At WPC I’m not always learning designing skills or skills pertaining to what I want to do in terms of my long term career goal. Sometimes I’m asked to help with clerical work such as organizing, jotting down notes and filing certain information regarding volunteers at WPC.

I did recently learn how to help out with phoning at WPC and the process of contacting people who signed up to be potential volunteers and financial sponsors.  The way to learning a new skill set is to just be thrown into it but with a firm support to help you feel comfortable and to build the foundation that will later help you to utilize a newly acquired skill. Phoning is an important skill because it allows you to make connections and practice professional interactions with other people as well as help you become more aware of your speech habits when talking.

I learned how to read from a specific pitch tailored for talking to potential volunteers and how to spot adjust, which is being able to improvise the pitch on the spot when the receiver on the other side of the phone may deviate from the predicted responses or how to deal with a person that may speak for longer than expected. There is a term called parity, which explains that a certain number of calls should be made in half an hour because out of 2/3rds of people called only 1/3rd will confirm to the purpose of the call and then they still may not confirm even after that. That is why it is important to achieve a high number of parity- but most importantly, this also shows why it’s important to have a professional and hospitable behavior when dealing with people and networking, because without a trustworthy and intelligent demeanor, people will not agree to helping you out if you don’t know what you’re doing.