Meet Marcel "I Did It - So Can You!"

One of the objectives of the professional communication course I teach for the Mechanical Engineering Department at UC Berkeley is to prepare students for their future careers. In 2013, Jayne Anderson, Director, Events and Programs for UC Berkeley’s College of Engineering, and a then-recent graduate of the Protocol School’s Corporate Etiquette and International Protocol Consultant program, gave a series of lectures to my class on business etiquette. Her presentations were met with overwhelmingly positive evaluations and enthusiastic feedback. Realizing how beneficial etiquette training is to our students, I enrolled in the PSOW consultant program the following April.

Along with presenting to both on-campus and off-campus groups, societies and organizations—sometimes as a team, sometimes solo—Jayne and I have worked together on several corporate-sponsored business networking and dining skills presentations. Eighty to 100 students attend these dinners at Berkeley’s faculty club, and we are always impressed by their unwavering attention and thoughtful questions. Our students realize these skills will set them apart from competing candidates as they interview for internships and careers in industry.

The PSOW program equips attendees with all the tools needed to give engaging etiquette presentations and stresses creating a personal and individual style. For example, every semester Jayne gives a dining skills presentation to my class, but a tight schedule and limited resources prevent us from putting together a multi-course lunch or dinner. Instead, we use doughnuts, paper plates and compostable utensils. Jayne starts by saying, “This is the only time in your lives you’ll be required to eat a doughnut with a fork and knife.” Former students have said they will never forget the “doughnut etiquette lecture” and the skills introduced during those sessions.

My favorite anecdote from the numerous lectures and dinners Jayne and I have given concerns the thank you note. One student was interviewed on campus by General Motors and afterwards sent both an email and a hand-written thank you note to Detroit. A week later, executives at GM called to say he wasn’t selected for the internship; however, because of the impression he’d made by taking the time to send a note, these same busy executives spent time working with him to revise his resume and improve his interviewing skills.

Marcel Kristel is a 2014 Graduate of Train to be a Corporate Etiquette and International Protocol Consultant and a Lecturer at The University of California, Berkeley.