A World without Boundaries

Ironed dress slacks and fancy button-down shirts lined the halls of the Embassy Suites hotel. With resume in hand, I joined the professional looking crowd at the 14th Annual International Career Conference this past February 21 with the hope of gaining career advice and perhaps even a job.

The theme of the conference, "a world without boundaries" influenced the selection of Patricia Woertz, CEO of Archer Daniels Midland, as the keynote speaker on global leadership. Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) serves as a global agricultural processing chain.

From the confident and experienced Woertz, I learned to look for organizations that are growing despite the failing economy when job searching. I also was advised to trust my instincts, take risks, and look for values in a future employment organization that align with my own.

Motivational speaker, Denise Dudley encouraged me to find my passion in a future career. Dudley, a published author and co-founder of SkillPath Seminars, earned a Ph.D. in behavioral psychology. Now a professional public speaker, she tours the country giving seminars on business writing, communication skills, management and supervisory skills, and personal relationships.

Dudley defines passion as a learned response to an environmental cue. She said we learn to recognize passion by building pathways in our brain. Once we have had a passionate experience, we are able to recognize other instances of passion during our daily lives.

“People are healthier who can match their passion to a career,” Dudley said. Along with this, people usually enjoy what they are good at, Dudley said.

Dudley preaches that passion should come naturally, and “you don’t have to fake it.” It drains energy to not “be you.”

In order to begin to find a career with passion under Dudley’s advice, I need to make a list of personal assets. Next, I need to make a list of assets I desire in a career. By matching my personal assets with an organization’s assets, I am on my way to working and living my passion.

With a few new tips added to my existing career knowledge, I ventured to a “Job Success” workshop. The workshop was put on by a panel of former Cal Poly graduates. Each graduate spoke about how they received their first job after graduation and what they now look for when they hire new employees.

In terms of the resume, I learned to place the keyword qualities that are listed in the job description onto my resume. Apparently, this little trick could keep my resume alive through a stack of fifty other potential applicants. Additionally, I learned to place my three most impressive bullet points at the top of the list. Often the person who reads your resume doesn’t make it past point number three before deciding whether to place you in the trash or possibility pile.

To prepare for the interview, I learned to think about my most challenging experiences, and how I persevered. It seems, employers use past behavior to predict future behavior.

Now with even more career insight and knowledge of what is wrong with the resume I have brought to the job fair, I attempted to confidently glide in and impress my new future employers. Yes, a job was sure to come from this pursuit! Or at least, this was the vision in my head. In reality after speaking with almost every company at the job fair, I walked away without much hope of a job surfacing from my encounters. The combination of my English degree and the types of positions available failed to correspond in most cases, but the world is boundless, right? I must believe that my career opportunities are boundless as well.