During Employability Fortnight at Leeds Arts University, I found the presentation, networking and CV workshops all to be the most beneficial to my bespoke toolkit as an emerging practitioner and professional in the creative industries.
In the first week, the presentation skills workshop taught me a variety of new and exciting skills that I would never have considered before, or even noticed before when listening to others, to make a speech more immediate, impactful, powerful to the audience. While I already have no fear of public speaking and genuinely enjoy connecting with people on a larger scale, "hidden" knacks like involving audience members, using universal language to provide a sense of camaraderie and level footing, bookending to tie things together all had me smiling with anticipation of what I can potentially do with future presentations to make them memorable!
These skills were then transferrable to the networking workshop in week 2, allowing me to get to know a variety of level 5 students across the university on different courses in my cluster - which I thought was a much better way of doing things than last year where we stayed within our own course feeling isolated. I used eye contact, universal language, facts and jokes to get to know people better. The huge speed networking session at the end allowed me to make connections through social media, reaching a slightly bigger audience with my illustrations, and giving me a platform to talk about my practice and personal life experiences as a severely sight impaired illustrator. I even got to now some people better on my own course!
Finally, CVs are essential for anyone choosing to work and admittedly mine was incredibly outdated with everything thrown at it to somehow make it look good. I now know to tailor my CV and make it bespoke to who or what I am applying for, selling myself in the best way possible, with a cover letter. Having the opportunity to have my CV looked at, for free, with feedback was truly invaluable too.
Employability Fortnight was truly instrumental to bettering myself and my mental health at the start of this academic year, giving me a whole set of new skills and a sense of accomplishment.
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