Interviewing: Moving Beyond the Resume

Dr. John Turbeville, Assistant Dean for Student Affairs and Director of Career Services at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, presented on Improving one’s interviewing skills on Wednesday, April 14, 2021 as part of SUNY ESF’s Perspectives of Career and Gender Spring Seminar Course. 

            Dr. Turbeville discussed interviewing statistics, common interviewing questions employers ask and how to answer them, tips for a successful interview and also highlighted on questions considered illegal during an interview. According to the statistics, 95% of employers say that they are still using resumes and cover letters as the primary medium for deciding who to interview. Dr. Turbeville stated that, employers actually google candidates to see what they learn and how what they are able to find influences negatively or positively, the perceptions of the candidate. During the seminar, we got to know most employers currently use Behavioral-based Interviewing (BBI). “BBI is a technique used in which the job candidate has the opportunity to demonstrate their potential for succeeding in the new job by providing specific examples of how they handled similar situations based on their past experience.” He emphasized the concept of “adaptability” and “creativity” is considered a great strength during interviews in this COVID-19 era. Students then shared their personal experiences with interviews.

Dr. Turbeville received his B.S. in Mathematics from SUNY Oswego, and his M.S. in Higher Education and Ph.D. in Higher Education from the Syracuse University, Maxwell School.  He serves as Dean for Student Affairs and Director of Career Services at the State University of New York- College of Environmental Science and Forestry.  He is the President of SUNY Career Development Organization and a member of The National Career Development Association.

Next in the Gender and Career seminar will be a discussion on Diverse perspectives on gender and science by Dr. Lizette Rivera, Office of Inclusion, Diversity and Equity at SUNY ESF. For more information about the presentation, contact Diane Kuehn, Associate Professor, at dmkuehn@esf.edu or Heather Engelman, engelman@esf.edu .

As part of the requirements of FOR 797 Perspectives on Career and Gender, students take turns summarizing class discussions, for more information, visit: https://www.esf.edu/womenscaucus/Seminar.htm.   The above was prepared by Akosua Asabere, a MS student studying Natural Resources Management in the Department of Sustainable Resource Management.

ESF Take our Kids to Work Day 2021, with asynchronous and synchronous options

ESF extended family and friends are invited to view recordings created by ESFers at the Take our Kids to Work Day playlist.  Current offerings include a Kitchen Crafting Polymer lesson (Maura Stefl, OELO); The Science of Chromatography (Sarita Perez, 2nd yr Biotechnology major); Wetlands, Closer than You Think (Dr. Sharon Moran, Environmental Studies), an Introduction to Landscape Architecture (3 part series, by Ashley Crespo, Mary Martin, Hannah Noll, Matthew Romano, Elena Juodisius); and DIY Deodorants and DIY Body Butter (Sue Fassler, Sustainable Facilities Manager).  As additional videos are added, we will share to our Facebook page. If you have content to share, please contact Heather Engelman, engelman@esf.edu.

In addition, on April 22, we are pleased to be #BoldlyMovingForward2021, at family’s choice of  9-11:30 EDT or noon-2:30 EDT, at https://www.daughtersandsonstowork.org. The morning session will begin with a live introduction by Ellen Langas and conversation with Ms. Founder Gloria Steinem. The afternoon session will be introduced live by television host Courtney Cason and feature a keynote address by teen inventor Gitanjali Rao.  Each session will then feature live overviews and closings around a cluster of recordings on “15 up-and-coming careers across STEM, Arts, Health Science, Marketing and Business...designed to help students of all ages explore careers and the pathways to achieve them.”  The full schedule and activity downloads can be accessed at daughtersandsons.org; children (through their adult) are encouraged to submit questions in advance at that site to be answered live by Steinem or Rao.

To interact in other ways, including survey responses, contest entries, and receive updates and other information, the child’s ADULT can register at no cost.   Recognizing that some may not be able to take advantage of the program in real time, selected TODASTWD content is anticipated to be available for a week following the event.

While ESF Kids Day organizers hope to resume in-person programming next year, we also anticipate continuing to partner with the TODASTW foundation so that Our Kids can explore more career opportunities, and that Kids elsewhere in the community and world can picture themselves at ESF learning to Improve our World.

 

Building a Better Fieldwork Future: Origins of a Program to Increase Safety in Science

Melissa Cronin

Despite field work being a longstanding practice in the sciences, concerns about sexual harassment and assault in field work has only entered the scientific community dialogue recently, spurred by studies showing that most field participants experience harassment as well as highly publicized cases in the media. This exposure has increased concern and communication around sexual harassment and assault in field-based science—which is second only to the U.S. military in terms of harassment prevalence—and consequently action to better respond to and prevent this phenomenon to make science safer and more inclusive. Melissa Cronin is one of three women who came together to address the latter appraoch and develop a program to prevent harassment. She recently spoke to an audience of faculty, staff, and students at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry (SUNY ESF) via Zoom as part of the Women in Scientific & Environmental Professions (WiSE Professions) speaker series on March 31, 2021.

            Cronin began by addressing the unique challenges presented by field work, including limited outside communication and ways to leave, close quarters, power asymmetry, and interactions with non-group members, among others. After addressing the recently acknowledged prevalence of harassment and assault in field work, Cronin explained that an effective way to prevent these instances from occurring is to address the “organizational climate”, or the shared collective norms and values of an organization or setting. This motivation, to change organizational climate, drives the program she co-developed with Drs. Roxane Beltran and Erika Zavaleta called Building a Better Field work Future: Preventing & Managing Sexual Harassment & Assault in Field Science, or BBFF for short.

click image to view video

            BBFF is a 90-minute, highly interactive workshop that has now been conducted for over 800 participants across many institutions, including some in Germany, the United Kingdom, and Nigeria. This program provides examples of tangible policies that institutions can adopt relating to harassment prevention, intervention, and response, such a developing a code of conduct or community agreement (prevention), hosting bystander intervention training (intervention), or implementing zero-tolerance policies (response). This workshop then leads participants through four scenarios increasing in severity and encourages participants to “think out loud” and discuss solutions to these scenarios, keeping in mind that there may be no “right answer.” With an intentionally positive and empowering tone, this workshop helps participants prepare for their field season and become aware of issues and experiences they were not aware of before.

            The popularity of BBFF has grown considerably, and assessments indicate that the highly rated workshop is increasing participants’ knowledge and confidence in these issues. BBFF has become so popular and in high demand that they have implemented a new “Train the Trainers Facilitator Program”, which trainers other individuals, who so far have come from a wide range of disciplines and career stages, to host these BBFF workshops elsewhere. Cronin and her colleagues have also made resources widely available and hope to contribute to a more inclusive cultural shift that values prevention of these issues.

            Melissa Cronin is a Ph.D. candidate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California Santa Cruz, where she studies mapping and mitigating marine fisheries bycatch as a member of the Conservation Action Lab. Prior to her graduate studies, Cronin worked as an environmental journalist covering climate, politics, and wildlife crime, with stories appearing in The New York Times and Popular Science, among other outlets.

            BBFF is coming to SUNY ESF on April 15^th from 7:00-8:30 pm, for those who are interested in experiencing this interactive workshop. This workshop, the next installment in the WiSE Professions speaker series, will be led by Dr. Amanda Adams, Conservation Research Program Manager, Bat Conservation International and Lecturer, Biology, Texas A&M University. Space is still available; sign up at bit.ly/WiSEProfessions.

Perspectives on Career and Gender/WiSE Professions

As part of the course requirements for FOR797 Perspectives on Career and Gender, students share  responsibility of reporting on speakers, both in class and in the campus-wide Women in Scientific and Environmental Professions Speaker Series.  The preceding was prepared byJenna Zukswert, graduate research assistant and PhD student, SUNY-ESF Department of Sustainable Forest Resources.