TORONTO, March 28, 2005 -- For a student in the job interviewing process, there’s enough to worry about in saying the right thing to a potential employer, without also having to find the right comfort level about which fork to use at lunch, or how to hold a wine glass.
That’s why York University’s Career Centre introduced a popular new program for students this year: the Professional Etiquette Series.
Farheen Rashid is the Career Programs Coordinator who facilitates the Etiquette Series.
“These days, there are more employer-hosted recruitment activities than ever before -- more cocktail receptions, more luncheons and more social, networking events,” says Rashid. “The feedback we get from the business community has been that more and more recruiters are looking at the personal interactions and social skill+s of these potential employees, not just their transcripts and interviews.”
It has been suggested that university-age men and women have not had the same sort of experience of communal meals with family and friends as in the past. Time was, the nuclear family would, more often than not, share their evening meal at the same table and the same time. If living on campus, students would repair to the refectory or cafeteria where meals were taken collegially. Nowadays, the hectic and varied schedules of today’s families mean more meals are wolfed down on the go and even sit-down meals are very informal affairs.
“The feedback I was getting was that the students just weren’t sure they were ‘doing it’ right because they hadn’t been in enough situations where it was required that the rules or guidelines of etiquette be observed,” says Rashid. “We laid out a full, elaborately-formal table setting as a starting point, just to show the students what they might encounter at an ambassadorial reception, for instance, but we talked more about simpler situations, like how to handle the sort of setting common to a fine restaurant or hotel.
“We tried to show the students that having an interview over a meal isn’t as scary as it looks,” says Rashid. “We presented some tried-and-true guidelines, like using the cutlery from the outside in, looking at what your host is doing and so on, but we also deconstructed it a bit and told them to use certain cues to figure out what’s going on.”
The program attracted enrollment from all ages and faculties, but Rashid found that there was particularly strong interest from York’s international students. “They were keen to know what differences there were between business etiquette practices in Canada as compared with those of their home countries,” she says.
But all students were grateful for the experience, observes Rashid, “I think most of them were just looking for a little validation that they were doing OK and that little mistakes aren’t the end of the world, if you just handle yourself in a calm and collected way when they happen.”
The Professional Etiquette Series also included modules in Business Attire Essentials and Networking.
-30-
York University is the leading interdisciplinary teaching and research university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city. The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 180,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 10 faculties and 21 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries. This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges.
For more information, or to arrange an interview, the media should contact:
Jeff Ball, Media Relations, York University, 416-736-2100, x22086 / jball@yorku.ca
