Successful career event in Leiden
No matter the organization or team one is involved in, I believe the best way to develop oneself is to add value to the team you are involved in; by doing this, you add value to yourself as well. This pertains both to the goals the organization intends to achieve and what you as part of the organization want to achieve. Couple this with the willingness to continually learn and develop your personal skill sets an individual on the pathway to success. I reflect on these thoughts after hosting together with the International Studies Student Association a career event for students of our MA International Relations program in Leiden. With more than half of the program paying to participate in the panel discussions and workshops, it was a first of its kind success. I’m grateful for the board members of the student association to make the event a possibility, and for the great panelists we had to give the students advice on how take on the future. Though not entirely shocking, our participating professionals drove home some good points to focus on as students attain their Master’s degrees and move on to the future:
- In the digital age, online self-branding is incredibly important, and can give applicants regardless of experience a competitive edge against similar candidates for a job.
- Panelists noted that writing online no matter the subject matter is helpful for getting a feel of the capabilities of a the writer;
- In line with self-branding: keeping LinkedIn up to date allows activation of your network, and can dramatically increase chances for a job.
- Academic degrees are a check box to be ticked off on a resume, not a differentiator. Our panel agreed that extracurricular activities, volunteering, languages, digital skills (programming) and online courses were among ways to stand out on your job application.
Every employer will have different requirements and each job application must be situationally aware. The career and alumni event was all-in-all a great event for a young MA program, which started in 2012. Being a good profile event, the university even provided a communications team to record and produce a video. This will be coming soon!
Web Summit and Global Venture Forum
With one event out of the way, I left the same night of the career event to Ireland, to spend the weekend in some calm in Galway before heading to the Web Summit next week. As one of the biggest tech conferences in Europe, there is ample opportunity to seek out new partnerships and clients for my company PEX Life. We are taking the next steps to digitize and automate the healthcare market. The business conference will be a new experience for me, making it all the more exciting. Once I return to the Netherlands, I’ll be back in hard-core study mode for my MA, before flying to San Francisco to host the 3rd annual Global Venture Forum. I’m busy, but incredibly enjoying all the experiences I’m gaining. I look forward to meeting many people this November.
