Transitioning from one role to another

By Scott Russell 

On May 15, we enjoyed an engaging, interactive session with Susan Malcolm, a career consultant at Laurier’s Career Development Centre. Susan has helped hundreds of people with job search and application. This was the second of a two-part meeting series on transitioning from one role to another. On May 10, we hosted a panel discussion on determining potential career paths.

Susan stressed the importance of researching the job market and target companies before applying for a job. This research should not be limited to Internet searches and sites such as GlassDoor.com, but include social media (Twitter, LinkedIn) and informational interviews. Such interviews are best conducted before a job opportunity arises, and the contacts can be re-engaged when applying for a job.

When it comes to applying, Susan recommended reading the job notice thoroughly and ensuring your cover letter and résumé respond to all the requirements. She said companies scan résumés for keywords to shortlist applicants for further consideration.

Susan said employers are now hiring for transferable skills, such as flexibility, teamwork and leadership, and choosing to develop new hires lacking in some technical skills. So it is worthwhile to assess your transferable skills, track your progress in developing them, and map your skills to job requirements.

We did an exercise to assess our transferable skills. Susan distributed a seven page list of skills. She said successful candidates align their cover letters, résumés and interview responses to ensure employers know their transferable skills and how they can benefit the employer. Of course, you have to know something about the employer to express these benefits meaningfully.

Sometimes you may not have all the skills required for a job. Susan recommended looking at what you have done and drawing parallels to what is required for a job. For instance, you may not have managed others, but may have led a sports team, taught a martial art, or managed a volunteer event. Susan did caution that you shouldn’t bend the truth in your application package as employers do reference checks, and misrepresentations will affect future interactions.

Finally, Susan cautioned that companies routinely search applicants online, so ensure you are well represented, showcasing your skills, building a strong professional reputation, and engaging with other respected people in your field.

Photo from Free Digital Photos

Engaging the Audience: Presentation Skills

By Ann Garniss 

Rich Maggiani

When you are at a session about presentation skills, you know it's going to be great. Rich Maggiani's session was no exception - both educational and engaging. In fact, engaging was the key word of the day.

Rich made it clear with his clever images and storytelling that it isn't your PowerPoint skills that make your point - it's your ability to engage with the audience. How do you engage with the audience? While Rich had lots of tips and tricks for us, like using your vocal modulation to keep your audience on the edge of the seat, or moving around the room to keep them focused, it really boils down to knowing what your audience wants to get out of the presentation.

Rich was a fantastic speaker himself, keeping us involved and participating in the session, then going back to explain what he'd done to put us in the mindset where we were active participants instead of just passive viewers.

I left with lots of ideas I want to try out in my next presentation. I may not be a JFK (unless JFK was in software), but hopefully I can leave my audiences with the information they need in a way they remember.

Check out Rich's presentations on Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/RichMaggiani

Education Days - Develop Your Social Media Brand

By  Nancy Halverson

Hannah Morgan

The CareerSherpa came to STC-SOC on Wednesday, to encourage us to begin building our personal brands - NOW. Hannah Morgan's career advice is well respected, and she's successfully developed developed her own personal brand through her blog and twitter posts. In her seminar at STC-SOC's Education Days 2012, she gave us tips on tools for blogging, tweeting, and most importantly, what we can do to create our brands. 

Her most important message: get yourself out there before you really need it. She suggests we all spend time daily tending our own brand - even while we're employed. "Your network is important - but it's not just who you know, it's also who knows you."  She encourages us to be authentic, personable and professional in our online presence. Most of all, Hannah advises we become pro-active - to begin sharing your knowledge so you become known as reliable and skilled.

It may be a difficult thing to squeeze into our busy lives, but ensuring that there are people who want to employ us seems like a pretty good investment to me.
Check out Hannah at CareerSherpa.

Michael Priestly: DITA Guru

By Kathryn Bender

Michael Priestly

On April 26th, Michael Priestly led a session for the STC Southwestern Ontario Chapter’s Education Days titled Introduction to DITA. He has been working with DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) since its inception, so his afternoon session was educational for all who attended.

As the Technology Strategist for IBM's Total Information Experience (TIE), Michael works with groups across IBM to define features and requirements for projects such as IBM's Knowledge Center and DITA Wiki. He is IBM's lead DITA architect, and developed the first specialization and map architectures for DITA. He was the co-editor of the OASIS DITA 1.0 and 1.1 specifications. He is an experienced information architect and XML architect, and has presented and published prolifically on information development processes, information design principles, XML development techniques, structured authoring, Web 2.0, and DITA. His extensive DITA background made him a great candidate to teach us why we should use DITA and a few of the main features that every DITA user should become familiar with.

Michael is an advocate for this simple authoring program and how it can be utilized for reuse purposes and can save on translation costs. DITA allows technical writers everywhere to standardize their authoring efforts so content can be used by many people, for many products, and across many audiences. DITA encourages chunking content into topics (commonly concepts, tasks, and reference material), so it is more readable by users. Everything about DITA facilitates easy learning on the part of the user, and the cost and time savings make it an attractive tool for corporations to use.

Michael also discussed new DITA 1.2 capabilities including why technical writers should start using keyrefs. It turns out that keyrefs are a great linking mechanism. They can be used for keywords (to link you directly to other related topics), or it can be used to link to resources outside of a deliverable (like external websites). It is an easy and reliable way to provide resources without having to worry about the links not working if the topic is used in more than one deliverable. What a great idea!

To learn more about the wonderful world of DITA and Michael’s thoughts on the subject, please visit his blog at http://dita.xml.org/blog/25.