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Mentorship July 6, 2018
With these skills, I'll be more confident in the workforce.
Hard skills are crucial in any job. They show your boss what you’re capable of bringing to the company, so it’s important to bring more than one to the table.
Hard skills were something I felt like I needed improvement on. It was the biggest reason I decided to apply for the ENTITY Academy mentorship. After the program’s seven weeks, I am glad I applied and went through the training and learned from so many ENTITY Academy lessons.
Here are my top three most important hard skills I took away from the experience.
I always believed I was decent at writing, but as an aspiring journalist, I felt as if my writing was missing something. I needed practice and guidance to get it on the right path. Throughout all of the ENTITY Academy lessons, I’ve seen an improvement in my writing. I loved how I was able to be more creative and write things that were outside my comfort zone.
I wrote articles on makeup, love, advice and celebrities. I was able to be creative through the language thanks to the younger audience. My writing wasn’t as serious as I was used to. I was even able to sneak in a few jokes and funny puns here and there.
I have my internal mentor Chloe to thank for that. She helped me not only become more creative but also more confident with my writing. Before this program and all of the ENTITY Academy lessons, I was feeling discouraged. I would second guess every article I submitted at my previous job. Now I’ve gained some confidence back. It’s all a process so I hope to gain more confidence as my journalism career continues.
Learning search engine optimization (SEO) was the main reason I applied for ENTITY Academy. I was applying to journalism positions and wasn’t hired for a lot of them because even though they said SEO wasn’t a requirement, it was. It just showed how important SEO had become. When I saw ENTITY was offering SEO training I jumped right on the opportunity.
I’ll admit, learning SEO was not what I expected. I was very frustrated writing my first SEO article. I wanted to cry and give up but I put on my big girl pants and gave it my best. Hearing the advice from our mentors about how you won’t master the skill in seven weeks made me feel better. I know it’s going to take me more months of practice, but with ENTITY, I’m one step closer to mastering it.
Learning Adobe software was a love, hate relationship. I struggled a lot, mainly because I was not able to download the software onto my laptop. I had to do it on ENTITY’s desktop all while sharing it with other colleagues. Despite that small problem, I was able to learn a little Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop.
My favorite software to learn was Photoshop. I found it the easiest to learn and it was the most fun. I enjoyed creating memes and quote cards. It’s a great thing to add to my resume, so I’ll be up to date and on the same level as other journalists.
I believe the hard skills I learned through this program will give me more confidence and a better chance at landing job opportunities. I’m not perfect and have yet to master them, but every person has to start somewhere. I learned the tough way that this workforce is competitive, but with these new skills, I’ll be more confident walking into the interview and, hopefully at some point, into my first day.
