by A more personal blog this week, acknowledging my youngest and eldest daughters – only a 20 year gap between them!!!.
Firstly, my eldest daughter Hana.
Hana recently was appointed as a Victoria Fisheries Officer in Melbourne. A Fisheries Officer takes part in patrols of marine and freshwater waterways to ensure fisheries resources are being used sustainably and ensure relevant laws are upheld.
I want to focus on what it took for her to get this highly coveted job. Hana applied for a number of years, she did not give up when she was rejected, and continued to apply repeatedly even though it took a significant amount of paperwork every time.
Hana also, contacted Victorian Fisheries and other relevant people to get feedback from her applications so she could learn from it. She was open to feedback and demonstrated a key learning from one of the posters that I use in my courses which is ‘Persistence beats resistance’. Hana made the necessary adjustments to the very rigorous application. She focused on each part as she progressed through each step.
One thing that I reinforced with Hana was, that if you keep applying, they are going to see how keen you are. Each time she applied she managed to always get past the initial stages and get a bit further on each attempt. A huge amount of people apply for these positions. It’s a massive achievement to get to the interview stage.
I’m so proud of who Hana is as a person. I admire her tenacity, her willingness to learn from each experience and not give up in the face of rejection.
I think Hana will be great in this role. Her experience as a Vet nurse for many years will serve her well. She has great customer service skills, and she is used to dealing with very stressful situations in relation to animal care and care of their owners.
Now, my youngest daughter Severine.
As some of you may know, I now live in Tasmania. Severine had an opportunity to gain 5 days work experience at MONA – Museum of Old and New Art. She worked in a range of roles throughout MONA from front of house, different gallery positions, restaurant and ferry.
Severine was on time and ready to work each day, with a positive attitude and gave her best. She received constant feedback from staff in all the areas she worked in about her performance. Severine loved the MONA experience and noticed how friendly and welcoming the staff were and how much they seemed to love working there.
Severine was encouraged by management to apply for a casual position at MONA which is a highly sought-after role. Management had heard very positive feedback from all of Severine’s supervisors and this led to her getting the job.
Severine demonstrated the impact of when given an opportunity, she gave her best efforts and was rewarded. She did not do the work experience expecting to get a job. I love the attitude that Severine brings to everything she does, again I feel very proud.
I read a great article recently that said ‘it’s not all about following your passion, the secret of success is giving your best efforts with every opportunity you are given’.
The other point to make here is, how clever is it for MONA to do work experience. They get to see people working within their environment for 5 full days and this enables them to make a good judgement of what those people are like on the job and how they fit into the team. Students can then become long term employees.
Good on them for following a really good structure.
A final note when I did work experience at 14 years old, I ended up getting involved in a murder case! But that’s another story……..
If you would like to have a chat with me about ‘Persistence Beats Resistance ‘ contact me I look forward to hearing from you.