MyLifeMyCareer.com

So, you are actively pursuing positions through your campus career resources, but you would like to expand your search to the internet. You know that this is not the best avenue to take, but you're going to take it anyway. Which job posting site will you choose? Where will you post your resume?

I'll give you a hint: use SimplyHired.

You can perform a job search from many different job posting websites and company websites all from one place. You can post your resume to five different major job-posting sites with one click. Why limit yourself to just one job posting site? Why go from site to site looking for the same position? Do it all in one place.

Don't get me wrong, you will still get work at home scams and pyramid scheme opportunities that you will have to sift through, but at least you are searching smarter through one site instead of 23 separate sites.

In the May 2007 issue of Wired Magazine (the one with Heroes actor Masi Oka on the cover), a new type of position is mentioned in Jargon Watch.

Online Analyst
n. Hired by companies like Coca-Cola and AT&T to monitor what's being said about them on social networks and blogs, online analysts use the Internet as a vast upaid focus group.

I would think that many new college graduates would be perfect for this position with the knowledge of social networks, blogs, search engines, and maintaining a reputation online. Unfortunately, this isn't a widely available position and I could only find a perfect match for the position offered through New Media Strategies, a hot company out of DC. The downside is that the position requires 2-3 years of professional experience, so it would be more of a longshot for college graduates. Check out the NMS career page for internships and other positions to see if it is up your alley.

...aka the "Real World" or "Life After College" or "Living Independently" or whatever else comes to your mind. I think Ryan Healy's article featured on the Brazen Careerist provides a different perspective on life after college that goes along with what has already been said by friends of mine. I'm a drone, someone just going through the motions, doing what is expected by the rest of society. Or am I working for someone else, gaining skills that I wouldn't have just starting a business fresh out of college, and learning about business through my actual work, interactions, and contributions to an actual business.

If you are an entrepreneur who started a business right out college and want to tell me I'm a drone then that's cool. You're learning about business at a more extreme level by assuming all of the risk, but you are also gaining the experience of a business in its infant stage before any type of growth even kicks in. I've chosen to learn about growth and the functions of a small company trying to become a mid-sized company which is an experience that you will not have.

Mainly I hear the comments that I am a "quarter spinning endlessly to the bottom of the plastic donation funnel" from those who are unemployed or have part-time jobs that I had when I was in high school. The problem with that statement is that my first job will not be my last job. I don't intend to stay in the "corporate" world for more than a few years before starting my own businesses. I consider these next few years to be the mother of all internships, the post-graduate capstone project, the non-textbook based business case, or the foundation for the rest of my career.

After college plan to gain professional experience either working for someone else or doing it on your own. Do not go back to working low paying jobs that don't do your diploma any justice, or even worse, living off your parents' paychecks. That truly is one way down the bottomless pit.

Update: 7:54PM 4.23.2007

Ryan Healy and Ryan Paugh have a great blog at EmployeeEvolution.com. I would highly recommend checking it out, subscribing to it, or even reading it regularly after peeling yourself away from your friends' wild facebook pictures from the weekend.

Some go the complete opposite route of what they studied during college once they begin looking for open positions to start out in. This is normal, and completely possible. If you still haven't found a full-time position or have no idea what you want to do, explore jobs that are outside of your area of expertise that you know that you would enjoy. How well you do in school shows companies what kind of work ethic you hold and how determined and capable you are of completing a company's sometimes rigorous training program. You can go into many types of positions that don't require a technical background and some that do as most companies want to train you their way.

My economics professor sophomore year said it best, "College is just a 4 year test to prove to a company that you are capable of succeeding".

Look at the quality of positions that appear in the classified ads online or in print, and tell me what you see. You may see a few "name brand" companies, but you will see very few reputable companies - especially reputable companies that are offering entry-level positions to college graduates.

The best companies and available positions need no advertising or marketing budget. They will have enough candidates that will seek out the positions through the desire to work for a certain company. Yes, the competition will be greater, and your chances of landing an offer for the position will be much slimmer. It's worth the fight to put in the effort of marketing yourself to a company for the chance to land an offer for a position that will provide a solid foundation for the rest of your career.

It's much more important to look past the immediate goal of landing a job, and rather to look for an opportunity that will provide you the skills and experience that will allow you to improve yourself and prepare for the next stage in your career.

(source: The Dirty Dozen Online Job Mistakes - Job-Hunt.org)

The "dirty dozen" mistakes are worth reading over, but I don't agree with all of the points made. Here's my responses and additions to the 12 points:

1. Identity theft from a resume? Your name, phone number, and address are publicly available information anyway. Look in a phone book. As long as you don't put your social security or identification number on your resume I doubt that your identity would be stolen based on this information alone. Just be smart and don't give your resume to shady companies or every recruiter or career site online.

2. Agree. Use niche and industry specific career websites to find legitamate, yet still competitive opportunities. Stay away from big name sites like Careerbuilder and Monster.com, unless you have absolutely no idea what you want to do and want to look for possible positions that may interest you. Find the positions and then go back to the niche/industry specific career sites to apply for similar positions.

3. What are the odds that two recruiters from two completely different companies will be talking about you specifically? C'mon, that is ridiculous. Don't worry about submitting to many applications, but don't submit a resume and cover letter for a position unless it has been personalized for that company and position. This can take a couple of hours for one position to research the company and positions enough to write a meaningful and targeted cover letter.

4. "People are hired by people". Best point out of the whole article. 90% or more of your time searching for jobs should be at campus or local career fairs, or through the campus job posting board which is usually online. Companies usually have ties with your university and will hire a certain number of graduates specifically from your school. Get out there and sell yourself rather than hiding behind your monitor hoping for an email response.

5. Agree. If you were at a career fair and knew the requirements for the job opening would you still go up to the recruiters? Probably not as the odds are against you. This doesn't mean you can't get the job, especially if your personal skills make up for your academic shortcomings.

6. Agree. You're never going to get a legitamate job offer through email. That's unprofessional and I wouldn't respect any company that didn't give me the offer in person or at least over the phone. So, you might as well get out there and meet company recruiters as soon as possible because you are going to have to at some point down the road anyway.

7. Agree. Searching for a new job at work is a horrible idea. I don't know how many companies honestly check their internet logs, but do not do this. It's unprofessional and unethical.

8. Agree. Always research on the company site, look for press releases, and try to find what current and past employees have said about the company. Leverage MySpace and Facebook to search for the company name to see if someone you know works there or if someone you don't know has posted information regarding the company. On that note, never post specific information regarding your current work situation as this may violate a form that you probably signed when you were hired. Also, be wary of sites that review companies by user input, as most people who post on these sites have some beef with the company and will shed a negative light on an otherwise solid company.

9. I hope you are smart enough to treat email communications the same way you would handle a conversation in person with an employer. It's always smarter to be more formal than more casual.

10. Ridiculous point. Most companies have email filters and attachment filters that scan and block emails with viruses. Worst case scenerio is that if you have a virus and don't know about it that your messages will be blocked by these filters, and you will eventually figure it out.

11. Another ridiculous point, but also very true. I knew too many people who relied heavily on the career counselors rather than taking matters into their own hands. Keep in mind that career counselors have hundeds of other students to accomodate.

12. Everyone should post their resume on a personal site. You can buy a domain name for a couple bucks which is good for an entire year, and create a simple web page to post your bio and resume. Including a url with your full name or last name where recruiters can access the information from anywhere is a nice touch. Get one of your tech-savvy friends to help you out if you are unsure how to do this.

Continuing from yesterday, an internship will only be valuable and worth your time if the company takes you seriously, provides you with a legitimate "earn while you learn" program, and will offer you the pre-professional experience that you need. Here are the top 5 reasons not to accept an internship offer with a company:

5. Your friend who is a freshman is more professional on a Saturday morning at 8AM after a huge flippy cup tournament the night before than the recruiter who is trying to get you to intern with them.

4. They only offer you work for 4-5 weeks out of the summer, yet require you to re-locate without providing you housing (good luck finding that 1 month apartment lease).

3. They don't pay you. As I used to say, "No Paper? No Labor."

2. When you ask what kind of work you will probably be doing on a daily basis, they allude to the fact that you better be good at stirring hot beverages early in the AM.

1. You go to Google and search for the company and the search returns no results, or even worse the Better Business Bureau is the top result.

Let's be honest, everyone likes the warm side of the pillow - it's formed to your head, perfectly heated, and quite familiar. Every now and then flipping the pillow for a refreshing change in the middle of the night just happens, and you experience a new feeling of relaxation.

With your job search, it helps to flip your thinking to the other side. What do employers look for when they are considering hiring a new employee? More importantly, what are they not looking for?

As much advice that is out there for college students looking for jobs, there is just as much for employers hiring college graduates and interns. Just do a few searches and see what you find out. I found a pretty humorous article on interns from hell, and how employers can avoid hiring them. Some companies look at interns as "cheap labor", and others take them seriously as you will read in this article. Be aware of companies and recruiters that are just looking for a paper pusher, but the bottom line is that many internships are pretty low impact so don't expect to be given the world.

Take your time, research the companies, and find an internship that will actually provide at least a little benefit rather than an internship experience to put on your resume that you won't be able to talk about positively when interviewing for a full-time position.