9.6 Career Connection

You will be expected to read and take notes throughout your working life and your job success will be dependent on your skills in this area.

Interview Questions

1. What process do you use when you are faced with a large amount of reading on a topic you don’t know a lot about but need to learn to communicate the information to others. How do you work through a task like that?
2. You will be responsible for running weekly team meetings for a staff of 12 employees to let them know about price changes, sales, and any corporate news or policy changes. How will you ensure your team gets and understands these important announcements?

Scenarios to Reflect On

You get an email inviting you to an important meeting tomorrow that includes an agenda and link to a ZOOM session.

You skim the email for the time of the meeting and show up the next day and are surprised to see that you are supposed to be presenting and your audio and video do not connect properly during the meeting.

OR

Carefully reviewing the email you notice that:

1. Your department will be presenting a review of the last quarter. Knowing this, you review the report you got from your boss and reach out to her to see if you will be expected to present any of the report.
2. You also notice that the meeting invite is from a client outside of your company and the last time you used ZOOM your audio and video would not connect so you spend a few moments testing it this time so you are ready.
3. The next day you are prepared and connected and present your part professionally.

Your new boss tells you the steps it takes to lock up the store before leaving at the end of the day. You don’t bother to write them down, relying on your memory.  At the end of a long shift you forget one of the steps, the store gets broken into and thousands of dollars of merchandise are stolen and the store is a mess.

You will likely find yourself in various meetings throughout your life.  Some may not be very interesting and run very long.

• Using active listening and note taking will help you stay focused and come away with the meeting understanding what your responsibilities are for next steps.
• Your notes will provide you with time to reflect, ask follow up questions, research information and act as the foundation for your plan and communication with the relevant stakeholders.
• By summarizing your notes in an email to the meeting participants  you are then communicating and confirming  your understanding to ensure you are not wasting time.
• Your email communication operates as a way to document your progress throughout any follow up required.