Guest Post: 4 Simple Career Tips for College Grads
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Generation Y/Millennials Getting from College to Career Job Search Tips Recommended Career Resources on May 14, 2012 at 10:54 am
Are you graduating this year or thinking about your post-college career prospects? Check out these simple, effective tips from Lauren Berger, the “Intern Queen,” who completed 15 internships (!) throughout her four years of college. Berger is now CEO of www.internqueen.com, a free internship site where students can both apply for top-notch opportunities and read Lauren’s blog on how to make the most of them. Lauren is also the author of the new book, All Work, No Pay: Finding An Internship, Building Your Resume, Making Connections, and Gaining Job Experience.
1. Determine what makes you tick. When I was a freshman in college, I had no clue how I wanted to spend my time after graduation. In my book, I recall printing out a list of the college majors my school had to offer. I started circling everything that interested me. When I looked over the sheet, I’d circled everything within the communications space – PR, Marketing, Entertainment, Advertising. This was my starting point.
2. Visit your career center – more than once. The career center should be one of your first stops when trying to figure out what you want to do with your life. The career center spends time every single day building relationships with local, national, and international employers in fields across the board – for you! Many students make the mistake of only going in once and expecting magic. On your first visit, meet with a counselor and formulate a plan. Determine when your next visit will be. You should visit the career center every 6-8 weeks.
3. Do your research. Going back to my freshman year, I had my list of industries I was potentially interested in – PR, Marketing, Entertainment, Advertising. I sat down at my computer and started researching. I was going to Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida at the time. I typed into the computer “PR Internships in Tallahassee, Florida” – a few companies popped up. I clicked on the first company that popped up and read as much material as I could on their website. When researching, it’s important to review the mission statement, executive bios, and the about us section.
4. Con’t be afraid to cold call. When looking for your dream company, don’t be afraid to take initiative. If you cannot find any career or internship information on the website, call the company main number, and ask to speak with the internship coordinator. Remember to be polite to whomever you speak with. The gatekeeper (receptionist) might not put you through BUT it’s worth calling and attempting to speak with the internship coordinator. You never know!
Thank you, Lauren, for the guest post!
Lurk First (and 4 More Tips on Getting the Most out of LinkedIn Groups)
Posted in Job Search Tips LinkedIn Networking Advice Social Media on April 30, 2012 at 10:53 am
Interested in finding a new job, switching careers, attracting more clients or building a stronger professional network? LinkedIn Groups is the place to be.
Groups provides opportunities to meet and engage in discussions with members of your industry, your alumni community or other professional interest areas. Becoming active in LinkedIn Groups is like attending a professional conference every time you log on.
To join a group, start exploring the Group Search page, which has recently been updated to make it easier for you to find the most valuable places to network. Then click “Join” for any groups that sound appealing. Once you’re accepted as a member, you’ll be able to post and comment on discussions, review job postings, connect with your fellow members and more.
With over over a million groups on LinkedIn, you’re bound to find several communities that are beneficial to you and your career. But with so many opportunities to participate, what’s the best plan of action? Here are five ways to get the most out of LinkedIn Groups…
Ask Your Career Questions! Join Lindsey on April 25 for a Twitter Chat with the U.S. Department of Education
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Recommended Career Resources Social Media on April 20, 2012 at 9:00 am
I’m excited to announce that I will be answering your questions during a one-hour #AskFAFSA Twitter chat on Wednesday, April 25, at 4pm EST, hosted by the U.S. Department of Education.
Here is their announcement and details on how to participate:
In honor of National Financial Literacy Month, the U.S. Department of Education’s @FAFSA will hold a special #AskFAFSA Office Hours with guest host Lindsey Pollak, a bestselling author, keynote speaker and internationally recognized expert on next generation career trends.
We’re excited to have Lindsey join us at such an important time. Not only is it National Financial Literacy Month, but with graduation season a short time away, Federal Student Aid wants to help students think about getting a job, earning a salary, and of course, repaying student loans.
This month, we’re switching things up a bit. Instead of our traditional #AskFAFSA Office Hours, on April 25th at 4pm ET, Lindsey (@LindseyPollak) will join @FAFSA for a “Twitterview”, or an interview on Twitter. We’ll ask Lindsey for advice on researching and applying for jobs and @FAFSA will give you information and tips for managing and repaying your student loans after graduation.
Before the Twitterview, we need your help coming up with questions for Lindsey! Whether you have questions about finding a job you’ll really love or making your student loan payments more affordable, we want to hear about it.
Here’s how it works:
- Starting today, you can send us your career and loan repayment questions on Twitter. Make sure to include the #AskFAFSA hashtag in your tweet.
- On April 25th at 4pm ET, tune into the live event by following the #AskFAFSA hashtag on Twitter.
- At the end of the hour, Lindsey will answer questions from our virtual audience. You can send your questions to @FAFSA starting today.
- Can’t make the live session? A summary of the “Twitterview”, including the full Q&A, will be posted on the Storify and the ED.gov blog following the event.
We hope you’ll join us on April 25!
Tags: FAFSA, Twitter, U.S. Department of Education
How LinkedIn Company Pages Can Help Your Job Search
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals Job Search Tips LinkedIn Networking Advice Recommended Career Resources Social Media on April 5, 2012 at 3:22 pm
According to a recent LinkedIn poll, the single biggest job interview mistake people make is not knowing enough about the company to which they’re applying.
With all of the research tools available on the Internet and elsewhere, it is now easier than ever to avoid this mistake. You should always visit a potential employer’s own website first. Then, for additional information and up-to-the-minute insight, proceed directly to LinkedIn Company Pages.
A LinkedIn Company Page is a centralized location to learn about a company’s operations, current news, products and services, employees, job opportunities and more. There are over two million company pages on LinkedIn, spanning a vast number of industries, company sizes and geographic locations.
Where does all of the information on a Company Page come from? The organization itself provides a portion — the company overview, Careers page and Products and Services descriptions. The rest of a Page’s information, including the company statistics and employee information, are based on LinkedIn’s own network data.
This means that on a Company Page you’re getting more information about the backgrounds and career paths of the people who work for that organization. As a potential job seeker, this information provides a guide on what it takes to get hired and succeed at that particular company. For instance, you can learn what universities a company’s employees attended (including who graduated from your own alma mater), what types of employees are receiving promotions and what LinkedIn groups those employees belong to. As you’ll see below, all of this information can help you better craft your LinkedIn profile to attract the attention of recruiters for that company and it can help you find potential referrals into that organization.
To make the most of Company Pages as a job seeker, begin your research on the Search Companies page and follow these easy steps…
Read the rest of this post, “How LinkedIn Company Pages Can Help Your Job Search,” on the LinkedIn Blog…
On the Harvard Business Review Blog: How to Curate Your Own Personal Job Feed
Posted in Career Advice for Young Professionals LinkedIn Productivity Recommended Career Resources Social Media on March 21, 2012 at 11:36 am
Remember the days when looking for a new job involved the Sunday newspaper classified section and a black magic marker? Thanks to technology, looking for a job today seems to require an advanced degree in data analysis.
There are millions of positions posted online across an ever-changing landscape of job boards, company websites, social networks, apps, and more.
What’s a job seeker to do? You have to become a curator of your own personal job feed, narrowing down all of the various websites and listings to a truly personalized stream of opportunities.
The best way to do this is to set up a select group of bookmarked websites and email alerts that you view every day. Here’s how:
1. Get specific. If you were searching for a pair of shoes online, it wouldn’t be a very good strategy to go to Google or another search engine and type in “shoes.” You’d more likely visit the website of a retailer that caters to your specific style and budget, then search for the type of shoes you want — the style, the price range and perhaps the color or heel height.
The same goes for job hunting. A common mistake among job seekers using the biggest job boards — such as CareerBuilder.com, Monster.com, Indeed.com, and SimplyHired.com — is to search too broadly.
Your first step in cultivating a personal job feed is to get clear on the exact terms that best match the jobs you want. If you cast too wide a net, such as searching on “marketing” or “Atlanta” or “writing skills,” you’ll receive too many results that waste your time and energy.
Always use the Advanced Search page for any job board you visit, which allows you to enter multiple search criteria (such as marketing jobs in Atlanta that require excellent writing skills), and be as specific as possible in terms of industry, location, experience level and other factors (such as specifying “online marketing” or “copywriting skills.” Yes, you may occasionally miss out on a listing here or there, but you’ll make up for it in the time saved culling through hundreds of postings that don’t fit your needs.
