Now, on to the entry.
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I was a bit bummed when I found out that one of my flash disks had fried. In the searing heat of summer, and my desktop getting bogged down, it had a supplemental piece of writing critical to the application process at USC. After settling down, I was able to recreate it out of plain memory, and back it up via GMail at my work. Whew.
Speaking of work, I took a detour up to Downtown LA (Again, you ask? Well, at the Open House, I filled out a form, and I fulfilled my promise to myself) to attend a seminar.
There's nothing wrong with being a cynic, so long as you stick to what your viewpoints are because cynics have been through many roads before. Salty and cynical are synonyms, the former being informal, the latter being the word I am discussin in this paragraph.
Dr. David Pahl of the University of Southern California (yep, here we go again) is an example of a cynic. He describes himself as one, so for the sake of his entry, we'll take his word for it. Anyway, Dr. Pahl gave a lecture of the Trojan way of approaching cover letters, resumes, and the interviews. Here's a few points highlighted at the seminar.
- On a resume objectives are optional unless you are going through a career change.
An oral history is critical in an interview because if you know it, you can find ways to put it in, whether at the beginning, or in pieces of your answers to the questions. - Relevance to the resume is key. Put anything that has relevance to your objective on there. If it spans two pages, place the ones that really matter at the front, anf the ones that don't matter as much but are still relevant at the back.
Don't worry about the competition. Have the mindset that you better than they are, and the outcome is what it is. - An interview should be, essentially, a conversation.
- If being aggressive in the last part of your cover letter is your cup of tea, do so. You will never know who will accept it or be intimidated to throw it out the you-know-what.
- In terms of illegal questions, you've got options. Options was something Dr. Pahl stressed. You can innocently answer the question, deflect it back to the position, or tell them that it was an illegal question flat-out. After the interviews, you can decide for yourself if what they weren't supposed to ask determined whether you should work for them or not.
Dr. Pahl also talked about a scenario where appearance ruined an opportunity to land a big-time position. As I heard the spiel, I grinned to my fellow attendee sitting next to me, saying, "i know where this is going."
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After the seminar, I took the Blue Line back home. I tried something different: balancing on the platform as the train was in motion. The ride overall was smooth. And I even burned some calories from the ordeal.
A few interested high school youths talked with me about why I was doing it. One of them was keen enough to take a video of it on his cell-phone. Half of the crew were from Compton, the others from the armspits of Central Long Beach.
One of them even asked if I had graduated or something. Now, I can't blame her for thinking that I was a high school student. She even thought that I was kidding that I was applying for grad work, or the fact that I am putting my Bachelor's to use. Perhaps the appearance and my easy demeanor threw them off.
One of the fat chicks of that posse blurted out some tough-girl comments. I said, "Say that again? I couldn't hear you." She didn't answer. I nodded. "Keep you mouth shut, then."
I added, "I don't want the attention, and I am not here to pick a fight with you kids. I just want to go home. You'd best be careful when saying that stuff. It rolls off my back, and it goes in one ear and out the other. But it may not be the same for someone else."
The train hit Del Amo. "My stop. Enjoy getting handcuffed, ladies. Later."
So in short, these were the types of youth who could use a little taste of what my employers had to offer. Whether or not that happens is not something I should care about.
These were kids who reached a point in their lives where they think they are tough enough in word and deed, that they don't need anybody to correct them. Incorrigible was the term. It was even discussed by some of the folks at my work, the saltiest bunch of cynics that I have the pleasure to interning for.
"You are better than they are. The outcome is what it is. You can only control what you can control."
Right on the spot, Dr. Pahl.
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