On 20th June, SFYAD organized its inaugural Career High Tea Workshop Series. The first workshop is titled “A Buddhist Recipe for Crafting Captivating Interview Self-Intro” which gathered over 40 attendees from various cities, including Fremont, Denver, Orlando, Los Angeles, and Singapore. Of these attendees, 12 were first-time attendees to SFYAD’s events. Many young adults expressed concerns about having the right skills to solve career problems or the confidence to apply these skills for job hunting. The workshop aims to provide inexperienced job starters both soft and hard skills needed to confidently start the job hunting process, and also to learn and embed the Dharma to in daily life.
In her opening speech for the workshop, Venerable Ru Yang, Abbess of North California Fo Guang Shan, mentioned that we should not forget our initial intentions and aspirations when finding a job. Furthermore, she encouraged everyone to proactively help others without them requesting our help in order to build our network with other people.
The instructors, Katy Hsu, Project/Engineering Manager @ HP Enterprise and BLIA SF Chapter President, and Selene Chew, Staff UX Designer @ LinkedIn and BLIA YAD SF President incorporated the Eightfold Noble Path into steps of crafting and delivering an interview self-introduction. The tips were sprinkled throughout the workshop as tips to look out for during the entire self-introduction preparation and interview. Furthermore, the instructors made these tips so that they could also be applied to other aspects of job-hunting.
Selene Chew guided attendees on how to understand themselves through their unique experiences, be it a formal work, internship, or school project, and break them down into understandable categories of experiences. She provided an example on herself years ago on how what seemed to be no formal experiences in the desired position at first glance could be solidified into a concrete experience for the job. Furthermore, she stressed that it is important to have the Right View and Right Attitude towards job-hunting in general, and also towards the self-introduction. For example, she gave the analogy of buying a car: Understand that it’s not because the car cannot be driven, but the needs are different. Understanding what the buyer needs and what the car can offer is vital. Similarly, it is not because the interviewee does not have the skills, but the needs of the employer are different. Hence, understanding both ourselves and the company is important. In the event that we find gaps between our experiences and the job posting, putting the Right Effort to fill the gaps will helps us improve our positions.
Katy Hsu walked the attendees on how to match their experiences with the company's needs. She pointed out that to match these two parts, one must know how to make connections between the two parts and match tangentially. She used two games: 1) to name alternate uses of an everyday object, and 2) to make connections between two ordinary objects that seem to have no connections. Katy also mentioned that the bigger our minds, the better our matching becomes, and thus the self-introduction too. Additionally, Katy stressed the importance to be aware of our actions in body, speech, and mind as they make our first impressions. Having the right speech such as being open and honest about our past experiences that match the company's needs will put us in a favorable impression. More importantly, having the Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration will definitely help us focus on our self-introduction delivery and be aware of what the company is seeking.
The workshop also had a Q&A session via Slido where participants had the opportunity to post questions during the workshop and have them answered during Q&A. Both instructors shared their experiences and gave valuable tips on these questions.
Venerable Miao Zhong, guiding Venerable of SFYAD gave a closing speech to the attendees. She mentioned that it is important to remember our beginner's mind, the passion we have at the beginning, work hard and persistent to pursue these dreams. Furthermore. in order to help the company understand our skills and attitude, we first have to understand ourselves; these can be achieved through all the Rights in the Eightfold Noble Path. Having the Right View will bring about the Right Attitude towards job hunting, which in turn leads us to the right future. Right Mindfulness helps us gather our minds and be more organized when we communicate with people.
The relevance and impact of the Eightfold Noble Path sank deep into the hearts of the participants as they were able to relate and apply these teachings right away into their very interview process.
One participant reported, “I benefited a lot from the workshop, especially unraveling and re-discovering my ‘unique strengths’, and the ‘Middle Way’ used in the matching process... The Right Understanding of both ‘Self and Others’ would help raise the success rate of job matching...” Another participant said, “It exceeded my expectation. I thought it was going to be us sharing information, resume, dream... and then we would receive typical answers like ‘be more proactive, more efficient, don’t give up, etc.’, but it was quite informative.”
Attendees had a delightful and fruitful afternoon full of Dharma and career skills.
Workshop recording:
舊金山青年以八正道打造超群面試自我介绍
彭秋琳 報導
新冠肺炎疫情持續蔓延，使得經濟蕭條，許多青年在求職過程中困難重重，常感嘆「有技術，卻不知如何運用，因而找工作時感到迷惘惆悵」，因此美國舊金山佛光青年分團於6月20日第一次舉辦「佛教面試的祕訣：打造超群面試自我介紹」半日線上工作坊，融合八正道以工作面試技巧為主題，讓青年學習鍛鍊面試硬技能之餘，能深入佛法。與會青年相當驚喜：「第一次了解到原來八正道也能運用在面試上。」
話題貼近青年，無論是選擇大學專業、申請實習，還是找工面試、初入職場，「職場生活」一直是青年們在成長中最為關注的話題之一。本次四小時的工作坊活動邀請在惠普公司擔任項目/工程經理的國際佛光會舊金山協會許貴婷會長，以及在領英擔任主任用戶體驗設計師的舊金山佛光青年分團Selene Chew團長為講師，本次活動初次在領英、臉書、微信群組等社交媒體上推廣，吸引從美國舊金山、佛立門、丹佛、奧蘭多、洛杉磯、新加坡等地區，共35位青年朋友參加，超過半數的人首次認識佛光青年團。
工作坊開始時，佛光山北加州總住持如揚法師開示，指出本次疫情與經濟蕭條的雙重打擊可能會給職場新人帶來不安，叮嚀年輕人學習佛典《華嚴經》的「不忘初心，方得始終」、以及《維摩詰經》的「眾人不請，友而安之」句子，為職場新人打氣。
兩位講師將打造面試自我介紹的過程分為四個步驟：了解自我、了解對方、找尋中道、正念傳達。以八正道為框架，將自我介紹技巧內容貫穿其中。分享因緣法的「正見」是四個步驟的基礎，在自我了解的過程中，了解「欲知前世因，今生受者是。欲知後世果，今生作者是」，並有「正思維」地從過去的經歷裡了解自己累計的職業技能和不足的地方；了解對方就是了解雇方的價值，以及其職位的需求和職責，才能從「正業」出發和活出「正命」；的面試中能以「正語」凸顯自己的經歷和興趣，與職位的需求相符之處，就是從了解自己和了解對方當中找到中道。最後，保持「正念」和「正定」，極積向面試官傳達自己的強項。整個工作坊中，學員也「正精進」地反覆練習技巧。
互動形式多樣，幫助應用所學。活動借助Zoom線上會議的科技，學員可以隨時用注釋表達觀點與導師和其他學員互動、文字發問，還設有分組討論室，以及Slido在線問答觀眾互動，讓大家更投入每一個知識點的理解和應用。
學員們紛紛表示，這個工作坊讓他們看到自己的強項，並在自己的能力和公司的需求找到平衡。也有學員說，對自己和他人先要具備「正見」，自然就能提高自己找到工作的機會。其中一位青年也表示，自己經常聽到不要放棄、要主動、要提高效率等一般的求職建議，但這個工作坊的内容出乎之前的預料，非常受用，並殷切期待下一個職場講座。
本次活動是舊金山青年分團的「職場新人工作坊系列」的第一講座。希望在此工作坊中為青年們營造有活力的氛圍，讓他們掌握實用的求職硬技能、提升職場自信心、學習運用佛法解決職場問題。