It was after a long semester that I decided to seek for internship at a renowned organization. Normally, internships do not involve interviews especially for my course of choice so you can imagine my surprise when I was informed that I should report to the organization the following week for an interview. Being my first interview, I did the basics, prepared myself executively and left for the interview. However, I was not sure what kind of questions I would be asked so I just tried to remind myself everything I knew from class lectures. During the interview, everything was different from what I expected. First, I was not asked the basic questions that are expected like “Tell us about yourself”. It was more about my previous internships in other organizations. The interviewers asked me to describe a typical day in the previous internships and the reason behind my actions.
Luckily, I take my internships seriously and could explain all the activities I undertook in my previous internships in depth while giving explanations for each of the actions. I used theoretical explanations to explain my day, a trick that seemed to impress the interviewers. They further questioned about the operations being undertaken in the organization, all of which I explained in depth since they were still fresh in my mind. Eventually, I got the internship and reported to work the following week.
This is a classic case of workplace literacy where I understood that it is important to understand what happens in the workplace and how one's actions affect the outcome experienced in the workplace. In this case, the mere fact that I was focused and active in my previous internships got me a direct entry into a job that I could otherwise have lost. It is therefore clear that literacy is important not only in the workplace, but also when applying for a job or undertaking any other tasks that may need critical thinking.