Career Fairs: No Elephant Ears?!

As I sit down in front of my computer in my best suit and favorite tie, I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. On the other hand, I try to learn something from any and every experience I come across, and today has been no exception. Allow me to explain.

Today was the annual Fall Career Fair here at Ohio University, where employers come from across the state of Ohio to make connections and recruit fresh young minds. Sounds like a great opportunity for someone looking to burst into the PR field, right? Wrong. Which brings us to the Danny Cox Career Fair Tip o’ the Day #1:

1. Find out who’s going to be present at the event, before you leave the house.

Now, this may seem elementary, dear Watsons, but I’m afraid to tell you how many business-suit-clad students I talked to failed to do this very thing. The title of the event should have read, “Fall Career Fair (for Accountants, Sales Reps, and those looking to join the Military)”. That doesn’t have quite as nice of a ring to it though, does it? Everywhere I turned, it was accountants, sales, entry-level managerial (read: Target) positions. Where were the ad agencies? The PR firms? At least a non-profit? Well, there was a very helpful representative from the American Cancer Society, but that’s beside the point. Nothing could have prepared me for the nearly complete lack of relevant employers. Nothing, except for my Career Fair Tip o’ the Day #2:

2. Research the presenters who seem relevant to you.

How much can you really learn from a 50 word blurb on the Career Services Web site? Not as much as you can from the organizations Web site, or a quick trip down Google lane. Particularly in times of bad economy, Ford Myers tells us, it’s essential to be laser-focused on what it is you’re looking for. If you can do some leg-work beforehand, you can make a better impression and be more efficient with your time and questions. Unless, of course, you’re only there for my Career Fair Tip o’ the Day #3:

3. Use the opportunity to hone your “elevator pitch” and professional networking skills.

I’m really not planning on staying in Ohio upon graduation, and knowing that most representatives were there for Ohio positions, my hopes were not high that I was going to find that first employer today at the fair. However, I was able to go and speak with professional recruiters from some major companies (ever hear of a little jelly called Smucker’s?) and speak with them about their business, my experience and goals, and how the two could fit together. Which brings me to my final Career Fair Tip o’ the Day:

4. You get out what you put in, so keep an open mind and learn something.

As I said at the beginning of this post, I try to learn something from every experience life tosses my way. If you just walk around looking at posters and taking schwag, you’re probably not going to learn much. But if you take the time to talk with some representatives, you could find that there’s an industry you never thought of that’s perfect for your skill set and goals. Above all, you can never have too much experience speaking with people in a professional setting. Practice makes perfect, and the more times you talk about your skills and goals, the better you’ll be able to quickly and concisely communicate exactly what you want to.

Maintaining Social Media- a Juggling Act

I would like to take this opportunity to pause my personal narrative on my, now not-so-recent, trip to Chicago to discuss why said narrative remains unfinished.

At the time of this writing, the first of my remaining two quarters of my college career is roughly 33% complete. Until yesterday, I did not have a finalized schedule- a fact that has contributed to my delinquent blogging. Add to this that I have recently become active in our chapter of PRSSA, our award winning student-run PR agency ImPRessions, The Ability Project, and resuming my role as Dr. Frank-n-Furter for the 2009 rendition of The Rocky Horror Picture Show.

Each of these could constitute a post in themselves, and several of them will- in particular The Ability Project and the PRSSA-related activities- but that’s for another day. The point of this post is to discuss my apparent absence from that which occupied so much of my time and efforts this summer that has nearly disappeared from my daily schedule: keeping up with social media.

Along with my blogging, my tweeting, friend-feeding, and participation on Brazen Careerist have all seemed to have fallen by the wayside. This does not sit well with me: I’m well aware that content is king and stagnation is death in the social media-sphere. Because of this, I have decided to try something that is relatively novel to my college experience thus far- waking up early. Current post as an exception, I’ve found that there is a marked decrease in my productivity once a certain time of day is reached. To combat this, I have committed to waking up each morning no later than 8:00 am. On purpose.

To those of you in the working world, I ask you to hold in your scoffs and sneers and remember that I operate on college time. Remember, college time= living on Pacific Time in the Eastern Time Zone.

The point of this post is simply to make a public pledge to consistently maintain my presence online to not lose any progress I may have made this summer. It’s a post that I would recommend those in a similar position heed: the memory of the interwebs is equivalent to a Hollywood playboy’s thoughts of fidelity in Vegas- practically non-existent.

It’s time like this I wish I had a Blackberry.

Social Media’s Seemingly Inevitable Takeover Continues With: Brazen Careerist

I began my day this morning much like any other. I rolled out of bed bleary-eyed and slumped to my computer to do my everyday checks: my email, Twitter, Facebook, and my favorite Gen-Y blog-aggregator, The Brazen Careerist. To my surprise, the site that greeted me was not the blog-centric homepage that I’ve become familiar with. Instead, I was greeted with a lifestream dubbed “Fan-Feed” filled with comments and updates from those on the network that I am a fan of.

The amazing Penelope Trunk, blog author and one of the creators of the site, asked the community to blog about the new layout- the good, the bad, and the whining. Before I started writing this, I wanted to see what my peers and community-members had to say over at the Community Feedback group. The reviews were mostly positive, with a few suggestions here and there on how to tighten and improve the new format. And while I’ve already voiced my thoughts in that forum, there are a few things I wanted to use more than 140 characters to discuss.

I first discovered Brazen Careerist through Sydney Owen‘s blog. What I found exceeded any expectations I could’ve had. I had just started seriously blogging, finally starting to understand the potential impact of maintaining a resource for fellow students in the job-hunt, and here was an already thriving community of young professionals and bloggers. Where better to get advice and feedback than from my peers who already have an interest in the medium?

Which brings me to my main critique of the new layout on Brazen: The Fan Feed would be fantastic if I had been a member for quite some time and already had a rich pool of contributors and community members from which to communicate with. However, being relatively new to the site, I only have found 13 members whose material I’ve seen enough of to click the “become a fan” button.

Previously, there were three main blogs featured, with a side-bar of even more featured material on the home page. I liked the format because it gave me easy access to what the Brazen staff felt were the best posts of the day, and I could find new members whose work I enjoyed.

I feel the lifestream format is fantastic, as it puts more focus on the Social Media of the site, encouraging even more community interactions and conversations to take place in real-time. However, I personally would like to see a little more real estate granted to the blogs to help me flesh-out my Fan Feed.

That being said, I do like that I can see what those I have chosen to follow are participating in across the site, be it participating in groups or on blog postings, so I can stay involved in that way.

Overall, I think this is a great move for Brazen  Careerist, and I’m excited to further explore the new functionality and community-focused features.

What do you think about the site’s design? Why did you come to Brazen originally? Does the new social media-fied site reinforce or discourage from your initial interest?

Recruiters on Twitter Forget ‘Social’ Aspect of ‘Social Media’

While doing some blog research, scouring the interwebs for useful and relevant content to aspiring young PR pros, I found a link to this interesting post, The Top 50 Employers Recruiting on Twitter through Lindsay Olson’s blog.

I realize that the original post came about 2 months ago- the equivialent of the stone age in web-time- but I think it’s still worth looking into. Why waste your time on online job postings and directories when the companies are trying to communicate directly? This is further support for why I feel so strongly on the importance of Tweeting For a Job (twice).

One thing I will say regarding the companies chosen: most seem to be missing the point. The operant word in the above paragraph is ‘trying’ to communicate. Upon some further investigation of many of the companies listed (I focused primarily on Chicago and New York postings, as that’s where I’m hoping to end up) several aren’t following a single person.

This shows that even companies trying to keep up with Social Media don’t get the point. It’s supposed to be social! We are not talking about one-way channels any longer. If  these companies were serious about utilizing social media to recruit the best and brightest, they would be on Twellow or other directories, targeting those with expressed interests/qualifications for their company.

Now, some may say that would be unnecessary in this economic state, with far more applicants than positions. However, imagine if a company truly had a grasp of social media and used it to effectively engage with its potential employees. What kind of wonders would that do for employer branding? Not to mention the potential to increase the pool of quality applicants for future positions.

Instead, they are using their Twitter accounts as a digital bulletin board for job postings, of which there are already countless services for.

Have you found any companies that are engaging with followers, current or future employees, and customers? What else can these companies do to improve their social media presence? How can we fuel these changes?

Tweeting for a Job Pt. 2

I realized recently that while I discussed my own uses of Tweeting to find employment, I included little of use for those who are completely new to the Twitterverse. So allow me to introduce The PRospective Employees very first users guide:

The PRospective Employee’s Utilitarian Guide to Twitter

So, by now you’ve undoubtedly heard about Twitter, the social media site where users communicate in 140 characters or less with their networks, called “followers”. I’m sure many of you have signed up for a Twitter account just to see what all the fuss was about, only to stare at the screen with a resounding “Now What?”.

In my last post on Twitter, I discussed using directoires like Twellow to find some folks to follow. Remember, once you click the follow button, a lot of people will follow you in return. If you’re following potential employers, it is very important to remember, as with anything you put online, to take  a moment to gut-check before hitting the submit button.

One great way to utilize Twitter efficiently is in participating in #hashtag conversations. For those of you who don’t know, hashtags are ways to categorize your tweet as pertaining to a line of conversation. Here is an example of a hashtag conversation I participated in yesterday.

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