Market Yourself as a Business Fellow

You’ve finished your time as a Business Fellow, now what? Your experience as a Business Fellow was filled with professional development opportunities and real world examples of skills that you gained. Market that experience to employers and organizations!

The message here isn’t to reinforce how valuable the Business Fellows experience was to you and your career; the purpose is to encourage you to reflect on your experience and evaluate the skills that you gained. Did you gain leadership ability? Did your decision making improve? Are you a better team player? Do you know how to solve a problem? Is your communication technique more effective as a result of this experience? Think about these and other skills that are specific to your project and make sure you list them on your résumé. In that way you will be marketing your experience and letting employers know how prepared you are for a career. In an interview you can draw examples from the Business Fellows experience to use when answering behavior-based questions. Be prepared to describe the situation you were faced with, the action you took, and the results you rejoiced in with each skill that you gained. Market yourself as a candidate who has real experience in a real setting and is ready for the real world.

Everyone who participated in this experience now has better ideas of what it means to work on a team. You’ve learned that projects involving teamwork can achieve more with everyone’s contribution.

Each Business Fellow learned that communication is key to setting goals and reaching them. Each project worked with a community partner to decide what they needed and how Ball State University could help them achieve that goal. Each team brainstormed ideas, laid out a project plan, presented their ideas, and executed them in completing the project. Each Business Fellow has become a better communicator because of the project he or she contributed to.

The projects enabled each team to learn or build on their problem-solving skills. Projects rarely go flawlessly to the finish; the ability to solve problems in a time crunch or as part of a plan is valuable and employers will look for it in qualified candidates.

Take advantage of your Business Fellows experience. It can help you be successful in your job search.

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