Dude, where's my job?

By Morgan on January 29, 2010

Hey there! This is Morgan Noonan, junior at the University of Maryland pursuing a Bachelor's degree in Studio Art. Yes, I get asked "So what are you going to do with that?" quite a bit. I plan on becoming a medical illustrator. Booyah!

Newsflash: unemployment rates are high. And it is affecting all of us: college and high school students, recent graduates just starting out, and even experienced professionals hoping for an early retirement. Middle class, upper-middle class, working class—call it whatever you want—but the average American is lucky to have a job.

In a recent article published in Sidelines, Middle Tennessee State University’s school newspaper, the unique effect produced by such dire circumstances is explored and explained. The national unemployment rate is 10%. Apparently in Middle Tennessee that would be considered good, though, being that their unemployment has reached a staggering 33%.

The community news editor Rozalind Ruth explains in the article that, despite the acute lack of employment in the state, there has not been an increase in student job hunting. Like most schools, Middle Tennessee State has a Career Service Center, which offers the exact kind of aid a student out of work would need. They provide help with “career exploration, job searches and campus-recruitment programs, as well as the Lightning Job Source, an online database of employment opportunities.”

This sounds an awful lot like “Careers4Terps”, which is the website I turned to when I could not find a job on my campus in College Park. And clearly it worked…here I am today interning in our nation’s capital for ThinkTalk—an opportunity I never would have known about otherwise. The University of Maryland’s Career Center “serves as a world class career and experiential learning center that teaches individuals to understand and use the career development process as they seek local, national, and global employment opportunities. Through collaborative and innovative programs and services, UCC empowers students to become contributing members of society.” Sounds great—assuming you actually use it.

This is where the real troubling news comes in…people are giving up looking for jobs. Current students and recent graduates that are ready, willing, and able to put their education to good use are calling it quits. The students at MTSU are not taking advantage of the resources available to them. Participation in job fairs is down instead of up.

I’ll admit, I don’t bother going to the job fairs at UMD, but that’s only because they never have any realistic potential employers for the likes of me. Art majors are a special breed, though. All you students with normal career aspirations need to start going out there and networking. As my ultimate hero and life’s inspiration Leonardo DaVinci once said, "People of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things."

Social Media 101: Online Networking for Dummies

By Monica on January 29, 2010

Hey everyone! My name is Monica Karkhanis and I am currently a sophomore communication major with a focus in public relations at the University of Maryland, College Park. This is my first semester as an intern for Think Talk and I am really excited to blog about social media and how it can help your career. Find me on Twitter and be sure to continue following ThinkTalk!

If you are anything like me, it is very likely that you are checking your Facebook more than a few times in a 30 minute span and your Twitter, Linked In and email accounts are all connected to your cell phone, which also has a direct link to your hip.

I'm a new intern here at Think Talk and for my first blog I figured I would write about my obsession with social media and how this obsession has become widely accepted and used by students, professors and career professionals alike. Okay, maybe I have been taking it a little too far ever since I downloaded the new Facebook app to my phone, but these days it has become nearly impossible for a company or business to survive without implementing and encouraging the use of social media. Before college, accessing Facebook during class was an absolute taboo. In fact, my high school in Maryland blocked all social networking sites from every campus computer. Today, however, many of my college classes at the University of Maryland actually praise and even require the use of social media and networking sites.

I believe adding social networking know-how and tech-savvy skills to my resume keeps me ahead of the game. Several of my college professors in the communication and public relations field hold a series of lectures based solely on social media. My professors encourage learning about different methods and platforms of communication to effectively send a message across while still being able to keep up with today's fast-paced and growing world.

In an article I just read from the University of New Hampshire (ThinkTalk school!), a student writer interviewed a professor teaching a new course covering all aspects of social media. Professor Chuck Martin of UNH is not only an accomplished author of eight different business books, but he is also the third most followed marketing professor on all of Twitter. In my eyes, that means he has made it big and he probably has a few words of wisdom to give to students in the field of marketing and communication.

“Social media is really, really big in business right now,” said Martin. “Even if the business doesn’t want to do anything in social media they have to because their clients and customers are connecting in these ways.”

Because social media is impacting all aspects of business and all kinds of business, said Martin, anybody in marketing needs to understand social media.

They don’t need to like it, but understand it,” said Martin.

So businesses have no choice but to keep up with social media to connect with clients, even if they cringe at the thought of managing a profile or Twitter account to tweet their daily activities. While it sounds silly, I agree with Martin in that using social media to promote and establish a brand for yourself or your business can go a long way. Take Google, for example; even though they are one of the largest companies right now in the world of business and do not need much more promotion, they know all too well not to neglect the importance of social media. With over thirty separate Twitter accounts based on region, cultures, types of technology and other areas, Google manages to continue to stay on top -- connecting the company to the world and beyond.

If even Google has to do it, then I figure I should, too. Stay tuned for my next post as I start exploring how social media can help me (and you) find a job.

Goal Setting

By Jane Lovas on January 28, 2010

Guest Blogger Jane Lovas' weekly series called “What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Life and Career” runs each Thursday.

Are you aware that one of the simplest things you can do to increase your chances of success are creating your goals, beginning to list the actions you need to take to accomplish them and then reviewing them daily?

If you’re not up to that, even taking the time to create a list of what you’d like to accomplish can be a big help.

One of the reasons setting goals is so powerful is that it makes you think about what you want your life to look like instead of just moving through life with no plan. Making that decision is similar to getting behind the wheel in your car; you are in control, you decide where the car is going.

Here are some simple steps to doing your own goal setting session. (Suggested Supplies: 2 inch square sticky notes, pens (lots of colors), wall space, sticky easel pads, large year at a glance calendar, and notebook)

1. Write down your vision statement. (If you haven’t created a vision statement, begin with the goals you want to accomplish now. You can visit my blog at blog.janelovas.com and read the article about creating a vision statement.)

2. Start listing your goals - you can use the following categories or modify them as you see fit.

Using the sticky notes write down one goal and the category per sticky note along (or use a color for each category), do this quickly, making sure you write each goal as a positive statement in the present or past. Such as: I have a new job making $50,000 per year. Or I can do 100 pushups. Sometimes it helps to just start jotting down the main idea for example in the travel section maybe you jot down the places you want to visit.

1. Business/Career
2. Relationships/Family
3. Education/Community
4. Travel/Recreation
5. Health/Fitness
6. Spiritual

Write down at least 6 goals in each category.

3. Compare the goals to your vision statement - do they support your vision statement? You want to make sure all your goals are in alignment with your vision statement and your other goals. (If you don’t have a vision statement at this time you’ll skip this step.)

4. Determine which goals you want to focus on this year and which ones are 3 and 5 year goals. 
Add by-when dates to your goals (this is the date by which you want your goal accomplished.)

5. Focusing on the goals for this year - create an Imagination Movie, this is a Technicolor movie in your imagination of what your life will look like with these goals accomplished. Use as many of your senses as you can, get it real, making sure you are center stage.

6. Write a Living Vision. This is a write up of what your life will be like when your goals are accomplished. Make sure to write it in the present tense. Write it as if it is already true. Have fun with it, be a descriptive as possible.

7. Write down the action items that you know to do for each goal that you want to accomplish this year.

One way to do this is to transfer each of your sticky note goals to a page in your notebook and then list what you need to do and how long you think it might take you to do it.

For some of the goals you might only know a couple of steps that you need to take, such as talk to someone or find and read a book, that’s ok. Start with what you know and as you make progress the next steps will show up.

8. On the calendar write down when you intend to accomplish your goals. (One of those huge write on calendars is great for this or the fold out year at a glance, or even make one with the easel pads (write 1 – 31 across the top, and Jan – Dec down the side)

As you start laying your goals out on the calendar you might need to begin modifying the dates – you’ll probably want things spread out throughout the year.

9. Next add the action items to your calendar.

10. You're done for now! You now have a calendar with the steps that you need to start taking all laid out.

11. Hang your calendar where you can see it on a daily basis.

12. Every day read your Living Vision and re-play your Imagination Movie.

13. At least twice a month review your goals and calendar and make any updates. Some things might be moving faster and others slower adjust the dates and keep moving forward.

14. Celebrate as you reach each goal.

I know I said this was simple and this looks like it could be a lot of work. I can assure you the work really is in deciding what you want your life to look like. Have some fun with it call a couple of friends and work on your goals at the same time. Then watch what happens this year!

Feel free to email me with any questions, or even better let me know how much progress you’ve made.

Have a great week.

Jane Lovas is a career specialist who is the creator of the life changing 12 week tele-seminar “Creating the Life of Your Dreams”. She is also our guest blogger, whose column will run every Thursday. If you would like to contact Jane, you can reach her here, here or here

"Self portrait: Goal!" courtesy pigsontheinguk via Flickr Creative Commons

Personal Branding: It's all in the Packaging

By MollyMathews on January 27, 2010

Hey ThinkTalkers, my name is Molly and I am a senior English Major at CUA. As part of my internship for ThinkTalk, I will be blogging my epic search for a job in the D.C. area, giving you all my take on what has worked, what has failed miserably, and hopefully giving a splinter of insight to those of you who haven’t quite reached job hunting maturation yet in your young adult life.

In my first semester interning for ThinkTalk, I discovered the Personal Branding Blog, which was intimidating at first due to all the business jargon and entrepreneurial ambition, but the tips on how to improve your resume and interviewing skills kept me reading.

Now that I’ve entered my final semester, reading the Personal Branding Blog felt daunting, because now I actually need those tips, especially with inflated unemployment rates. Who would pick me when there are thousands of experienced professionals ready to pounce on the next job opening? This is where developing my own personal brand comes in, or so says Dan Schawbel. Easy enough right? First hurtle, there is no concrete definition of what personal branding is! According to the American Marketing Association, personal branding shares the same definition as branding, which “can be defined as a person, name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of these, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller, or group of sellers, and to differentiate them from those of competitors” (American Marketing Association 2007).

Simply put, I’ve got to figure out a way to cohesively package my name, my skill set or services in a way that appeals to employers and separates me from my job-hunting competitors. New media technology in the form of social networking sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook are great places to start.

Admittedly, I’ve been against the blogging and Twitter movement because I had a hard time believing anyone needed to know exactly how I thought or felt at any given moment. LinkedIn just seemed too grown-up for me. Why can’t I just fly under the radar? No more, advises Dan Schawbel, not in this job market! In his blog post, 10 Reasons Why You Have to Manage Your Personal Brand, Dan paints an apocryphal picture of what your future could be like should you choose not to participate in these social mediums.

His argument for social networking site participation states that like it or not, you already have a personal brand and you need to mold it your own way before you are poorly perceived. In other words, clean up those Facebook pictures and wall posts. Increase your web visibility. If you have Facebook or Twitter you might as well go all the way and create a more professional presence on a LinkedIn account. Once you’ve updated yourself, don’t stop there. These avenues of communication are changing everyday so its best to continue your interactions with contacts on these sites so you don’t miss out on the next big thing. For example, Coming soon! “MyMilkyWay” where communities share pics and youtube videos with Lunar Colony settlers!

We as young professional have new opportunities to make contacts with people we never would have made had ten years ago. I say, take advantage of these social mediums so you’re never left out of the conversation about twitter or blog posts. Proudly suggest to contacts, “look me up on LinkedIn”. Stand up, virtually speaking, and be recognized. “Participate or be extinct” as Dan says, and join me as I create a Twitter and LinkedIn account. I’ll keep you posted.

Resources for the Aspiring Entrepreneur

By Zack on January 26, 2010

It takes a certain character and state-of-mind to start your own company. As I've blogged about before, the are characteristics of entrepreneurs that help them to rise above the rest. One of these is "hustle," which is aptly described by programmer and blogger Matt Nowack (found via this Lifehacker post):

If there is one key thing I could convey to anyone reading this is to hustle. You will never be prepared for the things you are capable of doing. You will achieve your greatest accomplishments not by building up a grand framework of skill and then deftly creating something glorious, but by starting small and persevering in making it better and better. It is never an easy road and you will gain a grand framework of skills, but you have to push your boundaries to grow.

I would love to put a triumphant "I'm just so damned smart and talented and handsome" paragraph here, but that's not the case. I just steeped myself in this stuff, I worked in git daily, I read about it, watched screencasts, I bought agile web development in rails, I got design patterns in ruby, I hustled. And you can do it too, take the first step today.

Personally, I think there is a certain, oh, 'lack of satisfaction' that you see in entrepreneurs. Nothing is ever enough. They cannot know too much or be too experienced. Satisfaction simply eludes them. So, it's not always a case of intelligence or intellect that propels them to success, just hard work and hustle. Which is kind of encouraging.

This quality, I'm sure, is something that venture capitalists pick up on when determining which organizations, and entrepreneurs, they back. And since we've been talking about venture capital a lot lately (stay tuned for our interview with Jonathan Aberman), this TechCrunch post by Sarah Lacy gives good insight into the inner-workings of the firms themselves.

Finally, there are things you will know and things you will not know about the intricacies of manning a start-up. One thing you may be sketchy on is the legal aspect of it. ReadWriteWeb has an excellent roundup of legal resources for start-ups and entrepreneurs. From blogs, article, online legal tools and law firms who specialize in this field, this RWW post is an excellent starting point for your legal needs.

Directing Can Be About More Than the Movie

By Zack on January 25, 2010

A lot of the director's who appear on the Director's Cut discuss the role of relationships in their career. Hollywood can be a bit of a game, and there are certain rules that a directors have to play by if they want to be successful. Point in case is documentary director Errol Morris. Morris is the critically acclaimed and award winning director of documentaries such as The Fog of War and Standard Operating Procedure. But early in his career, even a talent like Morris had to play the game. In 1988 this letter from Miramax head Harvey Weinstein - who produced Morris' 1988 film The Thin Blue Line - Morris is chided for being, of all things, boring:

Heard your NPR interview and you were boring. You couldn't have dragged me to see THE THIN BLUE LINE if my life depended on it.

It's time you start being a performer and understand the media.

[...]

Speak in short one sentence answers and don't go on with all the legalese. Talk about the movie as a movie and the effect it will have on the audience from an emotional point of view.

If you continue to be boring, I will hire an actor in New York to pretend that he's Errol Morris. If you have any casting suggestions, I'd appreciate that.

Keep it short and keep selling it because that's what's going to work for you, your career and the film.

So just remember, as you embark on your career in film, even greats like Errol Morris have to deal with producers. There's always going to be somebody standing around to give you their 2 cents, whether you want it or not.

Free Cell Phone Chargers!

By Zack on January 22, 2010

Well, sort of. Lifehacker has an excellent roundup of advice on replacing your cell phone charger for free.

Apparently, chargers are one of the most frequent belongings left behind during a hotel stay. For this reason, most hotels of boxes with literally hundreds of cell phone chargers. All you have to do is show up, tell them you stayed there recently and left your charger and they'll break out the box. This is brilliant! Perhaps a bit disingenuous, but the user comments Lifehacker gathered from Gizmodo and Reddit indicate that hotels have so many chargers that go unclaimed that no one will miss it if you take theirs. Plus, you're in college, you deserve the free stuff!

From Gizmodo:

I work for the second largest conference hotel in my city. You have no idea the size box we have of chargers left behind. 90 percent are idiot blackberry chargers. This works 100% of the time, we never verify that anyone stays here we just let them go shopping for [their] charger. Hell we even will give people a charger if they call down to the front desk and say they forgot theirs!

So have a good weekend ... and if you go out of town, and forget your charger, just swing by the closest hotel.

"Sony Ericsonn mobile phone recharger" courtesy Iwan Gabovitch via Flickr Creative Commons

What Do I Want (To Do, To Be, To Have)

By Jane Lovas on January 21, 2010

Welcome to the weekly ThinkTalk blog series called “What I Wish Someone Had Told Me About Life and Career”.   Each week I’m going to look at a topic and share some information, provide some questions for you to think about and an action item for you to do at your leisure.  No, there is no home work, just an action item or two that you might want to consider doing if you find you’re stuck in a particular area, or just don’t know what to do. 

I know most of us, along with the rest of the world, are trying to figure out what we want from our life and a career.  What we want to do, what we want to be, and what we want to have.  One thing to be aware of is that this question is one that we spend most of our lives trying to answer. I hope knowing this will keep you from feeling quite so alone.  I’ll also share another secret with you; deep down what everyone wants the most is to feel happy, to be happy.  Thus the real question is what will make you happy, and conversely not what will make your parents or your friends happy – what will make YOU happy?  

Ask yourself this question: When am I the happiest, having the most fun, and the most at peace with myself?

Maybe you love sharing stories with friends; maybe you get lost in time (a good sign of happiness) when you are researching a new subject, what about discovering new places?

Why is being aware of this so important? One reason is that as you go through life aware of the people, situations and things that bring you the greatest happiness you’ll know that you need to make a change when you’re not happy. Most importantly you’ll know to look within yourself for what makes you happy.

Be aware that just changing the people, places and things in your life is not going to make you happy. The reason that you want to know what makes you happy is that when you are happy you are also in touch with yourself, and then you’ll begin to realize that when you’re not happy that you’ve lost that connection with yourself. 

Think about this for a minute; if I were happy what would my life look like, how would I act, and what would I be doing? In addition, when you focus on the things that bring you happiness you’ll find that they show up more and more in your life.  Look around you at your friends.  I’m sure you have a couple of friends that complain about everything, do they seem happy?  Why not?  What about your friends that always seem happy?  Do they complain a lot? 

Ok, so what does all this happiness have to do with finding out what you want to do, be or have in your life?  Simple, if you start by looking at when you’re the happiest and branch out from there, you will begin to create a life that is fun and fulfilling.  You will be the person that everyone else admires and wants to be like.

If you’re like most of us you have a list a mile long of what you don’t want or what you don’t like, but you probably haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about what you do what. Start with where you are, start with that long list of "don’t wants" and "don’t likes". This list can then be used to start your "To Do, Be and Have" list.  What you do is take a don’t like/want phrase off your list and change the "I don'ts" to "I wants" and then to an "I am".

For example, let’s say you don’t like being around people that are rude and disrespectful to you just because they think you’re too young. Change that to I want to be around people that are courteous and respectful of me. Finally change that to I am surrounded by people that are courteous and respectful to me. 

Think about it this way, if you go to a restaurant and the waiter asks you what you want and you start telling them all the things you don’t want what are they going to do?  More than likely walk away!  On the other hand the waiter really doesn’t care what you order, they might make recommendations, but in the end you have to decide what you want

Life is like that, until you decide what you want you’re not going to have it. Once you decide what you want, pay attention to what’s going on around you, the people you meet, the synchronicities that begin to happen. Don’t wait; start asking for what you want from life.

If you want, you can use these categories as places to start looking at and being aware of the things that make you happy, the things that you want or the things that you don’t want (just make sure to change them to positive statements.)  Feel free to add to the categories or change them to suit your needs.

• 1. Business/Career
• 2. Relationships/Family
• 3. Education/Community
• 4. Travel/Recreation
• 5. Health/Fitness
• 6. Spiritual

Here is an additional resource that will provide you with more support in creating your To Do, Be and Have list.

• 1. What did you dream of becoming when you were a child?
• 2. Where do you spend your free time?
• 3. Listen to your inner self. What does it really wish it could be doing?
• 4. What activity do you do that makes you feel happy and when you do it, the time just flies by?
• 5. What activities, events, shows, and books are you attracted to?
• 6. Resolve your past issues. Your past does not have to decide your future. If you let your past go and any limitations you’ve placed upon yourself, what would you be doing?
• 7. What would success mean to you? What would the perfect life be?
• 8. What would you do if you had the Universal Credit Card (money is no object)?

This week’s action: create your To Do, Be and Have list of what you want to have in your life/career.   

Have a great week!

Jane Lovas is a career specialist who is the creator of the life changing 12 week tele-seminar “Creating the Life of Your Dreams”. She is also our guest blogger, whose column will run every Thursday. If you would like to contact Jane, you can reach her here, here or here

Social Job Search

By Zack on January 20, 2010

Allison Doyle relays some interesting news over at her About.com Job Search blog about the recent integration of SimplyHired and LinkedIn.

It's always important to tap your connections when job searching and job search engine SimplyHired.com is going social and making it easy to connect. Job seekers can now connect directly from a SimplyHired.com job listing to their LinkedIn network to find out if they have contacts a company.

This really helps simplify (which Simply Hired always does really well) what had been a two step process. Instead of searching for jobs, then going to LinkedIn to see who you know at the organization, you can save a few clicks and go right to LinkedIn from Simply Hired. Clicking on the "Who Do I Know" button will give you an in-line view of your connections without having to leave Simply Hired.

To me, one of the strengths of LinkedIn isn't necessarily as a way to keep in touch with industry connections, but rather to see who you know at companies that are hiring. So, in keeping with that, this seems like a really big move for SimplyHired ... and thus, for you. But honestly, I think this would work better both ways - that is, while browsing through your connections on LinkedIn, it would be highly useful to easily see what jobs at SimplyHired your connection's organization is hiring for.

But nonetheless, this is great news to simplify your job hunt. One minor problem is that you as a typical college student probably aren't on LinkedIn yet. So what are you waiting for?

Meet a Blogger: Jane Lovas Is The New ThinkTalk Columnist

By Mindy on January 19, 2010

The ThinkTalk blog is excited to welcome a new weekly columnist, Jane Lovas. Jane is the creator of the life changing 12 week tele-seminar “Creating the Life of Your Dreams” and she is eager to share with college students what she has learned about how to create the life you’ve always dreamed about. She is also a popular speaker and shares with audiences the keys to finding their purpose and passions in her presentation “Living a life of Passion; On Purpose.”

Jane’s weekly series will start this Thursday on January 21. Titled “What I Wish Someone had Told Me About Life and Career,” the series will cover subjects like networking, job hunting tips, work/life balance and the elements of a successful and fulfilling life and career. We want to hear what you would like see Jane cover. You can give us your ideas in the comment section below, or email Jane at jane@janelovas.com. This is your chance to provide additional input for topics Jane will write about!

Jane is also author of an upcoming book Ordinary Women Extraordinary Lives; Living a Life of Purpose and Passion. She is super excited to be sharing her outlook on the very important question, “What I wish someone had told me about life and career.” She will make every effort to include topics that have a widespread appeal in her blog articles. You can also check out Jane’s blog for additional life topics.

I met Jane at a Success in the City Event a few months ago, and was impressed with her enthusiasm and with her passion for helping people become all they can be. She's a fun lady who has a great sense of humor and good taste in books. I think she'll have plenty of advice to dish out--her first post on Thursday will talk about how to figure out what you really want to get out of your career.

Stay tuned for Jane’s posts every Thursday during the Spring Semester!