WVU Potomac State College recently hosted Small Business & Professionalism Week to assist students with real-world skills. Events included Adulting 101: Interview Basics, Dress for Success, a Small Business Showcase, and an Etiquette Luncheon. PSC Career Services, the Mary F. Shipper Library, the Department of Business, and Mental Health and Counseling Services sponsored the week of events.
“These events were set up to help prepare our students for real-world experiences and to help them better prepare for life after school,” said Melissa Dayton, Career Specialist at WVU Potomac State College.
Melissa Dayton
As part of the Etiquette Luncheon, Rob Barricelli, career development specialist from WVU Morgantown, led a presentation on table manners, etiquette, presentation, appearance, and what to talk about and not talk about at formal dinners and business lunches.
“These skills are still needed in the business world,” said Barricelli. “You always want to remember you are always making an impression, whether it’s in someone’s office or in a restaurant setting.”
Rob Barricelli
For instance: Do you know what the tiny fork on the far-right hand side of the place setting is for? Do you know how to put your silverware on your plate to indicate to the waitstaff that you are finished with your meal? What topics should you avoid talking about at a business lunch?
Barricelli talked about formal and informal dinner and lunch place settings. The smallest fork on the right is a seafood fork. You place your fork and knife across the plate to indicate you are finished. The topics you should avoid are religion, politics, and items deemed too personal.
These are skills, Barricelli said, not everyone knows. Older generations may have promoted the importance of these social skills, but younger generations are finding them useful, he said. And while they may seem like common sense, the art of table etiquette is a skill that will leave an impression – good or bad – on potential employers.
“For instance, you may have heard the story about not putting salt on a salad,” he said. “There is a story that a person was not hired because he put salt on a salad before tasting it. The employer didn’t hire that person because the potential employee assumed the food needed salt before tasting it. The employer felt that the person jumped to assumptions and assumed what was needed to make something better without first seeing if what he was doing was needed.”
The Professionalism courses offered earlier in the week included an Adulting 101 class on “Interviewing Basics” in which participants were given pointers and tips for acing job interviews. Dayton led that class and talked to students about the importance of research, entering the interview with a positive mindset, brainstorming answers to interview questions, how to present a resume, and how to even dress to make an impression at a job interview.
That event was followed up by mock interviews conducted on campus by local company leaders who sat with participants and walked them through scenarios and questions that could be asked in job interview situations. Those mock interviews were conducted by Lisa Seifarth of Northrop Grumman, Bruce Harrison of Wayne’s Country Meats, Amberly Shaffer of UPMC, and Shelley Friend and Allen Shapiro of First United Bank and Trust
Mock interview team
“When you are talking to college students, you are talking about them getting out into the world and starting their careers,” said Friend. “Events like this at Potomac State help prepare students for the real world beyond what they are learning in the classroom.”
Friend said she always gives young people the same career advice when she appears at events that promote the learning of “adult skills.”
“I tell them to work a job they love,” she said. “Who wants to work where you might make a lot of money, but you will be miserable?”
Students, faculty, and staff also had an opportunity to help update their online and networking image by getting a professional headshot taken by Shane Riggs, assistant director of communications and marketing.
On Wednesday, April 15, those students who are already business savvy were asked to put their own marketing and promotional skills to the test by participating in a “Small Business Showcase” held on the Quad. Local entrepreneurs were invited to sell or even promote and talk about their small businesses. Items at the fair ranged from glass etched and wood-carved items to books, fine crafts, and handmade soaps.
The events held on campus during Professionalism Week also corresponded and proved to be the conclusion to this year’s Adulting 101 series, hosted every semester by the Mary F. Shipper Library staff.
“I have hosted one Adulting 101 course each month since September,” said Emily A. Zumbrun, Rural Entrepreneurship Librarian at the library. “Adulting 101 workshops are designed to develop skills and competencies in areas that aren’t typically offered in the classroom setting and that set students up for success in the world, not just their careers.”
Emily Zumbrun
Zumbrun said the library, career services, the business department, and mental health and counseling services will sponsor another round of “real-world preparedness” courses beginning in the fall.