The weekend has come and gone and it’s time to go back to work. Berkeley students are slowly getting ready for finals and the end of the fall quarter already. Talking to students makes me feel like I’m still in school which feels great. I remember quarters flew by so quickly so you really needed to enjoy them while you could. Having quarters instead of semester’s makes your whole college career feel like it’s going by quicker. Sometimes you felt like you blink and it’s gone!

I saw that Berkeley had a great event going on a few weeks back! The event was called the Multicultural Festival and it was created so that students can appreciate and learn about the different cultures on the campus. This event has been being planned since before I graduated. I am so happy to see it come together and finally happen at the campus. Check out the pictures!

Cultures

As a student at Berkeley something you will notice among the student body is the large diversity of students that attend the campus. You will see students from all over the world who speak different languages and have different cultural traditions. It’s important that you embrace this variety of people because recently I have learned how important cultural differences are in people.

Being in charge of hiring people you have to be very aware different cultural norms and be very open minded to difference traditions. This past week I came across a woman named Abby who had an excellent resume and was a very nice person. I am looking to hire people who can speak different languages so that I can diversify my market and work with different ethnic groups. She is Greek and speaks Greek fluently. When I was interviewing her I was surprised to find out that she refuses to work with other Greeks. This got me very curious about the culture and I asked her why. Apparently Greeks always refuse to work with different Greeks because they do not trust each other. They don’t mind having Greek friends, or associating with other Greeks but working with other Greeks is apparently out of the question.

I found this to be very fascinating because being at Berkeley exposed me to many different cultures but now I get to experience these things in real life. Berkeley offers many classes on cultures that I have taken, but there is something about experiencing these situations in real life that makes them much more interesting. I was prepared by my previous classes that many people have different values and cultural norms which helped me understand her. Someone who does not have this kind of training could react negatively to her approach to the interview, but because she saw that I valued her cultural view she was much more comfortable working with me.

Sometimes you sit in class and wonder “When will I ever use this?” Some things that I have learned I never thought I’d have to use but is now helpful to me. Never take what you learn for granted because you just never know when you will need it!

Networking

When you start working you end up having responsibilities that you have never had before. Working after graduating college is much different than working while you are in college. When you are in college you know that school is your number one priority and work is just a side thing. When you no longer have that school to focus on you come to realize that work is all you have going for you at this time.

The number one thing in the work force is who you know. This is something people repeat to you all the time but you don’t realize the importance of it until you are actually out and working in the field. When I was in school people always told me it’s important to make connections with people and network but I never understood why. I knew it had some importance because it’s always good to know people, but not to this extent. When I work with people now, I always try to make a long lasting relationship because you never know who you may need in the future. It’s always important to treat people with respect and treat them the way that you want to be treated.

One example of this was when I went to the career fair. There were many companies that were there and talked to some students when a student came up to them. What I did is I walked around and talked to students myself instead. I asked them how they were doing, what they thought of the fair, I introduced myself and I’m sure that I left a much more lasting impression on them than other companies. Now that many companies are laying people off the companies that are hiring act as if they are doing you a favor. Many times I feel they tend to forget that they need mutual respect in order to have a good working relationship with an employee. When a company respects the employee they build a much better relationships and the employee tends to be much more productive. When I look for people to hire I try to make sure I treat them with respect and make it known that they are valuable. Many companies treat their employees like an expense but I try to make them feel like an asset to the company.

Meeting new people is very important to me right now because I am trying to create new connections. Yesterday I decided to join a gym, SPA 23, so that I can take classes and network with people. There is a very broad range of people who attend SPA 23 which will give me the opportunity to make connections with various people. You have to be creative in meeting people and I am happy that I made the decision to join the club. They have really cool classes that you can take for free such as yoga, Pilates, kickboxing etc. I am very excited!

Career Day

Wow, talk about not blogging in a long time! I have been so preoccupied with many different things that I just haven’t had the time to sit down and think of something to write about. I really love what I do but boy, it keeps me busy.

Last Friday was Berkeley’s Career Day. Even thought I was not looking for a job, I decided to still attend and network with current and graduated students as well as the different companies that were there. I wanted to have a table set up at the Career Day for my company but I spoke to a woman named Barbara and she told me that they already had enough of companies in my field attending. At first I was bummed to find that out but then I thought that this will just be a great opportunity for me to talk to people.

Many times Career Fairs are frustrating because some companies do not give you much information. Often they tell you to go to their website and look at what positions they have available. When this happens to me I get very frustrated because I didn’t come all the way to the career fair just to be told to go online. If I wanted to just go online I would have saved gas and just gone online. Berkeley Career Day was great. The companies there were friendly and some of them even did interviews on the spot. They had rooms and tables set up just for interviews. They even had group interviews.

Since I did not have a table I walked around and talked to people. When the economy went down the demand for our managers and trainers went up very high and we are currently looking to put a new management team together. Most companies are laying people off but our company is hiring! This makes me so excited. I walked around, asked students what they thought of the fair, and told them about the opportunity that my company is offering. They seemed very excited and I already invited some of them for an interview tomorrow.

It was really nice going back to a school activity and talking to people I know. I ran into many Career Counselors and people who work in Student Development. I talked to them how glad I am that I finally graduated and how well I was doing. I wish I could have seen Dean Hughes because I have worked with him so much but maybe next time!