Successful Applications for Your Career in Industry

Aims

Applying in industry is often a tedious, challenging thing. You go out of your comfort zone to create attractive application documents, and you're disappointed when you get a rejection for the job you have applied for. Or you don't get an answer at all, and don't understand why. As a result, motivation might be lost and further applications are only half-heartedly implemented. With a better understanding of the application processes in companies and an optimal preparation and methodology, this course supports all those who want to create a successful application for their career in industry.

This two-day course covers all phases of an application, from the search to the interviews to the negotiation of a contract. You will learn how to describe your competencies appropriately, how to point out the relevant points in your application documents, how important it is to fit the job advertisement accurately and how decision-makers will read and evaluate your documents. You will also understand the real questions and needs behind the questions in the interview and how best to give competence-based answers.

Content

During the preparatory phase, you will develop your personal competence and project portfolio based on a set of assignments and examples. This is the foundation for meaningful applications.

On the first day of the course, you will get to know the current job market situation in the industry and what active and passive search possibilities for specific jobs can be derived from this. Then you will learn how to read and interpret job advertisements correctly and how to optimize your own application chances using a simple method. We will discuss the readability and optimal design of the application documents based on findings from cognitive neuroscience. Then we will work out how to optimally position your competencies for the job advertisement and you will get to know the typical selection procedures in the companies. Additionally, we will cover the self-presentation possibilities in social media.

Between the first and second day you will revise your competencies descriptions and application documents and develop an application strategy that suits you.

On the second day after the reflection of our homework we will dive deeper into the application process and understand how to follow up. Afterwards, we intensively deal with the preparation and implementation of different interview situations to secure your success. At the end of the day, we discuss successful contract negotiations.

After the two days of the course, you will develop a strategic implementation plan and understand how best to deal with potential challenges. The aim of this course is to be more confident in your application process and to reach your next career step in the industry with a clear goal in mind.

Methods

Lecture, individual work, group discussions, practical work in the group with case studies and personal examples, reflection of own behavior

Target Group

Advanced Doctoral Candidates & All Postdocs

Requirements

Processable application documents, work certificates and diplomas, willingness to reflect and question oneself, openness, motivation for additional work before, during and after the course.

About the Trainer

Matthias Augustin, Master of Cognitive NeuroScience, is an experienced Job-Coach and Trainer with over 1700 hours of 1:1 coachings and over 80 given courses in this topic, more information about him can be found at https://matthiasaugustin.com/ or https://lighthouse-impulse.ch.

Workload

Total of 30 h (course attendance 14 h, pre-work assignment 5 h, work between the course days 8h, post-assignment 3h)

Feature

Once registration is open, applications will be collected for 24 hours and course places allocated by lot. All registrations received after the initial 24h period will be put on a waiting list and assigned on a first come, first served basis.

Course places/places on the waiting list will be confirmed by e-mail. Course registrations can only be canceled before the registration period ends (send an e-mail to grace@unibas.ch). Full course attendance is mandatory. Participants who fail to attend a course without prior notification or withdraw after the registration deadline are subject to a fee of CHF 30. In addition, participants who cancel their course registration at a later point in time, are absent without an excuse or do not attend the entire course will, for reasons of fairness, not be considered for course registration in the following semester and will be removed from other courses offered in the same semester. Please find the detailed regulations on the Transferable Skills Homepage.