commitment on my part and it allowed me to handle it in a professional, "teachable" manner.  

If you feel bad withdrawing nurturing support from your students, think of the employment situations of these young adults in 2-3 years: no matter how much they want to call their supervisor "seƱorita" and share all the details of their lives that got in the way of completing a work project on time, it won't be appropriate. Students who aren't accountable to professional standards won't be employees who are accountable to professional standards.

 

DID YOU KNOW...
I Have Workshop Content for Grad Students
In 2016 some campuses have asked me to address graduate students in my workshops.

For this I've developed content that urges graduate students to identify what makes them unique: What's your PhD + 1?  Because all the competition also has a PhD, you have to make the case for your candidacy over theirs.

Integrating professional development and career prep into the courses you teach can be that element that makes you unique! Though we also discuss how this might vary for an R1 application as compared to a SLAC application. 

How to present your unique traits in a teaching philosophy statement is a lot like writing a cover letter--it has to be about them--the employers--and unmet needs they have that you meet or unsolved problems they have that you solve.

Let me know if you want to schedule a workshop on your campus: darcylear@gmail.com


Darcy Lear, PhD
443A West Grant Place
Chicago, IL 60614

919-793-4429
darcylear@gmail.com

Standout candidates in competitive job markets

SEE SERVICES ON WEBSITE