Making an impact and why schools need to teach it
Day 1 of this year's 'You're Hired!' final is on Thursday, with day 2 the following Tuesday. I'll post about these next week or the week after if I get the chance. (For the third straight year I have managed to combine the YH final with my absolute busiest time of the work year.)
Before the final, we're having another YH event. When we did the heat at one of Plymouth's...shall we say, weaker...schools, something that was very apparent was that the pupils were almost all terrible at presenting to an audience. This was an extreme case, but my gut feeling is that about half the schools involved in the competition give pupils experience in speaking in front of an audience and presenting themselves properly, while the other half don't. And I'm afraid that, just as in life, if you don't make a good impact, especially when speaking in front of an audience, you're going to be at a massive disadvantage in 'You're Hired!'.
So...
Me and a solicitor from a big local law firm are holding a one day course in 'Making an Impact'. It's going to cover:
* formal presentations (with the use of video cameras, so the participants can see themselves as others see them and improve over the course of the day)
* making a good first impression
* looking, acting and dressing professionally.
And here, I'm going to ask you for some help with the following questions:
1. Do you feel you are good at speaking in front of an audience, whether in a professional or social situation?
2. Do you feel you generally make a good first impression with people when you meet them in a work situation?
3. Have you ever received any coaching or training in this? When and where (school, job etc)?
Feel free to suggest any good tips you have for presenting, speaking and making a good first impression. This is especially true for 'things I wish I'd known when I was 17'.
Finally, I would welcome advice on the "looking and dressing professionally" aspect. What we've found in previous finals is that even though the instructions to finalists clearly say to "dress appropriately for business meetings" or some such, you do get some finalists turning up dressed inappropriately, to say the least*. Clearly, students who manage to look the part will again be at an advantage, especially with those judges (like me) who work for professional employers. And some schools (the public school and the grammar schools for example) no doubt know this, and tell their pupils how to dress appropriately (and if the schools don't, then the middle class parents probably do). But that's unfair on the talented kid from the wrong side of the tracks who has never had anyone tell him that having ten ear-rings and purple hair isn't the most obvious image for a wannabe corporate lawyer.
So I'd like to include advice on dressing and looking 'professional' in this course. My dilemma is that it's potentially difficult to do this without offending a 17 year old. What I was thinking of doing was showing how most 17 year olds will already dress differently for different occasions and so they should extend this to dealing with different kinds of business people. In last year's final, one of the challenges was pitching ice cream to supermarket buyers and one of the challenges was pitching a new clothing brand to an online t-shirt retailer. Some of the cleverer teams dressed in suits for the first pitch and t-shirts and jeans for the second.
What might be really difficult might be telling someone to sort their hair out or not wear make-up with depth measured in inches. (I might get Vicky the solicitor to handle the girls...) Like I said, I'd appreciate your advice...
(Those of you who were paying attention earlier in the year may remember this post on social mobility: http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/180654.html . Well, this is us trying to improve social mobility in our own small way.)
* Scruffy hairstyles and too much make-up you sort of expect. I draw the line at hot pants though. We had that one year.
Before the final, we're having another YH event. When we did the heat at one of Plymouth's...shall we say, weaker...schools, something that was very apparent was that the pupils were almost all terrible at presenting to an audience. This was an extreme case, but my gut feeling is that about half the schools involved in the competition give pupils experience in speaking in front of an audience and presenting themselves properly, while the other half don't. And I'm afraid that, just as in life, if you don't make a good impact, especially when speaking in front of an audience, you're going to be at a massive disadvantage in 'You're Hired!'.
So...
Me and a solicitor from a big local law firm are holding a one day course in 'Making an Impact'. It's going to cover:
* formal presentations (with the use of video cameras, so the participants can see themselves as others see them and improve over the course of the day)
* making a good first impression
* looking, acting and dressing professionally.
And here, I'm going to ask you for some help with the following questions:
1. Do you feel you are good at speaking in front of an audience, whether in a professional or social situation?
2. Do you feel you generally make a good first impression with people when you meet them in a work situation?
3. Have you ever received any coaching or training in this? When and where (school, job etc)?
Feel free to suggest any good tips you have for presenting, speaking and making a good first impression. This is especially true for 'things I wish I'd known when I was 17'.
Finally, I would welcome advice on the "looking and dressing professionally" aspect. What we've found in previous finals is that even though the instructions to finalists clearly say to "dress appropriately for business meetings" or some such, you do get some finalists turning up dressed inappropriately, to say the least*. Clearly, students who manage to look the part will again be at an advantage, especially with those judges (like me) who work for professional employers. And some schools (the public school and the grammar schools for example) no doubt know this, and tell their pupils how to dress appropriately (and if the schools don't, then the middle class parents probably do). But that's unfair on the talented kid from the wrong side of the tracks who has never had anyone tell him that having ten ear-rings and purple hair isn't the most obvious image for a wannabe corporate lawyer.
So I'd like to include advice on dressing and looking 'professional' in this course. My dilemma is that it's potentially difficult to do this without offending a 17 year old. What I was thinking of doing was showing how most 17 year olds will already dress differently for different occasions and so they should extend this to dealing with different kinds of business people. In last year's final, one of the challenges was pitching ice cream to supermarket buyers and one of the challenges was pitching a new clothing brand to an online t-shirt retailer. Some of the cleverer teams dressed in suits for the first pitch and t-shirts and jeans for the second.
What might be really difficult might be telling someone to sort their hair out or not wear make-up with depth measured in inches. (I might get Vicky the solicitor to handle the girls...) Like I said, I'd appreciate your advice...
(Those of you who were paying attention earlier in the year may remember this post on social mobility: http://philmophlegm.livejournal.com/180654.html . Well, this is us trying to improve social mobility in our own small way.)
* Scruffy hairstyles and too much make-up you sort of expect. I draw the line at hot pants though. We had that one year.