The Geography Department’s spring student professional development workshop series kicked off on March 11th with Interview Like a Pro. Joining workshop leaders Tanya Buckingham (Assistant Director, Cartography Laboratory) and Joel Gruely (Undergraduate Advisor) was Leslie Kohlberg, Assistant Director of Department Relations.

Leslie discussed how to tell employers the value of their experience as UW-Madison students. She provided an array of resources available to students through Letter’s & Science Career Services. Students can see Joel Gruley to obtain the useful handouts provided by Leslie.

Tanya Buckingham led students through an activity to better understand their own personal values. The values exercise helps students identify their personal goals and values so they can also be looking for a place that is a good fit for them. To paraphrase Leslie, the interview (along with all of your other application materials) are simply a way to convey information. Assessing personal values is a good way to do a quick self check to determine if we are living a life that honors the things most important to us. When we are out of alignment, it’s like riding in a car with a flat tire. Nothing feels right, you can’t continue cruising down the road, because something is pulling you off your course. In the best of all situations, our partners, our friends, our jobs, all support the values that we honor most. This is why it is critical to have a clear understanding of those values.

The formula that Tanya has been using with her students is inspired by coaching exercises. If you are doing this on your own, she suggests finding someone who will listen to you, and participate in the process as well. This exercise can be completed in 30 minutes; it can also run much longer, if you have an engaged group, full of self-reflective individuals who are interested in sharing.

She poses five questions, allowing for 2 to 5 minutes between each:

1. Describe a high point in regard to a project that you have worked on for a class or work. This would be a time of extreme pleasure, satisfaction, learning, or fulfillment. It may be a single moment in time, or it may have happened over a long period. What about it was so important to you? Put yourself in that time; what can you see, hear, smell? Use as many details to describe the situation as you can: season, surroundings, the feelings you had, who else was involved, if anyone.

2. Describe an awful experience at work or in school. This would be a time when you felt unimportant, dishonored, disempowered, or invisible. Use as many details as possible to describe the situation.

3. What drives you crazy?

4. If I were to interview your family and friends, what would they say that you value most?

5. Imagine yourself in 10 years. You are successful (however you define that). Someone approaches you at a conference and says, “Oh, it is so good to meet you! Your work has impacted me because you…” Finish that sentence. 

After all five questions have been asked, students work in groups of 2 or 3. Each student explains his/her answers to all of the questions. The observing student listens carefully, and provides feedback to the student that is speaking. The listening student looks for patterns within the answers. What types of responses are showing up in both the negatively and positively phrased questions. Listening students then share their observations, and engage in a conversation about the perceptions. Make sure that you watch the time so that each sharing student gets about the same amount of time to share and receive feedback.

It can sometimes be helpful for the students to have access to a list of personal values as they go through this exercise, or in the personal reflections following the exercise.