Tips for your Assignment

Here are some tips for students to help them do well on their assignment.

1. LISTEN BEFORE RESPONDING.

If a friend asks you for help, can you give solid them solid advice without understanding their issue? Applying to a job is the same thing. The employer needs help, they use the job description to help you understand what they need help with.

Understand their problem before crafting your response. Your response is your job application and it should articulate why you are the best person to help them.

Action:
Spend 20 minutes reading the job description. Spend an additional 20 minutes researching the company on their website. Ask yourself the following questions:

What are the top skills they are looking for?
What makes me a unique candidate for this job?

2. THINK ABOUT YOUR COMPETITION/PEERS.

You may be thinking ‘this is just an assignment, why do I need to think about competition’. In a real-life job application, competition is fierce, only one person actually gets to win the job out of everyone that applies. When it’s that competitive, it is important to understand who you are competing with and how far you need to go to be successful. Job applications are an exercise where 2nd, 5th, 20th best, isn’t good enough.

Action:
Spend 10 minutes thinking about how your peers will apply to the job. What assets are they going to use? Are they using video? Are they adding a cover letter? How do you look compared to them?

3. REVIEW YOURSELF & GET FEEDBACK FROM OTHERS

You have the opportunity to see your Showcase exactly as your TA will, you also have the Rubric for the assignment. Use that to your advantage.

Having a Showcase link makes it easy for you to send your Showcase to peers, family, and other trusted people in your life. Others are far more likely to catch mistakes and also to give you critical feedback on how you can improve.

Action:
Pull up your Showcase and go through it with the Rubric. How well would you grade yourself? Where can you make improvements? Is everything aligned with the job you are applying to?

Send your Showcase using the private link to at least 1 person for feedback. You can ask them to use the “Contact Me” on your Showcase.

4. GET IT DONE EARLY

It’s completely normal for most students to get an assignment done on the due date. We’ve found that the earlier students get Showcases done the better they do. This is because they have more time to reflect on it and make incremental improvements over time. It also gives them time to get feedback from and make necessary changes. They also avoid many mistakes that arise from last-minute rushing.

Action:
Try to get your Showcase done 24-48 hours before it is due. Sleep on it, and come back to it with fresh eyes. You’ll often catch mistakes and realize opportunities for improvements.

 

We’re here to help

We’ll be running a Showcase Building Workshop on Wednesday, December 5th at 11AM. To attend you’ll need to register in advance: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/c7b4e911e41dd2c57510d14dfea9e911