Chapter 6 – My Cv Bucket List

After looking at a lot of internship blogs on medium.com I have realised that many people whom after finishing their ‘contractual obligation’ aka a placement have become well, cynics.

Writing bitter blogs about how they walked into their new role with enthusiasm and to be fair (in hindsight, unachievable) high expectations and they walk out accusing the whole idea of a good placement as being a myth, left disappointed and hopeless.

Do you know what real working people call it? Life.

Come on now guys. I know we have been living in our student bubble for a couple of years but we’ve all worked part-time before. We’ve pretty much all experienced the horrors of retail or hospitality. We know what work is like.

We know that not every responsibility we get in a job is fun and games. Otherwise we’d all be doing it! (Kidding, we all know why we do it. Gotta get that $$)… But I’m not saying that money is everything. I’m not saying don’t strive for a job you love. Personally, I think it’s more important to love what you do every day than how much you get paid, because you will do it. Every day.

And let’s face it the stakes are high from the off. It’s difficult getting a placement. Every year, students from all over the country and overseas are fighting for these opportunities. You can’t possibly expect to waltz into your first internship and find the job of your dreams — already taking the right steps into your career path.

Don’t let the team down. Naivety isn’t as admirable as the Kooks may have you think. Believe it or not internships aren’t entirely about us. Businesses benefit from them too. Of course they do. They aren’t here to give us the best experience. We are here to help them (meanwhile experiencing the ‘real working world’).

Your next steps

Inevitably, you have to go back to university for your final year. What a beaut thing to have in the back of your mind. Well, it’s comforting for me anyway… Buying as much time as a teenager as I can before I commit myself to a full-time job for the rest of my life!

I have come to a realisation very recently …I don’t know whether it was from watching that Making a Murderer series on Netflix (which is actually outrageous… you should watch it!) or whether its the placement portfolio I am required to build before July slowly creeping up on me (admittedly it’s really the only big deadline I have this year…).

…But what I’ve realised is that you can’t let your placement be the only thing you do this year. You have to build your CV in the background. That’s a constant battle. Regardless of the fact you are working full-time.

(way not trying to stress you out or anything but…) WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUTSIDE OF YOUR PLACEMENT?!

So someone asked me this the other day, and the only way I could react was with a couple of murmurs under my breath and some uncomfortable shuffling…

Well I say that, If you’ve seen my most recent blog you would know I have a part-time job outside of my placement. But honestly, for a little while now– that’s been it. That, and Netflix.

I’m now going to solve all of your problems…

So if you have made it this far, you have basically just read a whole lot of irrelevant thoughts I have been having to get yourself to this here main point. I’m sorry to be the one to tell you but… I have officially wasted your time.

There is no solution. This is actually just a trick blog.

Kidding, come back! There is a resolution. Obviously. My blog is always filled with little life lessons for you to tag along with on my little placement journey. It might not work but c’est la vie.

Well, really I have already kind of told you what I’ve been thinking. But my plan is, to plan my CV in advance. Hear me out. I’ll ‘design’ the CV now and then chase those achievements from here on until I have achieved them all.

Bit backwards I know but then I can design what I want my CV to be instead of doing something here and there and adding it on because it might show my skills to a potential employer. You know what I mean?

So to start off my CV Bucket List, I have decided to achieve these things by September.

· Speak a little Spanish

· Blog, blog, blog!

· Event Experience (outside of placement), i.e. something like Bournemouth Air Festival or for a BIC event.

· Complete Bournemouth Ambassador online Training

(And more to come… not going to give you all my CV for nothing!)