Okay, great. So once again, welcome you all to this session decoding job descriptions. My name is Caleb Yu I am the graduate and international student career advisor on campus. I'm from Central Career Services. And here with me today I also have one of my colleagues from the engineering school. So I'm just going to have Jen introduce herself and kind of share a little bit about what her office does. Hi everybody. Good morning. My name is Jennifer Micale, and I've been at Cornell for 11 years. I started out in engineering and now I'm back in Engineering and I'm really excited about it. My new position. I work with the MEng students as well as the engineering MPS students on career development. I teach a course on professional development. It's engineering 5351. And I'm here to as a resource for the engineering MEng and the MPS students throughout your entire career search process, from getting your materials ready, to you know, when you're finally negotiating an offer, I'm here to work with you and provide support with whatever stage you're in and help you make the most out of the resources that are available to you. And one of the great resources available to us is Caleb. He's amazing and I wanted to tune into the sessions to learn more tips on how I might support students in the job search process. So thanks for letting me sit in, Caleb. Thanks Jen. So for those who are in an MEng program or MPS program in engineering, definitely visit Jen's office and make an appointment to meet with her. She's a great resource and she should be your kind of first kind of point of contact. When you have all these career-related questions, they will have more MEng or MPS specific kind of resources or guidelines for, for you students. So yeah, thanks Jen for tuning in. So let's get into the agenda today. So like I said, we have quite a lot to talk about. So we're going to first look at what is the job description, what it's for, and some important sessions on the job description. Then we're going to look at some tips on how to read a job description. But specifically, we're going to dive into one of those tips on how to figure out some hidden information or qualifications behind the lines. And then we're going to have a small activity. So we'll be able to have you kind of team up and, and sort of work on a job description to give it a try. And then I'm going to share some last thoughts before we get into the question and answer time. So right off the bat, this is just a disclaimer. Everything I'm going to talk about today is mainly based on the US professional environment. So the kind of job description could be written very differently in your home country or even deemed in a very different way in your home country. So just remember everything I'm talking about here today is based on the US professional environment. Next one, this is not meant to be a workshop that generalizes all job descriptions. So i.e. I'm here to sort of give you some tips and help you sort of understand what are some ways to better read and understand the job description. But by no means I'm an expert on all job descriptions. So just want to put it out there. Next one is not all job descriptions are constructed the same. So even within the US, there are different ways that different companies or even people like to write a job description. Some are wonderfully written, which is great for all of us who are reading it. Some are poorly written, which is kind of hard for us to get much information out of, which is our last disclaimer here. Okay, so without further ado, let's sort of dive into the main contents. So what is a job description? So SHRM, which is the Society for Human Resources Management, sort of gives this definition of a job description, which is a, they say, a useful and plain language tool that talks about the tasks, duties, functions, and responsibilities of a job. And then they also get into details of who's doing this type of work and kind of how this work will be completed and also like how frequent this work needs to be done and so on. So in short, a job description sort of tells you what the job is about. And then sometimes it gives you the information of like who supervises the position, so you know who you report to. Then it also gives you the tasks the person that is expected to perform. And then it will be used as a standard or standards for employers to sort of evaluate you like after you join the company down the road. So this is sort of what a job description is. And then a purpose of a job description. Like I said earlier, it's a way of communicating to the job seekers about a specific position. It's for recruitment. Also again, for performance management down the road after you join the company. But it's also for a training and development purpose that once an employee joined the company, a few months or a year down the road, can refer back to this job description and see, okay, what are some things that we could provide to train and develop this employee based on the responsibilities and tasks that are asked on the job description. And then it's a compensation decision based on one level this job is and so on. And then it's also a legal compliance. So it's a legal document that has some legal terms that bonds both parties, but mainly the employees, to certain duties and responsibilities. Okay. So I'm sure a job description is not a strange thing to most of you, if not all. So I just want to sort of know for you right now, how confident are you in reading a job description and also kind of use it to help you in your job application. So I am launching a poll. And I hope that you should be able to see the poll. And if you could just sort of fill out, answer this question. And gives me a sense of like, where are you at? Ok, the number is still going up. That's good. Pretty good. I'm just going to give it five more seconds. Alright so I'm going to end the poll and share the results. I hope you guys can see the results. So I think this is great. We have quite a few folks on the call that chose four, which means you're pretty confident. Three, you know some. But you feel like you can still learn a little bit more how to read it. And then two is like okay, I think I get a basic understanding, but sometimes I still feel like, well, what's this, right? So I think that's that's good. And it's okay. Even if you're on one or on two, I think it's a process, it takes time for you to practice. And granted, like I said earlier, not every single job description is constructed in a way that's been helpful or easy to read. So don't be discouraged if you read a job description that you feel like. Man, is this a document from outer space? Meet with us and come to us, we'll be able to kind of sit down with you and go through this job description and take a look and give you some of our kind of thoughts and opinions. Okay. Just very quickly, I'm showing some important sessions on a job description. Obviously job title. And sometimes you will have a job summary. So what this is, and then you will have sometimes an about us or company descriptions to talk about. Okay. This company is doing this we're passionnate, we're fun, we're this or that right, to give you a sense of company culture. And then the important part is you will see responsibilities and also duties and the required qualifications and skills. And very often you will also see another session that talks about preferred qualifications and skills, which is kind of nice to have. This could be one of your sort of corners or edge. When you, if you have that, when you go to the interviews, you could. And you want to kind of spend some time to talk about how you're using those complications in your previous work. Okay, so we're going to spend some more time to talk about some of these parts later. But let's take a look at some quick tips on how to read a job description. So number one, consider job titles with a pinch of salt, which means don't, don't read too much into job titles. I think a job title is wonderful. It gives you a good sense of what this position is. But, but just sort of keep it in mind that different companies use job title differently. So maybe you're looking at a coordinator role in company X. But this coordinator role could be a manager role in company B. It really depends on the nature and the size of the company, the workforce, and how they sort of like to use a language. So like I said, the title is great, but don't focus too much on a title, the title match or mismatch. Next one is get hints about the company culture. And this is related to the company description that I mentioned. That session generally speaks about sort of the company's journey and culture. And if the culture resonates with, with you personally or with your own kind of passion or your belief. I think it will be and it should be a great way for you to discuss this in your cover letter, but also when you're going to the interview to make sure that not only are you sort of demonstrating some of the qualifications and skill sets that they are asking for. But you're also showing that, hey, I am on the same page with you on your mission, on your culture and this is what I believe. A company usually likes to see that. And number three is to figure out the hidden information in the job responsibilities. We're going to talk more about this later. And then know what's required and what's simply desired. So this is like what I mentioned in my last slide. So employers like to list kind of skills and personality traits or experience sort of in an ideal candidate to sort of secure a good candidate to do the job successfully. And a lot of time, those, the required qualifications or skill sets are something that's less negotiable because many of those are some of the fundamentals or skill sets to do this job. But like I said, for those desired or preferred, it doesn't matter if you don't have that. Because for them, for the company, it's also not essential. But it's like, oh, if you come with that, that's great. We can definitely use that. And so like I said, if you don't have those things, don't feel discouraged. But if you do have those things, make sure that you at least mention it, or at least talk about that in your cover letter and or in an interview. And also, don't be scared by the years of experience. And this is something I think probably the, one of the most sort of mentioned issues or problems when students come to me, we're going through a job description or we're talking about applying for a job. The one question that's kinda most frequently asked is like, but I don't have this five-years, but I don't have this like, two years or seven years. So just to remember that this is a way that companies are looking into your sort of professional background or experience, but don't consider it an absolute kind of must. So requiring a minimum two to three years of experience doesn't mean that they will kind of sort of reject anyone who does not have two or three years experience. Because I'm sure if you have just 1.5 or even one year of experience, but your experience was, experience was like solid and impressive. And in that year, you kind of do a lot, I'm sure a company won't sort of let you go when they recognize the value of that one year experience. And a lot of time. I think I liked to talk to students who are, who came from like this background where previously they were involved in a startup company. And I think that's a great example because working in a startup company, you pretty much need to get your hands in almost all areas. So you get to do more things than your position or than your kind of title. And so very likely you will accumulate or gain a deeper or more experience in one year compared to someone who probably holds the same title or a similar title, but who are working in a big company because then they have a more clear structure and hierarchy and path for them to develop. So that's something I want to encourage you. So don't be scared by the years of experience. I've heard that there is a rule of thumb that you can subtract the higher number. By the lower number and then you, whatever year is in between. I think it could be a good sort of reference for you. But I also feel like even if they're asking for five years and you have three years solid work experience and you're able to talk about that in a way that would, that demonstrates some of the skill sets and experiences that a company is looking for. I think I would encourage you to also consider applying. So the last one is be familiar with the lingo and how to use that, right? This is something important, especially if you know that there are a lot of lingos people like to use in that prospective kind of field that you want to go into. We're talking about like in business world, if you're looking for consulting position, they have some of the kind of buzz words they want to use right? And in engineering, there are a lot of different lingos in specific positions. And you need to understand what those means. If you don't, then either you're not quite ready or you just need to brush up the vocab of yours and then kind of be able to use the lingo, some of your documents or in your conversation, in your interview with the company to demonstrate that, you know, I'm familiar with this and I'm able to talk about things in your language as well. And so obviously, figure out the hidden information in a job responsibility is probably the one, the most important sort of tips among this list. And so let's sort of take a closer look at how do you figure out the hidden information. So before that, there's some sort of notes that I want to mention here. Number one is, a well-written job description may contain important information everywhere. And so don't kind of ignore some sessions if you're like, oh, it's just talking about skills or oh, this is talking about their company. I know the company, I know what Google does, Google is like an engineering company. They do all these things. But sometimes you want to read through that and then you will get some oh, that's what they meant. Oh, this is kind of their culture. Okay, I want to mention this in my cover letter and my interview. Next one is spend time reading and studying job responsibilities and qualifications sessions. So again, on the job description, probably the most important session is the responsibilities and qualifications session, because that will be one session that will help you immensely in, how do you write your resume cover letter, and how to sort of talk about yourself and communicate in an interview situation. As you do that, you want to sort of underline or mark out, action verbs, descriptive phrases, and also specific tools or experience required so that it'll help you to sort of take note and remember. Otherwise, sometimes I read through a long list of documents and after I've finished reading it, I already forgot what I read at the beginning. So I think it's a good sort of habit to sort of make some notes on that document. And then you want to also summarize some of the key qualifications or requirements and the transferable skills that you found on the document. And then use it to help you tailor your documentations and also in your interview. And oftentimes, it's easier to identify the hard skills required, right? They're asking like, you need to have Python, or you want to know how to use R to kind of analyze things or how to perform this machinery to make the mode or whatnot. But sometimes it's harder to identify or easier to miss some of the soft skills that are required because they don't spell the soft skills out for you. They don't say, we're looking for like someone who has strong kind of critical thinking ability or things like that. So some of these terms are hidden behind some descriptions that they tried to describe, oh we want someone who can, who are curious, who will ask a lot of questions, but who can also think on their feet and stuff like that. So just remember, don't just focus on the hard skills, but also pay attention to what kind of soft skills are they looking for. And those soft skills will be, kind of important for you, at least to help you write your cover letter or in your interviews you can talk about, you know, this is my, how I demonstrate my team work or my leadership ability by doing x, y, and z and give specific examples. So right now I'm just going to sort of zip through a job description that I found on Cornell workday. This is the website for Cornell University to post their jobs. And so this position is a Student Services Associate IV position. This is usually an HR title, but the working title will be student support associate in CALS and talks about like who your employer is and also the location and stuff like that. And then there's three kind of paragraphs that talks about responsibilities and we're going to take a closer look at this later. Okay. And then also required qualifications like I mentioned earlier. So this is also very important for you to kind of find out the qualifications they're asking for. The hard skills, but also the soft skills. Okay, so let's take a closer look at the responsibilities and sort of go line by line quickly. And after this, we're going to have time for you to sort of give it a try, work in a group as well. So it says this row was assist with entering phones, welcoming and assisting students as they enter the office and focus, the focus is to help with basic questions, essentials, and provide referrals to other staff and resources. So if you look at these things and sort of this qualification they're looking for is this kind of customer service experience or ability, but the transferable skill behind that they're looking for, at least one is, an important one or big one is communication. So you'll be able to communicate knowledge not just on the phone, but in-person. But not only just provide answers or resources directly, but also be able to know when to refer students and who to refer students to. So that's communication. Then it asks, or then it  talks about a serve as a backup on the daily management to the office, of the office e-mail system in Outlook. Right. And so now we know that qualification is they're looking for someone who knows how to operate, email system, especially Outlook. And the transferable skills they're looking for is this digital technology ability or competency of yours. And this could go beyond sort of e-mail. E-mail is probably one of the most basic thing that you use. If you have experience in managing some sort of social media accounts or platforms or do online marketing stuff. I think that's something you could also talk about to sort of show your ability or your confidence in work using these online systems and stuff like that. Okay, Moving on, it says at least assist with registrar functions. And then it describe what these functions are, like processing add drop forms, Dean's certificates and whatnot, and with, and also maintaining the highest level of confidentiality, right? And so now we're looking at the qualifications here is okay. You need to know the registrar functions how to do those things. But some of the transferable skills, the high number ones, again, also technology but also professionalism and work ethic. Because it talks about you need to handle some things, what has levels of confidentiality. So are you able to be professional or keep this good work ethic that keep whatever things that you see or you hear, like at work or in the office and not share or leaked the information to anyone else outside of this work environments. And the next one, it says, you must have a clear understanding of the university and college policies, FERPA guidelines, compliance, and also the graduation requirements. So. The qualification here is okay, you want to understand policies and regulations, but specifically of the University. Some of the transferable skills behind will be again, communication but also critical thinking. Because in some of these sort of how to interpret policies and how to apply policies and regulations in different situations you want to think about, okay. Does that make sense? Or is this the right one to use and how do I implement this to make sure that the policy and regulation is carried out in a fair manner. Or it takes care of everyone at stake. And then moving forward, the next one is comfort and familiarity with several technology platforms than it lists the platforms, Outlook, People Soft and whatnot. And then training and support will be ongoing and as needed for these performance. So again, you want the qualification it's asking for is the similarity of these technology platforms. Of course, the transferable skills here is digital technology, but also communication. Communication is more speaking towards these kind of, the last sentence here, training and support will be ongoing and as needed for these platforms. So they will provide some trainings and supports. But I think one important message here is you also want to initiate, hey, I think I want to get more trainings on this or can I have some support on that so that I can better perform my job? And so if you are someone who is kind of good at initiating things, and you want to mentioned that you have this ability of like kind of of initiating different things or being initiative. So let's move on to the required qualifications session. Some of these are the hard skills that I mentioned earlier. So office student record system, or you want to understand the FERPA regulation. FERPA means the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. So it's kind of a rule or regulation that protects students' privacy. And so obviously if you want to work on this road, you need to have some extensive knowledge, not just basic understanding of that FERPA rule. Again, the hard skills, computer skills, Outlook, PowerPoint, Adobe, and et cetera, but also need to know how to prepare reports and also analyze reports. So that's again, some hard skills. Handle confidential information. I think that touches upon some soft skills. This, how do you be confidential and have some of these work ethic and professionalism, like we mentioned earlier, that, the transferable skills. Accurate, methodical, well spoken, accurate in spelling, grammar and proofreading. So this is both soft skills, but also a hard skills. You want to like, you need to have a good writing skills in grammar and in sort of kind of proofreading. But then that communication is this soft skills in general, that it's asking for. Providing exceptional customer service. Work well with others. Create a high-quality and respectful work environment. So it talks about teamwork. How are you, how well are you working with other people in the team? Sound judgement, creativity, management, problem-solving, work well within the team, again, teamwork. But all of these are some of the soft skills that you want to demonstrate, a least some of those on your cover letter or in every situation. Written and oral communications, organization skills and also good prioritizing skills or multitasking skills. Again, these are some of the soft skills. Interpersonal skills, experience working in a multicultural environment, right? This is probably one of the kind of more sort of this important soft skills that you will see on many job descriptions today as the world, or as at least the country or the world actually is getting more diverse and people are working in different countries and cultures, especially in the university setting, right? So that's something very important. So once you sort of go through that and you mark out all the important keywords and whatnot as the skills or whatnot. Then you want to sort of summarize them and list them down so that it's easier for you to use them to tailor your resume and cover letter and also help you practice your interview, right? So some of the hard skills that we see in the customer service skills, computer skills. You need to know the registrar function, understand school policies, FERPA, compliance, graduation requirements. And then the soft skills are interpersonal communication skills, professionalism and work ethic, teamwork, or a collaborator. Being collaborative in a team environment, in an office environment, and also critical thinking and also problem-solving, organization, multitasking, and also good oral and written communication. So this is sort of generally how I would encourage you to go through a job description. Read through them, take notes and then summarize. And then you can move on to use it to tailor your your documentations. Okay, so enough said and I don't want to kind of talk too much here, so I think we're going to have a time so that you can give it a try. So I think we don't have too many peoples. I'm just going to split us into two large groups. And then in your breakout rooms. Try to find five or even more qualifications from any section of the job description that I'm gonna, like send to you. And besides that, also try to identify company culture mentioned in the job description if you can. And I'll give you five minutes to do that. And then after that we're going to regroup. And then each group can share like what you found on the job description. So I am just going to send the link of the job description to everyone through the chat. Okay, great. So you should be able to see the link in the chat. And if you want to click it, you will get to that page that's a position with Google. It's a software engineering manager in engineering productivity. I hope everyone got the link and okay, I see some nods. That's good. And then I will get everyone into the breakout rooms and then five minutes and then we'll come back and I'll remind you the time. And so in your group, again, I'll put up the slides of what you want to do and talk to your group members and to try to sort of work this job description. All right, I'll see you guys in a bit and then I'll put up the slides again. Okay, so it seems like everyone's back. Can you, is anyone want to sort of talk about what did you guys discuss or what did you guys find out in your breakout room? Like some qualifications or the company culture that you guys have talked about. Feel free to either unmute yourself or put it in the chat box. I think one of the biggest qualifications was having a bachelor's degree in computer science or any other related field. Okay. Anything else? And another thing that we talked about was having leadership and people management experience. So indicating that in your resume and also being proficient in a language, that they have listed. The computer language. Ok, that's great. Anyone else want to share what you found? Qualifications or has anyone found a company culture you want to share? Pretty quiet. Okay, that's fine. But I think I want to encourage you that like with what you found on the job description, those are the things that you want to sort of put to use to help you write your resume, write your cover letter, and to communicate, in your interview. And that's why. Again, we also stress to all the students. You need to tailor your resume. You need to tailor your cover letter for this reason to make sure that you hit all the right things that they're looking for and to help you better display some of your qualifications and strengths. Okay, so before we get to some of the next steps, here are some final thoughts. Like I mentioned at the very beginning, it takes practices or it takes a lot of practices to know how to dissect a job description in order to have it work for you. Right? So if you feel like you still don't quite kinda fully know how to pick out some of the hidden qualifications or information behind the lines. Do it again, do it again and do it again or come to us, we'll be able to sort of walk you through the document to help you understand. This is what it means to have communication skills or this is what that means to  have sort of a critical thinking abilities and whatnot. But also, all too often, job descriptions are filled with ambitious requests that are too difficult to live up to. And I'm sure this is probably a response or reaction of many people when you see some of the job descriptions. And also, according to Harvard Business Review, actually 46% of men and 41% of women have avoided applying for jobs because they felt like they didn't meet the qualifications. And I'm not, I'm sure they're not talking about like, you miss all of the qualifications. But sometimes when when some people see, oh, I do not check this one box, or I do not check those two boxes. I don't think I'm good for this job. In some occasions, maybe if those one or two kind of qualifications are the most essential things that they're looking for. But in many occasions, not so much. Even if you don't check one or two boxes and you've checked all the rest of the boxes, I would still suggest you move on and apply. So just because you don't meet all the requirements, it doesn't mean that you shouldn't apply for the job. Because quite honestly, in job descriptions, employers are often more aspirational than practical. So they're often kind of looking for the job descriptions. The job descriptions are written in the way to hire like a perfect, ideal candidate. But nine out of 10 times the final candidate is not exactly or does not fit 100 percent into this job description. And so again, I want to encourage you. If you see the job description, you check most of the boxes, but you have some boxes that you did not check. Don't doubt yourself. And, and don't feel discouraged. And kinda focus on, okay, then how can I better kind of demonstrate or display some of these required qualifications or skill sets that I have. On my resume on my cover letter or how can I talk about that in interview so that I can make sure that they understand where I come from, and value some of my background, experience and abilities. Okay, So what are some next steps that you can take? Definitely, number one, if you still don't really know what your skills are or what are some of your transferable skills. A good first step is for you to understand yourself, understand yourself a little bit. And so at career services, We developed a Canvas course called Career Development toolkit. It's on Canvas. And I, I hope everyone, at least should got kind of the link to enroll this past fall. If not, feel free to reach out to me. I'd be happy to share the link with you. And in this toolkit, we have different modules. One of the modules is called exploration. In this exploration module, we have content to help you sort of understand yourself. Do some self assessment or some worksheets so that you can better understand your transferable skills and your skills. The next one, something you can do is practice, practice, practice. Practice reading the job description and use, use that you tailor it to your documentations, or use that to help you in your, your interview. So do some mock interviews with us or with the tools and platforms online. So feel free to reach out to us if you need help on that. And tailor your resume, cover letter using the job description. This is something that is really important because if you always submit a generic resume or  cover letter, it's really hard for you to kind of hit the bull's eye and hit the target for different positions. Because even if you are applying for, let's say software engineer, position, with many different companies. Very likely different companies has a slightly different focus on x field or y field or x aspect or y aspect of this job. And so you want to be able to speak really to what they're asking for so that you can increase some of the, increase the chance of getting an interview or being hired after you've done an interview. So again, reach out to us, you can e-mail me or you can get to our website to make an appointment with us. And with Jen if you are from the engineering college you're MEng or MPS definitely reach out to Jen to sort of pick her brain and use her as your great resource to help you practice and help you do these kind of tailoring resumes and whatnot. So before we get to our question or Q&A session, we really value your feedback and it'll help us to kind of improve the workshop. So maybe I need to put in more additional topics or, or you want to have more interactive components built in. So please feel free to, let me stop sharing and I will send the link to you. So if you can please fill out this survey with feedback, takes about a minute and it will help me kind of understand how can I improve my workshop? So right now, I'm just going to pause here and stop recording.