Certify cards

Strategic thinking

Creativity

“The most reliable way to predict the future is to create it.”

Abraham Lincoln

Creativity + planning = strategic thinking, and if you’re good at it, remember to mention this skill in your video CV!

What are your career goals? Are your ambitions reasonable and in line with the organisation’s/company's goals?
How and if you would change the company/organisation?
How would you contribute to its growth?
Can picture what the organisation could transform into with you?
You could possibly show your prospective employers what it would be like to work with you.

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Filming

Execution

“Before you say ‘cut,’ wait five more seconds.”

Wim Wenders

Filming Checklist: audio

Film in a quiet place in order to avoid background noise and interruptions.
Make sure that you’re not talking too fast and that you’re making pauses after each sentence/section.
If you can, use an external microphone

Filming Checklist: video

Film in a bright room.
Avoid filming outdoors.
Put the camera between the source of light and the subject.
Place your subject in the center of the frame, looking directly into the camera, with the eyes on approximately ⅔ of the height of the image.
Leave a little bit of headroom above the top of the head but not too much.
Avoid cluttered backgrounds.
Place your camera at the eye level of the subject.
Use a tripod, or mount the camera to something stable.
Do NOT use the zoom of your mobile phone
Adjust resolution settings of your camera and record in Full HD (1080p)
Sit 0,6-1m away from the camera

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What to do if you do not want to film yourself?

Execution

"I get stage fright and gremlins in my head saying: 'You're going to forget your lines'."

Alan Rickman

Don’t want to film yourself? Feel camera-shy? There could be a number of different reasons for not wanting to perform in front of the camera. Luckily, you don’t necessarily have to in order to create a video CV! Here’s a couple of examples:

Animated video
Filming someone else
Creating a video from stock footage
Filming your pet! 🐕🐈🐟

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Empathy

Self-management

“The highest form of knowledge is empathy, for it requires us to suspend our egos and live in another's world. It requires profound purpose larger than the self kind of understanding.”

Plato

Claire Cain Miller from The New York Times draws attention to recent research which shows "that empathy makes people better managers and workers, and better family members and friends. But it’s bigger than just its personal effect. We’re all in this together, and researchers say that connection and compassion are crucial to a sustainable and humane future. ". The ability to understand and share the feelings of another is a sought-after skill in all work environments. How do you cultivate empathy? How can you show your prospective employer? Here’s a couple of prompts that might help you get started:

Would you consider yourself empathetic?
Do you find it easy to understand other people’s feelings, emotions and problems?
Do you actively seek to develop empathy? How?(volunteering, reading books …)

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Time management

Self-management

"Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan."

Margaret Thatcher

Time management is an important and sought-after skill, and if that’s something you’re good at, you should definitely mention it. How can you demonstrate that you’re well organised? In your video CV, you might answer questions such as:

Do you make to-do lists? Show examples
Do you have a time check? Do you set yourself time limits?
Do you use software tools for time management, for example Pomodoro timer apps?
Do you feel comfortable delegating tasks?
How do you organise your time? Do you focus on one task at a time or do you prefer multitasking?
How do you plan your day? Do you have a routine? What does it look like?

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Editing

Execution

“The notion of directing a film is the invention of critics - the whole eloquence of cinema is achieved in the editing room.”

Orson Welles

It is easy to underestimate the amount of work that goes into editing your video. It’s predominantly a technical process, but the creative aspects are crucial to the success of your story. We suggest using WeVideo, which is an online, cloud-based video editing platform that works in web browsers and on mobile devices (Android and iOS) but there are many alternatives. For example:

Microsoft Video Editor (FREE in Windows 10)
Blender (FREE)
iMovie (FREE for iOS)
Lightworks (FREE)

It is very important that you make sure you’re not breaching any copyright related regulations. It is safest to use only material that you create yourself, but if you choose to use other images, music or videos, it is always a good idea to check the licensing information and obtain permission where necessary.

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Problem solving

Creativity

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them”

Albert Einstein

Creativity is one of the competences essential to problem solving. Rules, guidelines and best practice manuals are helpful and can get you a result but they are not always available. Furthermore, in order to achieve extraordinary results, everyone needs to sometimes think “outside the box”. Demonstrate your problem-solving skills by answering the questions below 👇

What problem-solving event are you most proud of? Why and what happened?
How do you ensure that after having dealt with problems they do not repeat? Have you developed a method/technique to solve similar problems?
Tell us about a situation where you used creative thinking to eliminate frustration with a product/situation or a process.
Describe a situation where you had to think “outside the box” and how did you go about it?

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Giving constructive feedback and welcoming it yourself

Collaboration

“I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better. I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.”

Elon Musk

Feedback is very important for development and growth. If you’re keen to show your prospective employers that you’re capable of giving constructive feedback and welcome it yourself, here’s a couple of the questions that you might want to answer:

Do you find it difficult to give feedback? Why?
How do you handle criticism?
How do you give and receive feedback?
Why do you think feedback is important?
Can you remember an instance when you received feedback and acted on it to improve?
Have you ever given constructive feedback that helped your colleagues improve?

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