Thursday, February 26, 2015

The Stories We Choose To Tell by Sarah M. Kipp

Sarah M. Kipp has over twenty years of experience as a writing coach, educator, and speaker. She has coaching certificates from the International Coach Federation and the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching (iPEC). In 2007, Sarah founded Express Yourself Write, a coaching and advising firm for leaders. Check out her wesbite, www.SarahMKipp.com

On February 25th, Sarah addressed WIN participants and spoke on the topic, The Stories We Choose To Tell. She began by posing the questions:
To whom do we tell our stories?
When?
Where?
Why?
How?
She urged participants to notice the stories they tell themselves; the stories they tell others and what draws them to other people's stories. 

Remember that you are telling a story when you are attending an interview or interacting with people. It's important to pay attention to Intentionality, Content and Authenticity. 
Intentionality - What kind of impression do we want to create on our listeners?
Content - Show, instead of tell. Highlight your positive traits with examples or anecdotes.
Authenticity - Convey that you are genuine by your body language, eye contact, passion and the aura that you exude.

Sarah's engaging presentation gave participants a chance to reflect and rethink their strategies while interacting with their coworkers, family members or strangers. 

Thursday, February 12, 2015

"Creating a Winning Resume" - Presentation by Jesse Sherwood


Jesse Sherwood has held the position of Manager, Financial Services with Prudential Financial, Greater New England Financial Group since 1995. He gave an excellent presentation on How to Create a Winning Resume. 
He listed the important components of a resume:
Header: Name, Address, Phone number, E-mail
Objective: Without using the word Objective, state your objective - a concise statement of what you want to do
Summary of Qualifications: focus on experience, areas of expertise and professional skills 
Employment History: Company names, dates of employers and titles
Responsibilities and results achieved
Additional relevant information, such as certifications, licenses, languages you speak etc
Education

A resume's purpose is to get you a face-to-face interview. A one-page resume is ideal; if you have two pages, highlight the salient points on the first page. Jesse went over the two kinds of resumes - functional and chronological. Create a functional resume if your experience has been gained in different, unconnected jobs. Use a chronological resume if you are applying for a position in highly traditional fields. Lots of tips that the attendees appreciated.