Online Group Discussion - Monday 20th November

On Monday I attended an online discussion with Adesola, Matt, Charlotte and Laura. It was my first one since the induction session back in September and was interesting to speak to some fellow BAPPers and hear how they're getting on. I am significantly behind them in terms of the tasks so I was speaking and asking about different things. However, I possibly benefited in a way because they were able to advise me from experience about tasks that they had already tackled and potentially revisited and developed more than once.

I asked about CVs and the task to write a professional profile. As someone who went straight into teaching rather than working as a performer first, I thought my CV was fairly 'normal' and wasn't sure how to translate it to a profile. We discussed how our CVs are always changing; updating them as we continue our training/development and also adapting them to relate to the specific job we are applying for at the time. Matt put forward the suggestion of writing my profile as a cover letter first, as if applying for a job that requires skills from both my creative and ‘normal’ experiences. I tried approaching the task from this angle but found it quite tricky without an actual job description/specification in mind. However it did get me writing about myself and contributed to my understanding that a profile can be more descriptive than a CV.

Charlotte and Matt both wanted to discuss networking. Although I have not particularly considered how I use my networks yet, I tried to note down what was being said so I can refer back. I think it was Charlotte who also helped me to make the link between writing my CV/profile and networking. For example, when we are applying for a job we are likely to research the organisation. Knowing who else works for or even runs the organisation, we might then be able to draw on the knowledge within our existing networks to help us make our CVs clear, concise and really appeal to our potential employers.