Written by Megan
Recently a blog was released on how important selling yourself on your CV and throughout the recruitment process really is, and over the past few days, I myself have experienced the reality of this whilst applying for a summer internship. Therefore, today this blog will be focusing on my own personal experience which will hopefully inspire those of you who don’t quite have the confidence to apply for that role you want and give you a push in the right direction.
In case you know nothing about me, I’m Meg, and I am a Career Coach at the Staffordshire University Career Studio. More so, I am a Level 4 Forensic Investigation student, after changing courses from Psychology in September 2019. During my time as a Psychology student, I had the long-term goal of undertaking a year in industry placement between levels 5 and 6 to gain the experience required for after graduation. If you don’t know why this is important, go and read our blog to give you a wider understanding. Trust me, you won’t regret it! However, since moving to a new degree meant re-doing level 4, my funding no longer allowed me to take a year out to complete my placement, and so I found myself in a predicament. The main question I was asking myself was ‘I’m stuck. This is a disaster; how do I fix it?’ with this cat being an accurate representation of my feelings at the time:
So I started to research my options, keeping in mind how important gaining experience was for me. Throughout my role, I hear about students wanting to undertake summer placements if they are unable to undertake year-long placements for whatever reason, however I never thought I would find an opportunity relevant to my degree that I would be interested in. Perseverance was key though, and FINALLY! I came across a role with the Criminal Justice system from June – September in my area. This to me seemed like the perfect opportunity, the perfect solution to my problem until I read the requirements for applying and all the hopes and dreams I’d managed to think of in the minute that had passed since finding the job came crashing down again. The requirements stated that you MUST (scary, shouty capitals in place) be in your penultimate/final year of your degree or you would not be eligible, and this for me was a giant red cross because I was no longer a level 5 student.
After sitting and staring at the entry requirements for 20 minutes, contemplating my life choices, I realized that out of the 5 or 6 requirements listed, that was the only one I did not meet. In my opinion, I was more than qualified in every other area apart from the fact that I am a level 4 instead of a level 5 student. This gave me a bit of a confidence boost and I decided I would apply for the role whether I was eligible or not because realistically, the worst thing they could say was…no. And given that I could then re-apply next year if I was not successful this time round, them saying no didn’t sound all too awful. So there and then, I filled in the application form as I would any job I wanted (to the best of my ability, which I didn’t believe was very well at the time) and pressed send. This was quite a nerve-racking move for me, with my self-confidence not being at its highest in regards to my professional abilities when applying for jobs, and despite my co-workers best efforts to support me and build my confidence, I was nowhere near convinced I was going to secure this job. Still, a brave face was put on and, on my application, you’d think I believed I was the Beyonce of the Criminal Justice world, using that inspiration from the ‘Selling yourself’ blog to try and put my skills out there.
After a long wait time, to my surprise… I was offered a face-to-face interview. Then, due to Covid-19, this was changed to a Skype interview which in my opinion, was even scarier than the original because it was something I’d never done before. After even more Covid-19 developments, I received an email stating that all interviews had been cancelled, and that the selection process would be based solely on the application submitted. In my mind, that was it, I was doomed, and the position would never be mine for the taking. Then, even more to my surprise, I did it! I secured the position and am now currently awaiting a start date for my new summer job.
In my opinion, the moral of this blog is if I can do this, then so can you. I’m no different to any other student, my skills are sometimes rocky, I get nervous and don’t believe in myself because I’m not qualified yet. BUT (and it’s a very big, important but) all you have to do is sell yourself and hope for the best. The braver you are, the more you think you can do it, the more you can achieve. I think it’s definitely safe to say that all you have to do to secure the role you want is…
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