Eminent Practice Partner Interview Reflection

When doing the practice interviews with my partner, I learned several skills. Skills that I had never even considered would come up in an interview. I think the skill that I was able to practice the most, was how to answer questions that I was not totally prepared for. I very much enjoyed the system of these interviews, where we would each observe an interviewer to give them feedback. Additionally, practicing this in a situation where I was not under a lot of pressure to do perfectly, was extremely helpful, because although I was still trying my best to pretend like it was the real thing, it gave me room to make mistakes. Those mistakes helped me to learn about what I needed to work on/improve, and which elements I was already good at.

I think there are several things that I need to work on in order to have a successful interview when I do the real one. One of the things that I got many comments on was that I say “um” and “uh” a lot. I noticed that I did this as I was speaking to my partner, so I tried to correct it a little bit in the moment, however I will still need to practice more on this. The other big thing that I think I need to work on is sounding more confident in myself. I even gave this piece of advice to the person I was observing, because I think that its a skill we could all improve on. For me the goal is to not sound like I’m bragging, but also to still highlight my strengths to the person interviewing me. Most of the time when I was speaking, I had good information, but I did not sound like I believed in myself. In my opinion, if I was the interviewer, I would be more likely to hire someone who sounded like they believed in themselves and what they were saying.

Despite having to improve in a few topic areas, I have some things that I think I did very well, and my feedback agrees. That is why I like the feedback and partner system, because if I know what I am doing well on, then I’ll know what I need to continue doing in order to sound proper and professional. I really enjoyed how there was an equal amount of constructive criticism as there was positive feedback, this way nobody’s feelings were hurt, and we still got the information we needed.

 

Rihanna – Introductory Blog Post

Rihanna's upcoming music album is set to release | NewsAbe

“I think women want freedom. They want to be empowered. They want hope. They want love; they want all the things that I want, and I’m not afraid to say those things and act on them, and I think that’s why they identify with me.” – Rihanna 

I have chosen to do Rihanna as my eminent person. When I was brainstorming eminent people, I was originally drawn to her because of her strong message of inclusivity. This message especially became implemented when she launched her beauty brand Fenty Beauty  in 2017. Rihanna created Fenty “so that women everywhere would be included”. She focused on a wide range of skin tones that would be traditionally hard to match. At the launch date of her brand, Rihanna had already formulated 40 skin tones. With Fenty she developed different formulas to work for every skin type. Her overall vision is to inspire people. She says “Makeup is there for you to have fun with. It should never feel like pressure. It should never feel like a uniform. Feel free to take chances, and take risks, and dare to do something new or different.”

Along with her work with inclusivity, Rihanna has made many philanthropic efforts that I personally did not even know about before researching her. She is the founder of two foundations, which both have specific purposes to help people. First, in 2006, she created the Believe Foundation, whose goal is to help terminally ill children. She performed several charity concerts to in 2008 called A Girl’s Night Out. The sole purpose of these concerts was to benefit the Believe Foundation. They were completely free to the public, and any money from sponsors or advertisers was donated to provide medical and school supplies, and toys to those children in need. In 2012 she founded her second foundation called the Clara Lionel Foundation. This foundation was named in honour of her grandparents and it includes multiple different programs. Some of these programs include the Clara Braithwaite Center For Oncology and Nuclear Medicine at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Barbados, along with education programs. Every year, the CLF has their annual Diamond Ball charity fundraiser event. The inaugural event was held in 2014 and raised over $2 million and the second event raised over $3 million. In addition to raising money as a FOR charity, Rihanna also has donated extremely large amounts of money TO charity. An example of this is when she donated $100,000 to Food Bank For Hurricane Sandy, back in 2012. More recently, she donated $5 million to COVID-19 relief in 2020, through the Clara Lionel Foundation.

Another reason I chose to do my eminent project on Rihanna is because of how outspoken she has always been. She says “I stand up for what I believe in, and a lot of the time that can be against people’s opinions.” I think that someone who is brave enough to stand up for what they truly believe in, despite it being against what other people believe in, is an incredibly inspirational person. She proves her outspokenness through her advocacy. For example, at the NCAA March Madness Festival, she was not afraid to express her strong disagreement with Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration act, which allows companies and individuals to use their religious beliefs as protection, if they are accused of discrimination of the LGBTQ+ community. Rihanna also took part in the 2017 Women’s March, which was a worldwide protest on January 21, 2017. Which was the day after the inauguration of Donald Trump. It was prompted by several of Trump’s statements being considered by many as anti-women or otherwise offensive to women. The 2017 Women’s March was the largest single-day protest in U.S. history.

The next step in my research is to reach out to people who have worked with Rihanna, like her producer, or her label, or her agent. If I do not get a reply from them I am planning to read articles about her, and then find the author of those articles and try to get in contact with them.

Thank you for reading my blog post!

Citations 

https://www.lvmh.com/houses/perfumes-cosmetics/fenty-beauty-by-rihanna/

https://www.lvmh.com/houses/perfumes-cosmetics/fenty-beauty-by-rihanna/

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/22/us/rihanna-coronavirus-relief-donation-trnd/index.html#:~:text=(CNN)%20Rihanna’s%20foundation%20has%20donated,in%20a%20statement%20on%20Saturday.