Leveraging Skills Learned from Past Jobs When Interviewing for Your Next Job

Interesting article that popped up on Reader today, and one that echoes several things that we've discussed at Cass. For many of us looking at switching jobs, one of the key elements is going to be the ability to translate our old skills and experiences into ones suitable for a new career, and effectively communicating the same through CVs, interviews, etc. The Career Transition workshop this week and the online self-assesment applications have actually helped me see some of these things, in that they've allowed me to look at previous experiences not in terms of specific events, but rather as a part of broader themes. For example, one thing I realized was that during my time at my former company, I built up a level of expertise in a paticular domain . While the specifics of the expertise may not be relevant to my next job, the fact that I have the proven ability to learn new information and apply it to different situations successfully is definately relevant.

This viewpoint was enhanced during the CV editing session. I had a very technical-oriented CV, with a lot of industry specific jargon that I wasn't able to translate into everyday language, a fact pointed out to me by a couple of very helpful ladies in class. Working with the CV consultant not only helped me fix the mechanical details of the CV, but also shift my thinking / PoV. While I'm still not sure exactly sure which career or industry I want to target post-MBA, at least now I can think about positioning myself appropriately by using previous experiences as strong foundations for change.

On a totally different note, had a great discussion at lunch today with a fellow MBA student from the video game industry, who's worked on at least one game that I've enjoyed in the past. We talked about both past and future games, how the industry works, what it takes to break into it as a professional, etc. As someone who's played a lot of games (Arati would probably say to many...), it was pretty cool to get an insider's point-of-view on it. For example, the current shift towards micro-payments fuelled MMOs and the age demographics involved in it isn't something I'd thought about, but made a lot of sense as we discussed it. I think that's one of the things I'm enjoying most about this program, the sheer diversity of people to talk to and learn from. In another instance, I was talking to an Aussie who'd had issues with IT companies unable to deliver a quality product, and was able to provide some insight on the subject from a vendor's perspective.

You know what makes me nervous? Getting e-mails about assignment due dates and submission guidelines, when we haven't recieved the assignment yet. Oh well, up on Google Calender it goes. Does anyone know a good way of showing Google Calendar on the Windows Vista Desktop?