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Final Up to date on November 20, 2023 by AIFS Overseas
Do you discover you by no means know what to say in an interview once they ask you what your strengths are? Effectively, in case you’re accepted into considered one of our worldwide internship applications, AIFS Overseas can assist you with that. All AIFS Overseas interns take the Clifton StrengthsFinder evaluation, a private growth software based mostly on many years of analysis into human strengths. With the assistance of our group, you may leverage your High 5 Strengths throughout your internship overseas — and past!
There are 4 distinct domains, or teams, of those strengths: 1) Relationship Constructing, 2) Influencing, 3) Executing, and 4) Strategic Pondering. This weblog posts focuses on the Relationship Constructing area, affectionately often known as the “glue stick” area, because the strengths that fall inside it present the important glue of group cohesion.
If the Clifton StrengthsFinder Evaluation decided you have got Relationship Constructing strengths, listed here are some examples of how one can leverage them throughout your worldwide internship:
However first, what’s the Relationship Constructing area?
Individuals who maintain relationship constructing strengths of their High 5 excel at forming connections with different individuals. They’re adept at displaying care and concern to others, typically by overtly demonstrating their feelings. When you have this power, human relationships matter above all else. You’re cautious to be genuine and real in your interactions with these round you and encourage others to do the identical. When somebody is feeling down or unheard, you hearken to them and guarantee they don’t really feel omitted. You’re a Care Bear! The strengths within the Relationship Constructing area are Adaptivity, Connectedness, Developer, Empathy, Concord, Includer, Individualization, Positivity and Realtor.
The Positivity Power
Everybody has considered one of these individuals of their workplace. These are the individuals at your group who’re at all times smiling, complimenting your outfit, and asking about your weekend plans. They’re expert at constructing relationships by attracting others to them and their groups with their upbeat, enthusiastic, and joyful demeanor. Different groups would possibly even be vying to have them on their very own group.
Right here’s a hypothetical of an AIFS Overseas intern utilizing the Positivity Power. Let’s say you’re working at a Public Relations agency in London. Your process is to contact journalists and pitch tales concerning the launch of a brand new product. Many of the journalists flip you down instantly, typically hanging up on you, or worse. However that’s okay — you utilize your Positivity to not get dismayed and keep centered. This in flip makes a optimistic impression in your fellow interns and supervisors, and helps you forge lasting skilled relationships throughout the pond.
The Individualization Power
Individuals who have the Individualization power can see individuals. By this we imply, seeing previous stereotypes or pre-conceived notions, and hone in on what makes a person actually tick. What are an individual’s motivations? Pursuits? Values? These with the Individualization power are likely to make good managers, as they know how you can put the best individuals in the best locations, making certain their abilities shall be used to the fullest extent.
Let’s say you’re on an AIFS Overseas internship program at a London-based social companies group. Throughout your consumption classes, you utilize your individualization power by taking the time to ask tailor-made follow-up questions to essentially glean your purchasers’ tales. By doing so, you make your purchasers really feel heard and accepted, resulting in a larger rapport with them.
The Developer Power
Folks with the Developer power see others as a clean slate stuffed with limitless potentialities. They see nothing however potential in others and luxuriate in serving to individuals develop and attain a stage of self-actualization. This curiosity in individuals’s progress and progress makes them unbelievable academics and mentors. Builders search for alternatives to problem others, acknowledge their talents, and ask what they’ll present to assist them succeed.
For instance, say you’re an AIFS Overseas intern in Florence tasked with organizing a journey firm’s weblog… though not one of the individuals writing the weblog are formal writers. You can use your Developer power to level out areas for enchancment and provide sources or recommendation to convey out everybody’s finest!
The Adaptability Power
In relation to work, individuals with this power are likely to float. They dwell within the “now,” taking issues as they arrive, and don’t wrestle with pivoting in tough conditions. One would possibly assume these individuals don’t have plans — they do. Nevertheless it’s when plans go awry that they completely thrive.
Let’s say you’re a design intern at a Berlin promoting company with a consumer who discovered they don’t manage to pay for to pay for the customized illustrated property they requested your group to make. An excellent use of Adaptability can be to recommend to your supervisor that the consumer present already present property which you could edit, after which present customized illustrations on high of that, charging the consumer a bit bit much less. On this case, you made the consumer completely happy, confirmed your boss you’re adaptable, and secured among the cash you have been promised by the consumer!
The Connectedness Power
The Connectedness Power is based on the assumption that every one people are linked. Folks with this power imagine that to hurt one other human being would imply harming themselves. They imagine within the unity of humankind and are a bridge between individuals of various cultures and circumstances. They’re thoughtful, caring, and accepting.
For instance, as an intern overseas, perhaps you see a full-time worker on the Lisbon-based engineering firm you intern for make a mistake of their calculations. You can simply level it out to administration, embarrassing the worker and supplying you with the chance to seem extra succesful to your employer. However as a substitute, you utilize your Connectedness power to grasp that it’s truly in your finest curiosity to level out the error to your co-worker in a non-public message. This retains your co-worker’s popularity intact, whereas constructing a solidarity with them that permits you each to serve the group higher.
The Empathy Power
This power predicates with the ability to sense different individuals’s emotions by imagining your self of their lives or conditions. These are individuals who immediately really feel the feelings of different individuals as they occur, as if these feelings are their very own. It’s not a matter of settlement or disagreement, neither is it about pity. It’s about understanding. It’s about assessing the room and discovering the best phrases and conveying them in the best tone.
An instance of utilizing this power may very well be that you just’re interning at an area enterprise in Rome and your colleague owes you half of an project that you just’re engaged on collectively, due by the tip of the day. However, they only obtained tragic household information. As somebody with the Empathy power, you set your self of their footwear and decide that, to this individual, their grief trumps the project. You lengthen your condolences to your colleague and provide to select up the place they left off. In flip, your colleague feels supported of their time of want.
The Concord Power
Some could say the avoidance of battle is a weak point, however CliftonStrengths sees in search of areas of settlement to be a valued power. These are individuals who search for consensus. Irrespective of how a lot friction over a difficulty there’s, these persons are in a position to create area for either side, perceive their viewpoint, and discover frequent floor.
Let’s say your internship is with a trend firm in Paris. Your boss has an concept for what a product needs to be referred to as, however the Inventive Director has a unique imaginative and prescient. Utilizing your Concord relationship constructing power, you ask different coworkers what they assume, beginning a discussion board relatively than an argument. As soon as everybody has mentioned their peace, the issue is solved, and everyone seems to be completely happy.
The Includer Power
Of all of the strengths, Clifton StrengthsFinder says individuals who have this sort use “stretch the circle wider” because the philosophy that orients their lives and helps them with relationship constructing within the office. These individuals have a novel consciousness of those that really feel omitted and make an effort to incorporate them. To the Includer, the extra the merrier.
Think about you’re working at a non-profit in Costa Rica and your organization needs to advertise their companies at an area fùtbol match. You discover that your teammates are usually not together with one other member of your group as a result of that individual isn’t an enormous fan of fùtbol. Nevertheless, you keep in mind that this individual has a background in promoting at dwell occasions, so you utilize your Includer power and ask for his or her take, explaining their expertise to the remainder of the group. Now you have got extra minds and a unique perspective on the occasion.
The Realtor Power
That is the kind of one that drastically values established relationships — a buddy. They’re snug with intimacy and are devoted to deepening relationships, regardless of understanding that this quantity of closeness implies a specific amount of threat of being taken benefit of. They’re greater than prepared to just accept that threat if it means they’ll have a real friendship in the long run.
An instance of such a relationship constructing power being put to make use of can be if, say, you’re interning at a regulation agency, and you might want to keep late to look over paperwork with one other intern. Because the hours develop later, you begin to reveal a bit bit about your blind spots and weaknesses, understanding that this individual might simply use this info towards you. The factor is, you understand that revealing this may solely foster a profitable working relationship, and in the end enhance not solely your productiveness, but in addition your work/life steadiness.
Use Your Area to Succeed!
Trying on the 4 domains of strengths can assist us see ourselves from one other angle and make it simpler to construct well-rounded groups. Understanding your individual dominant area will assist you hunt down duties that you’ll get pleasure from and excel at. When you understand what you provide (and what you wrestle to supply) you’ll find complimentary companions.
Curious what your strengths are? Apply for an AIFS Overseas internship program, the place you’ll work with an advisor to learn how finest you may succeed.
Right here at AIFS Overseas, we provide unbelievable worldwide internship applications. When you’re accepted, you can be requested to take the Clifton StrengthsFinder evaluation so our advisors can see what worth you may convey to a world program and put together you for the interview. Each AIFS Overseas intern is assured an internship placement.
