Today began with a presentation from the founder of TalentHub, Ellie Doyle. She initially covered how technological advancements and the Covid Pandemic have impacted the workforce and will continue to alter the nature of our jobs in the future. Specifically, automation will replace millions of low-level jobs while opening the door for even more new jobs with higher education barriers. Ellie then went on to talk about the importance of soft skills over hard skills. This is because employers are coming to realize they can teach someone the hard skills essential for a job with relative ease, but it is much more difficult to teach someone a new competency. In all, employers are now more focused on hiring candidates based off personality rather than technical expertise than ever in the past. Lastly, Ellie covered the importance of personal branding. This can be defined as how others would describe you. Because your personal brand is essentially what others think of you, you must devote time and effort into building this brand in order to be more attractive to recruiters. Additionally, we learned that an interview is of course a time for a recruiter to interview the candidate, but it is equally a time for the candidate to interview the recruiter to determine if the company would be a good fit. My main takeaway from her lecture was that I need to focus on developing soft skills as they are the main determinant in our career goals and what ultimately lead us to be successful.

As a soccer referee and through other customer service jobs I have had in the past, I have had the ability to develop some key competencies that I believe make me an attractive candidate. Some of these include communication, conflict management, motivation, and teamwork. These personal traits give me the essential foundation to have success professionally. Communication is important and in many cases lacking in today’s society; however, being a soccer referee has forced me to improve upon this skill as you would quite literally get screamed at if you failed to communicate your decisions. Motivation gives you the drive to complete your assigned work and more broadly meet your career goals. Without this, you may end up stuck in the same position for years rather than continuously improving. Lastly, teamwork is essential in nearly every industry and within everyone department in every company. Being able to work in a group can boost your career because it will allow for the group members to come together to maximize the quality of their work and create a more enjoyable work environment.

Although I believe I still have so much to do in terms of developing my personal brand, there are a few things I think others would recognize about me. I am a hardworking student who is driven to be successful in whatever I may do. Also, I am very reliable as I can be trusted to do what is expected of me when it is expected to be done. On the other hand, I think people would describe me as pretty relaxed as I’m not often very flustered and prefer to go with the flow and figure things out as I go. In the future, I hope to develop a brand that revolves more around my personal life rather than academic/professional while still being recognized as a respected member of a company.