Guest Speaker Reflection: Ernesto Gluecksmann

I thoroughly enjoyed Ernesto Gluecksmann’s visit to our class on Wednesday. He came across as very professional, and an expert in his field. He made a lot of good points that I hadn’t really put much thought to before.

Ernesto made a great point when he said that we are battling two different problems right now, in regards to the work place. The one obviously, is the economy. The other though, I guess I just had put no thought into. Ernesto pointed out that we as workers are competing on a global stage now. This has a lot to do with globalization, and the advent of the Internet.

Ernesto told us that in order to be as competitive as possible on the global stage, we need to use new forms of social media to our advantage. This is because, as he said, relationships matter. It is our job to form connections with people who we might do business with. As he stated, people enjoy working with others who have like-minded and similar interests. They also like to work with people they know.

Of all the great things that Ernesto said, I think I learned the most from this. Sure, I have a Facebook, but I use it in very much the standard high school sense (i.e. chat with friends and look at photos). I’ve never really considered it a way to form connections. I think Ernesto showing us examples of how he uses social media in his job made me realize exactly how important these media platforms are becoming in the work place. I also helped me when he told us that potential employers are looking to see that their potential workers are involved in different types of social media.

A big part of Ernesto’s job is interviewing people. He says that you are always interviewing everyone you encounter. That got me to thinking how much truth there is in that. If you ask someone a question, that’s essentially an interview. I thought that many of his other tips were very valuable, especially considering that we all have our interviews coming up in the next couple of weeks.

His advice to not be needy I thought was pretty good. People want to talk about themselves; it’s just a fact of life. Ernesto also said that if you find out about them before hand, you can get some of the awkward ice breaking phase out of the way earlier, and thus, get to the more important info.

Ernesto also told us some tricks of the trade that I had never really heard before. I had heard the open ended question’s before, but I had never heard of the not speaking after the question strategy. This can cause an awkward silence, he said, but that the interviewee is more prone to respond.

Ernesto gave us some great advice that I know will certainly help me in my future. As an aspiring journalism major, I know that I will have to make good use of these new forms of social media. I will also be able to use some of Ernesto’s interviewing strategies for my advantage. I really enjoyed his visit, and I learned some great information.