PREPARING FOR PROFESSIONALISM
STRENGTHENING EMPLOYABILITY AND PROFESSIONAL ASPECTS FOR AN AMAZON EXTERNSHIP

Overview

Another leadership experience of mine that is course work-related is taking ARTSCI 150: Arts and Sciences Learning Community, which was a class that focused on helping me prepare for my Amazon Externship. We met once a week for three hours. During the duration of this class, we worked on several aspects that would help us present ourselves professionally when meeting our Amazon mentors. This was valuable to me because it helped me strengthen several professional aspects of myself. I got to strengthen my LinkedIn profile, create, write, and video record my elevator pitch and building our networks by getting to know our peers.

Personal Importance of Work

Through this class and my Amazon Externship, I was able to strengthen and gain employability skills, I can use them in the coming future being that I will be graduating in June and will be looking for a full-time job for after graduation. Growth is one of my core values and it was something I got to partake in from this class by continuing to work on my professional self.

Tasks Accomplished

• Updated up my LinkedIn profile

• Wrote an elevator pitch

• Filmed an elevator pitch

• Took the 16 Personalities Test

• Discussed my professional roadblocks with my peers

Leadership Competencies Gained

Analysis

During this class we were asked to take the 16 Personalities Test, the overarching reason was to see if you were more of an introvert or an extrovert. I delved deeper into the information the test gave me. It told me about my strengths and weaknesses, romantic relationships, friendships, parenthood, career path, and workplace habits. I used the information I got from the weaknesses section and have been working on improving those and looked at the career path information to look into what possible positions I would do well in at Amazon (and/or corporate world). The weaknesses that it gave me were that I worry about my social status, inflexible, reluctant to innovate or improvise, vulnerable to criticism, often too needy, too selfless. After learning these weaknesses, I decided to strengthen all of these, but through the scope of this class, I focused on being vulnerable to criticism and started to accept criticism with open arms.

Receiving Feedback

One of our assignments was to video record our elevator pitch and post it on our class discussion board so our peers could give feedback on them. This was a nerve-racking experience simply because I have never written out, video recorded and posted my elevator pitch online for others to watch provide feedback on, I was nervous about what they were going to say. But I believe someone never stops growing, and to grow you have to accept feedback (whether it is good or bad) with open arms. One of the examples of feedback I got was that my elevator pitch was too long, it was a minute and thirty seconds, so I edited down my elevator pitch and sped up the pace of my speaking, which helped cut down my elevator pitch to one minute.

Group Development

During class, we partnered up with someone at our table and got to go through, examine, and jotting down possible edits on each other’s LinkedIn profiles. We spent about 10 minutes going through, examining, and jotting down possible edits and then spent another 10 minutes discussing the strengths and things that can be edited about each other’s LinkedIn profiles. For the group to be successful, we all had to be present, be attentive, and provide feedback. This was helpful because we all were collectively working on improving each other’s profiles so that they were polished when we started our externships. I trusted the edits/comments my partner made because it, in turn, did improve my LinkedIn profile.

Diversity

Part of the reason I got accepted to participate in the Amazon Externship program was because of my experiences and interest in Amazon. I utilized my diverse experiences such as being a barista trainer, peer ambassador, student mentor, founder, and President of the Fiji Indian Student Association. I utilized these different identities that I hold, especially being the founder and President of the Fijian Indian Student Association, to create an elevator pitch that would accurately present myself, my background, and my experiences and exemplified my passion for inclusion and diversity.

Writing

One of the assignments was to create an elevator pitch that we would use when meeting our mentor at Amazon. There were many components to it such as name, and important identity to you, major and/or minor, jobs, and extracurriculars. To help us create the elevator pitch we were asked to fill out a questionnaire on Google Surveys, and that was the rough outline of it. We then added what motivates you and a growth opportunity to it. I felt like my elevator pitch still needed some editing, so I asked one of my peers to look it over and see what I could add to it. By creating this elevator pitch I was able to articulate who I was, what I did, what motivated me, and what I was looking for.

Plan

Although this externship was not created to ensure a job at Amazon, I wanted to create a plan where I maximized my time during this externship to learn how to present myself as employable. I created this plan so I could strengthen my professionalism and employability skills. I did this by making a list of what my strengths and weaknesses were, what I wanted to improve on, and what kind of job I was looking for. And planned to have a conversation with my mentor on these various aspects. During the externship, she helped connect me with people who had jobs I was interested in and I was able to connect with them on LinkedIn and in turn expand my network.

Responding to Change

When starting the Amazon Externship, of course, I was excited about the information I would be learning, the people I would get to meet and network, but I was most excited about having my meetings at the different Amazon buildings. With the threat COVID-19, Amazon stopped in-person meetings and encouraged employees and interns to stay at home which resulted in my last two meetings to be over Amazon Chime. That was my first time using a video call for something of a professional nature and there was a lot to adjust to. I had to make sure I had a good internet connection, looked professional attire wise, and find an area in my house that looked professional as well. The biggest adjustment was dealing with not being able to have my meetings on the Amazon campus. This was the aspect I was most excited about because the Amazon campus is beautiful, innovative, and in the heart of downtown Seattle and South Lake Union. Although my last two meetings were remote, the first three were amazing because I got to experience the Amazon campus.

Excellence

I always turned in my assignments on time, gave feedback when needed, and made sure to talk to my teachers and peers when I needed feedback, this what created excellence for myself. I was putting in 100% and getting back 100%, and that helped me prepare for the Amazon Externship. I see this as excellence because I put a lot of effort into this class, which was focused on helping me strengthen myself, so I guess in a way I put a lot of effort into myself. I also see it as excellence because I was able to strengthen my LinkedIn, create, edit, and finalize my elevator pitch and connect with my peers which helped expand my network.

Lessons Learned and Future Oriented Statements

There are a couple of ways how my insights gained from this experience have translated to other areas of my life, my LinkedIn is polished, which attracts more people to my profile and helps my network expand and I have crafted an amazing elevator pitch that I use when I introduce myself at first introductions. career fairs and interviews. I envision applying the leadership competencies I developed in this experience in my future engagements by using it as part of my professional development, especially diversity. I am one of the few Fijian Indian students at the University of Washington and was the only one in the ARTSCI 150 class and my Amazon Externship. Since I do not see a lot of people like me in places like universities and big companies, I try to unify the ones that are already there, and that is what I will continue to do when I have a career.

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Picture Caption

We had our meetings in different buildings on the Amazon campus, for this meeting we had it at the Amazon Day 1 building, which is the most important one and is next to the Spheres. During the meeting, we discussed how to strengthen our LinkedIn profiles and resumes.