LinkedIn Learning: Developing your Professional Image

56m * General * Course

After attending Nikki Meredith’s Talk on her experiences working in theatre design, I’ve decided to look more at what comes after university. I chose this particular course as it addresses the transition for new graduates from school to the world of work, as well as how to build a professional image. Throughout this course, Gemma Roberts provides quick tips and guidance to assist with this future transition describing how to successfully navigate the beginning of your professional career. While the course isn’t specific to design I hope it will be helpful in providing insights that are applicable wherever you work.

This course identified several areas that graduates struggle with when transitioning to a working environment. For instance:

• Moving from a structure to ambiguity

• Moving to a less experienced position

• No fixed timeframe to a career journey

• Similar peers changing to a more diverse group

It also covered how best to ‘bridge the gap’:

• Accept that you will face challenges

• Focus on how to practice new skills, this will help you to keep pushing yourself

• Establish a weekly review process, continuous improvement cycle

Construct a Resilient Mindset:

I was intrigued by this portion of the course as I thought I could definitely benefit from Robert's advice. She depicts two different mindsets, one being able to make a few mistakes, learn from them and grow thereby enhancing your performance. Or mindset two where every mistake feels like a disaster and every challenge feels like an impossible mountain. Knowing which of these I lean more towards I endeavour to construct a resilient mindset myself. Confidence is built for experience but resilience gives you the confidence to challenge yourself and pursue new experience. Resilience is the ability to deal with challenges effectively using those challenges as a learning experience and performance enhancer.

Pillars of Success:

• Confidence

• Adaptability

• Positivity

• Perspective

• Mastery

• Stamina

Be a Professional:

I began this section of the course by choosing to pause the screen and write a list of what I view professionalism as. To start I wrote about how you should come across to others, I believed interactions should be less personal and more focused on the work at hand. I did also write about the importance of positivity not just in terms of viewing challenges with positivity but as coming across to colleagues as positive. I found it interesting to learn that you should try to balance being yourself and being professional when in the workplace this was described as being mindful as to when to let some of your personality show.

An obvious one is phone etiquette avoiding personal calls during work hours to prevent coming across as disengaged or easily distracted.

While the dress code did cross my mind I didn't write it down originally because I'm aware that not all working environments require a formal dress code or uniform. This is something that I do have a bit of anxiety over the idea of starting a new job and not knowing what you should be wearing or showing up dressed differently to everyone else is definitely a concern. Robert very simply suggests that you just ask ahead of time if there is a specific dress code or rules you need to follow.

This course also reminded me of the importance of communication through body language for instance - say you're in a meeting and you want to come across as engaged and focused you're going to want to avoid slouching.

Ultimately I’ve found this course very informative and am excited at the prospect of putting what I have learnt into practice in the future. It has also demonstrated to me that in order to develop and improve I will have to meet challenges head on and not avoid them in the hopes of avoiding failure, as I will make mistakes during the transitional period and these mistakes will only help me in the long run.