Give Your Career the Queer Eye Makeover it Deserves

Guess what? Your career has been nominated to receive the makeover of a lifetime!

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Over the course of this blog post, the Fab 5* are going to take your career from drabulous to fabulous in five easy steps. So get ready to renew your love for avocados and learn how to French tuck your shirt, because it’s time to get to work!

Fashion

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Now while your career does have one serviceable interview shirt, the bell bottom jeans and those (… interesting) boots with the fur aren’t going to cut it. How you present yourself matters, and what you wear can go a long way to making you feel more confident – especially in those serious career moments.

You want what you wear to be comfortable, but suitable (pun intended) for the occasion. If you’re going off to an interview you should aim to dress in a more corporate-style outfit, neatly ironed and fitting well, rather than something you’d normally wear grocery shopping late on a Sunday night.

Avoid anything revealing, ridiculously bright coloured or crazily patterned and make sure there’s no stains or missing buttons. You want the interviewer to be focusing on your personality and skills rather than the bold fashion choice you’ve dragged up from the depths of your closet.

And hey, if a suit is a bit out of budget you can always hire a suit from UTS Careers!

Culture

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A lot of jobs will require some presentation skills every now and then, and your career needs to up its game. So, like Karamo said in season 2, it’s time to get you feeling confident and take your speech and presentation skills to the next level.

It’s all about feeling comfortable and confident, and if you have to fake it ‘til you make it, that’s not the end of the world.

Make sure you practice, practice, practice beforehand so you know your content back to front and can focus on how quickly you’re speaking, staying calm, and engaging with your audience.

Of course, unlike Mayor Ted, you’re likely going to be able to make use of other interactive presentation materials such as a slideshow or even a quiz – check out this past blog post for some handy resources in that regard.

Also apparently rapping your speech can help you loosen up…? Hey it might be worth a shot!

Food

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Okay so your career has been living on the basics for a long time, and it’s time to take its culinary skills to the next level.

Food is a great opportunity to build you relationship with your colleagues and peers. Whether it’s sharing a meal or just going for a coffee together, if you’re in a situation where you can turn a meal into a social outing, then why not? Networking becomes easier when you can connect genuinely over a meal (hello, easy conversation topic!), so you can more quickly make friends with the people you work with.

Besides, a team outing over lunch or a quick coffee on the way to a meeting can give you a chance to connect over something outside of work – which is just straight up great networking!

So buy your avocados and start whipping up the guac because it’s time for your career to get social.

Grooming

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If there’s anything your career can learn from the glorious Jonathan, is that putting in some effort can make all the difference.

When you’re particularly stressed, have a big presentation coming up, or are getting ready for an interview there’s something you should always keep in mind: give yourself time to relax. Giving yourself a break every now and then is not only good for your skin, but also good for your general wellbeing.

Obviously don’t do it to the detriment of everything else, but whether it’s putting on a face mask and watching your fave nature documentary series on a random Tuesday night, or even simply going for a nice haircut every now and then – taking time for yourself can totally help you prioritise and decrease stress.

Also shower and shave (if needed) before an interview. First impressions guys!

(Oh, and stay away from sulphates unless you’re cleaning your car).

Design

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Okay so Bobby is Queer Eye’s unsung hero and literally just finds out what you love and makes your space reflect that. So while he’s off lifting heavy furniture (or Tan), having heart-warming conversations with your career in a garden somewhere (à la episode 5, season 1), and overseeing an entire work site – here are a few quick workspace tips for YouCareer.

Your space needs to work for you, so taking the time to keep it clean and organised is kind of essential if you want to be productive. After all, you don’t want to spend twenty minutes finding that one document when you could just have a nice folder with everything neatly put away.

Decorating can actually help with your productivity and make you feel more relaxed and open to new ideas – so bringing in a photo of you and your bestie or the note your mum wrote you last Christmas to display on your desk may actually be helpful.

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* Really, just the author channeling the lessons of the Fab 5

Featured image courtesy of  Dailycal