{"id":129,"date":"2018-09-26T15:38:47","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T15:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/?p=129"},"modified":"2020-11-30T19:53:55","modified_gmt":"2020-11-30T19:53:55","slug":"learning-to-sell-myself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/2018\/09\/26\/learning-to-sell-myself\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Sell Myself"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m going to do what?<\/em><\/p>\n

It was my sophomore year, and the first day of a class called Professional Portfolio Development. The professor informed us that we would be participating in mock interviews: first with our fellow classmates, then with some of PWID\u2019s board members, both on the phone and in person. First, we would pick a job that intrigued us, and then we would pretend to go through the interview process.<\/p>\n

I was 17 years old. I had only ever worked online, aside from my job at a bakery. I felt about as inexperienced as one could be.<\/p>\n

How could I be inte<\/em>rviewed by professionals who had been in their field for as long as I\u2019d been alive? Let\u2019s just say I was terrified. I\u2019ve never felt as unprepared as I did in that moment.<\/p>\n

As the course continued, my anxiety mounted. I started to create my resum\u00e9 and was reminded of how little I\u2019d accomplished. My professor assured me that the board members were aware of our inexperience, but I was still nervous.<\/p>\n

A few weeks before our phone interviews, my classmates and I practiced with each other. I grew more comfortable talking about myself and my interests. I was surprised by how much I enjoyed trying to \u201csell\u201d myself. It became a fun challenge instead of a daunting task.<\/p>\n

My phone interviews went smoothly. I was amazed at how comfortable I was. My interviewers seemed to like my concise answers and quick wit.<\/p>\n

I think they liked me and my confidence. Maybe I can do this! Maybe I can walk into a mock interview and convince a board member to \u201chire\u201d me.<\/em><\/p>\n

The day of the in-person interviews arrived. I put on my best professional dress, spent extra time doing my hair, and patiently waited for 2 p.m. I was somewhat distracted during my classes that day, but I knew I was ready. I knew I could carry myself well, even if I felt completely underqualified for the position I was pretending to interview for. The time I spent practicing in class had prepared me for whatever would come next.<\/p>\n

My classmates and I waited for our interviews in a room that felt like a funeral parlor. How fitting for our state of anxious anticipation. I tried to reason with myself:<\/p>\n

It\u2019s okay! You\u2019re going to walk into that room, have a conversation with someone, and pass this class. Regardless of how this interview goes, you\u2019ll gain valuable experience and be better prepared for future interviews.<\/em><\/p>\n

I walked into the room and met my interviewer. We started to discuss my resum\u00e9, and I felt my passion for writing bubble up and spill into our conversation. I shocked myself! Here I was, a young, amateur writer, going on and on about my growing skill set and future aspirations. As we talked, I saw how much my interviewer valued and loved his career. It made me so excited for my future as a professional writer.<\/p>\n

Looking back on that experience, I\u2019m so grateful I took Portfolio during my first semester at Cedarville. It taught me to embrace the unknown. It gave me the tools I need to be successful in future interviews\u2014interviews that will determine what my career holds.<\/p>\n

No matter what comes next, I\u2019m confident in my ability to sell my writing. I guess I\u2019ll have to see who wants to buy it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was my sophomore year, and the first day of a class called Professional Portfolio Development. The professor informed us that we would be participating in mock interviews: first with our fellow classmates, then with some of PWID\u2019s board members, both on the phone and in person. I was 17 years old. I had only ever worked online, aside from my job at a bakery. I felt about as inexperienced as one could be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":757,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21,20],"tags":[5,73,6,4],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/Write-Major-Blog-Header-learning-to-sell-myself-scaled.jpg?fit=2560%2C640&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":758,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129\/revisions\/758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cedarville.edu\/thewritemajor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}