A Personal Professional Profile

I need to get an idea of who you are and the level of your written and spoken English, so we will do this with a simple task/subject in which you are THE world expert: YOU:

My Personal/Professional Profile.

I want you to imagine that you are on the first day of your M2 internship/placement/work experience OR on the first day of your first position post graduation….

Here’s the video instruction you should already have seen.  Note, however, that the requirement for an audio file was for the confinement period.  This will not be necessary if we are able to continue with working in the physical classroom: I will want you to hand in your hard copy after reading a paragraph or so of it to the class….

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You bump into our boss (who interviewed you) at the coffee machine and the conversation goes like this:

« Hi there, remember me?  I interviewed you!  Call me ‘Tony’ from now on – we’re pretty informal here.  Could you do me a favour?  We have a tradition in which we put up on our intranet / website and in our magazine a ‘personal/professional profile‘ of all our new recruits so that colleagues and clients can get to know you: 

It needs to be of a maximum of  2 x pages (absolute minimum of one full page)  A4, 12pt text and may include up to two ‘smallish’ photos.  (Please don’t ‘cheat’ by doubling the usual spacing between the lines!).

This is NOT your cv – we’ve already got that – (though you might need to repeat just a little of your academic and employment background) : a cv is, to be frank, little more than a boring list of events and dates…. rather we need this profile to give you ‘colour’, character and to make people want to meet you.  You can write personally, introduce anecdotes or humour to express your personality for example…. anything to avoid it being boring!  Use any style or format – just create impact!   

It has got to be web/ intranet ready – no-one is going to correct it or act as your editor, OK?.   Please also choose a paagraph of 8 to 10 lines of your work, to read in class [IF we are confined again,read it and record it as a standard format audio file which we will run on the website as your file opens]. Thanks. »

You may imagine the post/position you occupy and the organisation -maybe your dream post-graduation position , but if you have a hard job doing this – look for a REAL job you might like to do. These links might help you:

National Trust Jobs (scroll right down the page to find the list/links to different types of jobs available)

Strong Recommendations:

• DO NOT just list your life events in chronological order for the recipients to read: that is too boring for words. Rather, try to find a structure and a style that engages the reader: grabs their attention, retains it and makes them so intrigued they will want to meet and to work with you. You may find that ‘talking to‘ / ‘having a sort of dialogue with’ your readers works particularly well.  Metaphors might also help – you can ‘play‘ them occasionally or throughout…
• DO NOT, under any circumstances, use a translation tool like GoogleTranslate, DeepL or Babelfish etc.  First it is cheating – it isn’t your work, so why should I give you a mark for it?  Secondly there is no possibility of you actually learning anything.  Thirdly, the style of language such tools produce is almost always incorrect and totally evident to the tutor.  Don’t be tempted, then!  You have been warned.
• DO use the following (especially the first two) – if you don’t you will simply be throwing away marks needlessly:
  • download a little piece of software called ‘Grammarly‘ .  It is free.  If you set it up in English for the purposes of this unit it will ‘look’ at everything you write in English whether it is using Word, PDF, Powerspoint, an email and it will offfer you corrections to your spelling and grammar. It also explains WHY, so you can actually learn from its suggested corrections.  It is like looking up a combined dictionary and grammar book and it is acceptable and is NOT cheating.  Please DO this – it can help your marks and your learning.
  • use a decent dictionary and synonym-hunter like WordReference, not only does it act as a dictionary, it gives you examples of the contexts in which certain words and phrases are used, it helps avoid faux-amis and it offers synonyms to help you avoid repetitions. This is considered acceptable and not to be cheating. Again, like Grammarly, if you take the time, it can help you learn and develop your vocabulary.
  • change the language in Word/Open Office etc to English…. then you get a spell-check correction facility which can help you.  Effectively it acts as a dictionary – this is acceptable and is NOT cheating.
• Do read your work OUT LOUD (à haute voix) – I know it sounds crazy, but it will help you. You hear the mistakes ‘bounce‘ off the walls, you will ‘fall over‘ errors and realise there is a problem somewhere. You will also begin to realise where your punctuation errors are creeping in as you will not have the proper ‘cues‘ with which to read the work.   I am also going to ask you to read some of your work out in class to check on pronunciation etc, so doing some reading out loud beforehand might well help you…

TUTOR INSTRUCTIONS

Due date.   Submit your work to me at the start of our third class together  and no later – or penalties will be applied!).  Do this in hard copy (paper) – no need to do it in full colour or in ‘premium’ print quality – ‘brouillon‘ (draft) is fine.   You may also use sheets that have been accidentally printed already on one side.

Marking (Fr. notation).   You will receive a mark for this written work.  I will endeavour to mark the hard copies within a week and give you personal and group feedback and encouragement.  I will also ask you to read a portion of your PPP in class and give you feedback upon it.  This will also generate a mark based upon your enunciation, pronunciation, the English ‘music‘ in your reading style. etc.

What will I be looking for in your written work? –

• that it follows the specification.  Your boss has asked you to do something for him/her on your first day – you should be looking to impress him/her by following his/her instructions to the letter!

• that it looks good on the page.  This is to go on the web/intranet / in a magazine to be read by your colleagues and clients.  It creates an impression of your employer and of YOU.  Even before someone reads it, their eyes will take in the page to form a first impression…and as we know from the old adage: ‘You don’t get  second chance to make a first impression‘.  Think about the use of space, structure, the position of photos etc. [NB. By the way, according to the BBC, 85% of CVs are NEVER READ because the covering letter is no good, or because the CV has no visual impact so there is no point in reading the content … if you can’t ‘sell’ yourself, you will hardly be willing or able to ‘sell‘ the company will you?].   Also, you are going to work in industries which are very much oriented towards accuracy, interpretation, precision explanation and presentation… I am trying to rehearse you for this reality.
• that you use the tools I have recommended in the proofing (FR. relecture) of your work to ‘catch & correct‘ obvious errors (spell-check, Grammarly etc).  Lazy, ‘I couldn’t be bothered to use the tools or to proof my work’ errors will be heavily penalised.  DO NOT, however use Babelfish / Google Translate / DeepL: if you do, that is NOT your work and is considered as plagiarism which has significant penalties attached. The mistakes these translators make are relatively characteristic and easy to find anyway…
• that your meaning is abundantly clear in English even if there are a few errors in expression, tense or style that you couldn’t catch even with the above tools available.  The latter we can correct!

Looking forward to receiving your work!

Hereafter we will be engaging with Block One or Block Two as directed.

TJ.