It’s a while since I’ve posted a diary of how I spend my week. Seeing clients is an important part of my work but there are many other tasks as well.
Let me talk you through my last week.
Sunday
Sunday teatime I left for London. I work as a FastStream assessor and need to arrive the night before to ensure I am ready to start by 09.00.
Monday
Monday was a busy assessing day. I undertake interviews, plus listen to and then ask questions on a presentation. I need to stay on my toes! I have to challenge and stretch the candidates. I also mark written exercises and observe the group exercise. I need to write up my notes ready for inclusion in the final report. I was lucky to get the earlier train but it was still 9pm before I got home.
On the journey I also reviewed my CV eBook. I’ve recently made significant changes to my LinkedIn eBook and was concerned that this might be a bit dated, or I could include updates. I was really pleased that it still reads well. Last June I completely revised it and it now is sold along side a wordbook. this means that people can capture their notes in a document that they can use to pull together their CV. There were some improvements, particularly to do with layout so all ready for another day.
Tuesday
Tuesday I had an enquiry call early on, who is now going to be a client. I need to keep the first day back after being away with spare time to respond to phone calls and emails. I get quite a few enquiries and lots of emails from groups I belong to. These are not just career groups, but other groups that challenge my thinking and get me thinking of new ways to help my clients. It all takes time but it is worth it – I think!
At lunchtime I went to a Society of Authors lunch. I like meeting up with fellow authors and Teresa Thornhill gave an interesting talk on travels in the Middle East. She is the author of the author of The Curtain Maker of Beirut: Conversations with the Lebanese and Sweet Tea with Cardamom: a Journey through Iraqi Kurdistan. I had planned to go to the cinema that day but too busy with reviewing material.
I love to improve materials and i’m currently reviewing everything I share with clients. Late afternoon into the evening I completely revised all the material I have on the Strong Interest Inventory that I use with clients to make it even easier for clients to follow and easy for me to access too!
Wednesday
Wednesday – up early and on the phone to Radio Gloucestershire for a short appearance on the breakfast show with Mark Cummings. I was also approached to contribute to a news release based on a recent study from Learndirect that found that jobseekers don’t know what employers want. I like to help out with these as it gets my name out there. I also spoke with more enquirers and 2 clients.
Some of the people who contact me try hard to pick my brain and although my enquiry calls are scheduled for 15 minutes can sometimes take twice as long.
I also did a Highlands Ability Battery feedback session with a client. It’s not all work and I also went to the gym.
Thursday
Thursday – I went to the gym first thing and played tennis later. I made all the changes to the CV eBook and asked for some new covers to be created for the CV and Interviews eBook. These, alongside my LinkedIn eBook sell well and I wanted the covers to be themed. I also did an in-depth interview session with a client. Plus I played tennis!
Friday
Friday – A busy day with clients. I saw John, a confused graduate first thing, then saw Emma who is working through the Gold Programme so we met for about 3 hours. Then a quick change for my tennis lesson, then back for a discussion with Peter. He needed someone to talk through a career decision.
Final task was to integrate the new eBook cover into the book. i’d fogotten how to do it and it never looked right, but finally remembered! (Remove the border from page 1 and put the image to the front – my reminder for next time :))
Weekend
Saturday – I didn’t work in the day but in the evening I sorted out some of the documents on my PC desktop. I have a habit of saving documents to this pace, it’s much better when I file them properly.
Sunday – I was up early and before the gym I read through my interviews eBook and realised it was good, no need for changes, well just a bit to enhance the layout. Back from the gym, and after breakfast I improved the design of the eBook and also included clickable links. This took me to nearly lunchtime.
Last task of today was to upload them ready for them to be available when people buy and also to change the relevant web pages. It’s been a reasonably busy day but all done by lunch time. That’s it for today. Time to pack, play tennis and another week will start.
Read previous reflections here
