Over the holidays (and just before university came back) I found myself getting bored. I’d vegged out on the sofa, had gone on a photography trip to Western Australia, and had taken as many shifts at the MCG as possible. There wasn’t much to do, and I was starting to wonder how to keep myself entertained.

And then, courses were added to Canvas.

I’d actually been checking Canvas since being allocated my studio (yay for getting Deliberate film!) because I like to be organised for the semester (printing off assignments, setting up my OneNote… clearing the piles of clothes off my desk…) but it had been depressingly bare. And then, before my semester classes were even up, a bunch of other courses appeared.

RMIT calls them ‘micro-credentials’, and they’re very short (a couple of hours) courses that you can complete online. They’re optional, and each course focusses on something different.

I’ll admit that when I first read through these courses, I thought that they would be pointless. ‘Emotional Intelligence’ is something that I’ve developed for my job as an Integration Aide, and I’m pretty sure that I already excel at ‘Managing Time and Priorities’. But I started to complete them nonetheless, hoping to appease my boredom and possibly learn something new.

And I am so glad that I did.

So far, I have completed four courses (‘Defining U’, ‘Emotional Intelligence’, ‘Managing Time and Priorities’ and ‘Networking is Working’) and while there was certainly a lot of material that I already knew, there was certainly merit in doing these courses.

The most helpful one, given that I am about to start looking for Work Experience, was probably ‘Defining U’.

I had just about finished writing my resume, ready to send it out to as many potential places as possible, when I realised that that wouldn’t work. Yes, my resume does ‘distinguish’ me from other candidates – I have experience owning my own business, have been on film sets since I was a child and have had other learning experiences that can’t be substituted – but aside from giving me a competitive edge and therefore enhancing career prospects, I now understand that it is not nearly enough. The resume spoke about my strengths, sure, but it doesn’t do enough to build a reputation.

This is left to the cover letter, as well as online presence.

Cover letters (I discovered after trying to write a ‘general’ one) need to be written with the place of work in mind. It allows you to pick the strengths and values that best suit the place that you’re applying for – for example, I would love to work with wildlife and animals, but I’m also interested in working on a television drama. I would not expect the cover letters for either of these places to look even vaguely similar. The one for the zoo would focus on my incursion business (Animals In Schools) and my television one would focus on my significant experience on film sets.

Which is clear enough, obvious if you really think about it.

The online presence was the harder aspect, for me. I rarely use social media, only really to scroll down my newsfeed, or make the occasional post. However, there were some useful pointers that Defining U gave me, that I will certainly take into consideration as I continue to develop my use of these websites.

One main point was although I am not particularly active, I will like or comment on the occasional post. Most of these are from public posts, not friends. I personally like the Betoota Advocate, the mock-news paper. But – as you’d expect with a newspaper – their articles are all political.

So, if I like/comment on one of these, I have to think… what is the BEST thing that can happen, and what is the worst?

Well, the BEST thing is that my comment gets likes from strangers, or friends. Maybe a colleague will say ‘that was funny’ next time we go into work. But the WORST could be that an employer is offended (or worried about someone else being offended), and does not want to employ me.

So, not worth it.

Additionally; the micro-credential covered the idea of having personal/professional accounts. And employer doesn’t want to see the video of your dog learning to shake, and likewise, family and close friends don’t really want to be spammed with content from your short film (Yes, Karen. I will vote for your film, its only the tenth time you’ve asked me in as many minutes.)

And that does become a balancing act. You can post some content to ‘friends only’ and others to public, but there’s always going to be some overlap. Having a second profile is a good remedy to this, as it allows you to separate them easily.

However

Given how rarely I use social media anyway, I think that it would be redundant having two profiles. At least one of them would never be logged onto, and there’s no way that I’d be able to keep both of them going. So, even though I might have to revisit it in future after realising that the credential was right all along, I’m not about to start up a second page.

Finally, the micro-credential has reminded me that I should get back onto LinkedIn, get some more experience with using that media before I have to for career.