Career Pilot - Work Experience Reflections

1.
The most interesting thing I learnt while doing work experience at Blue Note was that music is in many ways a business, and that playing/making music only consists of 1% of a musicians job, with the other 99% being advertising, managing budget and many other financial tasks, among other things.
2.
Upon entering Blue Note, you are immediately met with a flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs are 2 doors, one on the left, and one on the right. The door on the left leads to a series of small rooms used for music lessons, and the door on the left leads to the actual store. In the store, there are many guitars on display, with acoustic guitars hanging on the right wall, and electric guitars on stands in the middle of the store. Also along the right wall are quite a few black tubs, filled with lots of old records, which have been sorted by artist in alphabetical order. Along the left wall, are 2 black sofas, and a small red armchair that looks like its seen better days. In front of the back wall is the counter, which has a cash register, logbook, and a series of containers filled with guitar picks. Behind the counter are 2 rooms, one used for conducting business inquiries, and one used for testing electric guitars. Along the right of the store is an entrance to another room, which has a workbench for fixing guitars, as well as mics, amps, and other gear used for either live shows or for recording.
3.
My duties at Blue Note mainly consisted of sorting records into the correct place, and typing up details of records that would be sold on EBay. However, I also had to change the skins on 2 drum kits as well.

1. The employability skill I used the most would probably be customer services, communication, problem solving, Teamwork. i think that Communication was the skill that i used the most as i needed to communicate with the other team memebers at Spotlight.

2. I think that in retail - communitcation, team work, problem solving are key in this industry as they all go hand in hand with each other because you can not work in a team without good communication skills and you can not solve problems without a team that communicates.

3. I think that everyone can learn employabiltiy skills but some might be harder for others depending on their personality and the way they handle things.

 

It seems like working in retail has given you a lot of the employability skills which would be good on a resume and to demonstrate in future jobs.

1.   The employability skills I was developing was Customer Service, Team Work, Communication, Problem Solving, Planning & Organising, Self-Management, Learning, Technology, Data Collection and sorting.
2.   Customer service- talking to customers and helping find what they need. Communication- communicating with other staff members and customers. Self-management- being able to work on your own without anyone helping you.
3.   Yes, I think that some of the skills can be taught in the work place and can be learned by yourself and with other staff members. It can also be taught and learnt outside of work and at home/with friend and use your skills.

It's good that you got to develop the skills that you think are most important. And the skills that you didn't get to us on work experience you can develop like you said.

My work experiences was pretty interesting and I've never done anything like it before. I also didn't have that much to do other then socializing with event attendees and other volunteers. Out of the 32 hours that I was volunteering I only actively worked for about 6 hours, the rest of the time I was just drifting around asking the senior volunteers if they needed help with anything, or attending the presentations. I did enjoy my time there though. The presentations at the event were really cool and some of the topics like PC building and games development related to my interest. I was a little stressed on the first day because I felt lazy and though that I wasn't pulling my weight because I was pretty much sitting down doing nothing for the whole day. But on the second and last day I calmed down and didn't have those feelings.

I really liked working at the event and I got along really well with the other volunteers. I also really enjoyed talking to the events attendees and had a couple of really good conversations with some of them. In my previous jobs I always had trouble communicating with others, and I could never really hold a conversation. So I guess something that I learned about myself while doing this placement is that my communications skills have really improved since I last worked.

The work space was pretty large. The event took place at the Chisholm Frankston campus in building D and building W. The main events and presentations took place in building D, while work shops, e-sports, VR and smaller presentations took place in building W. Going back and forth between these buildings took about 2 and half minutes each way. The week of the event was also really cold so walking back and forth between the two buildings got annoying very quickly. Building D was also very cold because it didn't have heating and the rooms were so large. The main stage area in building D was also a warehouse all of its windows were open, making the place even more cold.

My duties at the event were registering and signing in event attendees, handing out and collecting raffle tickets, telling attendees where to go and what the schedule for the day is if they needed help, cleaning, and moving objects.

Your work experience sounds pretty fun with all the technology they had, and its good that you enjoyed the time you spent there. Also building your communications skills while on work experience is a plus.

1 The most interesting thing I learned while working at the Reject Shop was their terminology, for example, Deep See Recovery  was the act of searching behind products on the shelf to retrieve missing products, rubbish, or products fallen behind the shelving units.
2 Small, but full, it was a small shop but it was manageable, I was able to cope in this environment.
3 Recovery which was pulling stock forwards, folding boxes and throwing them in the bin, stocking shelves, helping customers.

It's funny that they have sayings for things like that. 'Deep See Recovery'. Also its good that you found work experience fun and manageable because I know you were thinking of working at the reject shop.