Blog 13

            First of all, I am sorry about doing Chapter 16 and 17 last week. To make up for it, I will be writing about Chapter 11 this week. There were a couple things that I found interesting from the research in this chapter. Riggio and Throckmorton (1987) found that “students who received a 40 minute lecture on interviewing skills did no better in their oral communication than did those who had not been exposed to the lecture” (as cited in Brown, 2012, p. 241). This was really surprising to me. Common sense would say that if you were exposed to a 40-minute talk about what some good communication skills are then you would use those skills and do better than those who didn’t hear about the skills. This makes me think that some of these skills are innate or a person can’t learn these skills just by listening, maybe they have to practice. This explains why earlier in the chapter role playing and practice interviews were noted as the most common tools used to sharpen interview skills (Brown, 2012, p. 239). This seems to match with what the research is saying; I just find it interesting that last week was the first time I ever did a role-playing interview. I think it would be important for school to consider including this in their curriculum so their student’s would be better prepared for an interview after they graduate.

            The next thing I noticed was how many placement services there are. The book discusses how large sums of money are spent on job placement then goes on to list several ways: public employment services, private employment agencies, secondary and postsecondary school placement services, online job placement centers, and outplacement services (Brown, 2012, p. 245). I never realized there were so many different job placement resources. I have only ever used the Internet. I search for jobs on Monster, Career Builders, etc. and then just go from there. It amazes me that all of these other types of placements exist. It is nice to know that there are resources out there if I ever find myself without a job. 

Reference

Brown, D. (2012). Career information, career counseling, and career development. (10th ed.). New York: Pearson Education, Inc.