About Career Blog

How to Land a Job in a Recession

Just think of it. Employers are probably receiving hundreds, if not thousands, of job applications far more than what they used to get. Many employers use a college degree as a means to make the first cut. If you’re a college grad, you already have a distinct advantage over other job seekers. However, you will still need to do your homework in order to set yourself apart from the rest. Here are some tips that can help improve your chances of landing a job during a recession.

Network. Network. Network - Whether you like it or not, if you are seeking a real job right now, you have to talk to people. And, more importantly, you have to listen to what they have to say. Take advantage of events that are sponsored by clubs, associations, or groups on campus or around town. Seek out professionals in the career that interests you and solicit their advice. You never know – they may be able to connect you to someone in your field who is hiring.

Swallow hard and work for free – You probably don’t have a spouse, kids or a mortgage just yet. Those big expenses often don’t allow job seekers to explore all their options. So, open yourself up to possibly moving in with your folks or friends and taking an unpaid position, as long as it is in an industry that truly interests you. Unpaid internships sometimes turn into paid positions or lead to other opportunities. But most importantly, you will gain valuable experience in the field that interests you.

Embrace the Internet (if you haven’t already) - Search the Internet to find companies in your field that may be hiring. You can also use social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to find people you may know who work at businesses that interest you. Also, identify acquaintances who may know someone who works at a company in your field and ask for an introduction. You should also research companies to prepare for interviews. And when you have an interview, spend some time on the company’s website researching the people you will meet and the company itself.

Write some blogs & read some too – A great way to brush up on an industry or possible careers is to read blogs. If you regularly read blogs and comment on them, you can begin to develop relationships with people in the industry that interests you. Believe it or not, bloggers often offer tremendous amounts of information and expertise that can help you gain a better understanding of their field. You should also start your own blog about the career you hope to work in after graduation. Use it to post research or events. Add a link to articles or information and offer a personal commentary. And, be sure to include a link to your blog on your resume. It is a good way for employers to learn more about you before an interview.

Take a good look around - Some industries continue to hire even during a recession. Consider alternative careers. Watch employment trends and think about other areas where your talents could be used. There is more than one way to put your skills to work.

Most importantly, be persistent. That job is out there, you just have to find it. Good luck!

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Posted by Seymour Jobs on 10/06/2009 04:53:00 PM
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Don't leave college behind once you graduate

The professors, peers, and employers who have followed you throughout your college career will still be available once you're ready to start your real one. Take advantage of this! Social networking sites, blogs, and alumni organizations can help you keep in touch with them once you begin making your way in the real world. You should stay abreast of these and keep yourself available -- someone you may have otherwise forgotten could be your golden ticket to the career you've always wanted.

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Posted by Brian on 9/01/2009 08:44:00 PM
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"Netiquette"

Networking has always been an important part of the job finding process and social-networking web sites allow you to strengthen, not replace, those connections that have already been formed off the web. Employers have quickly caught on to the new social-networking web site craze and are even using it as a tool to screen potential job applicants. So, knowing your "netiquette" is even more important than ever! 

-When using sites like Twitter and Facebook to promote yourself or your latest project, be subtle and don't get too personal! Stay away from updates on your medical illnesses and relationship status'.  
-Try including your self promotional pitch within information your followers and friends will find useful or helpful. Give them the sense that you know what you're doing and offer them a service of sorts. In the give-and-take world of todays job market, offering a helpful piece of advice is the least you can do. It will make asking for that letter of recommendation a little bit easier.
-Don't get trigger happy when it comes to adding friends. Remember that quality is better than quantity and that many times your friends can say a lot about you as a person. 
-Make use of your privacy settings and control what specific friends can see on your page-- restrict bosses and co-workers from seeing pictures of you and events that you are attending. 

By simply using your netiquette, you can maximize your social networking capabilities. You'll get the most bang for your buck, or in this case, your tweet. 


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Posted by Jen on 5/15/2009 05:49:00 AM
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Frenemies on Facebook: BEWARE!

You log in to your Facebook account to find that somebody has sent you a friend request. Before accepting, you scan their profile. You don’t recognize them, but no matter – it’s probably just somebody you ran into at the party the other night. Their information bar even shows that you have a few mutual friends. You accept their request, and it begins. A frenemy has infiltrated your social network.

What, exactly, is a “frenemy”? Wikipedia defines it as an enemy disguised as a friend or as a partner who is simultaneously a competitor. More simply stated, it’s someone who poses as a friend, but has ulterior motives. Frenemies come in many forms, ranging from minor annoyances such as spammers and promoters to stalkers, hackers, and other, more serious threats.

The breed of frenemy of greatest concern to you falls in the intermediate range of this spectrum: employers. As you may know, most employers and HR Specialists are very much aware of the social networking boom and how it can benefit them by providing an open window into the lives of their employees. That unknown “friend” you just added may be a member of your employer’s human resources staff, a co-worker with an axe to grind, or even your boss himself. Worried yet?

Fortunately, the Facebook frenemy is easy to thwart, if you take the simple precautionary measures outlined below. First, do not, under any circumstances, accept a friend request from somebody you do not know personally. This is the simplest and most proactive means of closing the blinds to prying eyes. If, for some reason, you absolutely must bolster your friend count, do so from a separate account containing a minimum of personal information.

Second, check your Friends list for suspicious accounts. If a name seems unfamiliar, check that individual’s profile to see if he or she is actually a friend. If a quick review of their profile doesn’t ring any bells, delete them – it’s as simple as that. Unless you’re remarkably bad at recognizing people, you shouldn’t be stepping on any toes by doing this. Even if you accidentally delete somebody you know, they’ll surely be understanding and send you a message to ask what’s up. Third, and finally, be wary of suspicious activity on any friend’s profile. A flurry of bizarre status updates, comments, and messages from somebody you know may indicate the presence of a hacker in your midst. If this kind of behavior persists, alert your friend via an instant message, email, or phone call. If they’re just as confused as you are, it’s time to delete them until they shoo the hackers away or create a new account.

Armed with this knowledge, you should be able to dodge the frenemies working to keep you out of work (and worse). These precautions are not completely foolproof, so always keep a dose of vigilance and common sense at hand when dealing with Facebook and other social networking sites. Stay alert and stay smart, and you’ll be able to stay frenemy-free. Good luck!

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Posted by Seymour Jobs on 2/06/2009 12:42:00 PM
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Social Networking: Do’s and Don’ts

Social networking sites have become a popular form of communication for people you have met at various times throughout your life. They have also become an important tool in making (and keeping) connections with current and former employers and co-workers. Those connections are imperative to your job search.

Networking is a must when embarking on a job search. With increased competitiveness in the job market, an entirely new set of challenges have been presented to job seekers. A job seeker must make his/her resume accessible to as many people possible. This can be accomplished by utilizing resume database sites, responding to classified ads and utilizing social networking sites. The advantages to social networking sites are vast, if and only if, used correctly. To obtain the maximum benefits of this online environment, it is important to know the Do’s and Don’ts of social networking.

There are many ways to keep your profile safe from the “preying” eye. Fortunately for all of us, there are these great tools called privacy settings. From there you can easily choose the privacy level that best suits your needs. This will help you to differentiate between your personal and business profile. It is always important to remember that the World Wide Web is an enormous place and you never know who may be looking at your profiles—so please be discrete and responsible about anything that you or anyone else posts to your profile.

You should also be careful about who you friend request and who you accept as a friend. It’s like your mom always told you, “birds of a feather flock together”. The friends that you keep are a direct reflection of who you are as a person. More likely than not, a prospective employer may use LinkedIn or Facebook as a tool when making the decision of hiring you or any one of your competitors. Their purpose is to scrutinize you from every possible angle, so Beware!

Social networking websites can often be a double-edged sword if not used properly. Taking these simple steps can ensure that your profile will be working for you and not against you. It also ensures that future employers/colleagues will only see the best parts of who you are. You’d be surprised how hiding or “de-tagging” incriminating, inappropriate pictures from your profile can work wonders for your image.

Also, don’t forget to take total advantage of the information sections of your profile. Use this space to list your talents, hobbies and any previous work experience you have had – minus the reining title of ‘Beer Pong Champion’. By simply using a little discretion and a little creative flare you’ll put your best foot forward and hopefully the job offers will come pouring in!

Good luck!

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Posted by Seymour Jobs on 12/05/2008 09:53:00 AM
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WARNING: THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN COMPROMISED

   The web is glutted with social networking sites, blogs, email clients, discussion boards, and a vast array of other professional and recreational tools. For every one of these, there are a thousand hackers, scammers, and pranksters willing to take advantage of their vulnerabilities. Therefore, with each Internet community you join, security becomes exponentially more important. 

   Username and password diversity are two of the most simple yet crucial precautions you can take in order to secure your online (and real-world) identity. Anybody with access to something as trivial and easy to obtain as your instant messaging password could hold the key to your email, university, and online banking accounts. Be proactive and prepare unique name/password combinations for each of your online profiles, change passwords frequently, and report any suspicious activity immediately. It may seem like a pain, but it isn't so rough when you consider the alternative - possible social and economic ruin. Play it safe, people! 

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Posted by Brian on 10/24/2008 02:48:00 PM
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It’s not what you know, it’s who you know...


This old adage has never been truer than it is today. The advent of social networking websites has brought about a great deal of change on the business landscape, making employees’ and employers' connections more visible, relevant, and manageable. While they can sometimes be a detriment to your status as a member of the workforce (HR people might get uppity about those Facebook pictures where you’re sucking Jell-O out of a co-workers navel, for example), joining the right network on the right site can launch you from minimum-wage obscurity to the Fortune 500 – or at least give you a nice shove in the right direction.

Since 2003, LinkedIn has been making a name for itself as one of these sites. If you’re looking for a job, chances are that someone in one of LinkedIn’s networks is looking for you. Think of it as online dating, only much, much more lucrative (and carrying significantly less risk of having to change your number and file a restraining order).

Like a dating site or any other online networking tool, your popularity and success on LinkedIn is determined by the content of your profile. Similar to a resume, your profile should be professional and informative enough to show potential employers that you know what you’re doing. Keep in mind, however, that the odds are stacked against you as a new member – that is, unless you take steps to set yourself apart from the crowd. Give context to the information you provide in your Summary, Experience, and Education boxes whenever possible. A lot of employers like to know the “whys” even more than the “hows” and “wheres.” Your page is reflexive of how much effort you put into it, so be as clear and thorough as possible. Interjecting a little personality into your bio won’t hurt, either. Just make sure not to come on too strong.

This means that you probably shouldn’t include a link to that Jell-O picture.

Once you’ve got your profile squared away, building a robust business network is a breeze. You can search for former employers, professors, and co-workers, link up with them, and rack up recommendations. You can also connect with strangers, but be warned: too much unsolicited interaction can come off as unprofessional, even a little creepy. Remember, we don’t like it when restraining orders to come into play.

LinkedIn also boasts a powerful, detailed job search function. The interface is neat and intuitive, so if you’ve used the Internet before, you’ll know where to click and what to do. If not, simply plug a job title into the “Search for” field and hunt away. Of course, more connections and recommendations attached to your name mean a greater chance of walking away with an interview, so consider beefing up your profile before diving in to this feature.

Now that you have the know-how to effectively link yourself in (while avoiding the perils of incriminating photographs and potential litigation), give it a shot. And remember to add me if you ever make it big.

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Posted by Seymour Jobs on 10/24/2008 11:02:00 AM
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K.I.T.-ing.

Keeping in touch, or K.I.T.-ing , has become significantly easier with the dawn of the internet. Gone are the days of the written letter or phone call. These days, it’s all about quickly and easily shooting your friend an email or instant message. You can easily K.I.T. with your old high school buddies and the new friends you’ve made in college, but even “easy” has drawbacks. The main drawback being: loss of privacy. Yes, it is easy and fun to post the pictures from last Saturday night and leave your friends comments with funny quotes they’ve said in their incoherent states. However, you must always be mindful that your friends are not the only people looking at your profile. The Internet has made it easy for everyone, including employers and stalkers, to keep track of the inner-workings of your days.  They can see who you’re in a relationship with, what events you’re attending and the subsequent pictures from these events. They can see anything that you let them see. This just means some self-censorship is necessary. Utilize your privacy options. I do not know about you, but I would not want my potential employer knowing what I did last Saturday night. Seymour is right, there are simple ways to cut down the chances of potential employers/parents seeing things you do not want them to see. Just be aware that people are looking and everything you do/post is a reflection of who you are.  

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Posted by Jen on 10/09/2008 02:07:00 PM
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Check me out on Facebook!

Great post, Suzanne! If used properly, social networking sites are an amazing resource and tool for networking and job sourcing.

In fact, I'm a BIG fan of Facebook! Have any of you seen my Facebook profile? I've got a national job search feed and TONS of helpful information to get you ready for your next job.

Let's be friends! Check me out at: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fort-Lauderdale-FL/Spherion/24067120695

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Posted by Seymour Jobs on 10/08/2008 11:16:00 AM
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Is 2008 really so close to 1984?

After reading Seymour's latest blog post, I found myself wondering how closely businesses, universities, and other organizations are really monitoring our Internet presence. I know a cursory background check and Web search are common practice, but how deeply do more assiduous (or just plain nosy) HR personnel dig? What, if any, are the rules governing these searches? I'd love for anyone with inside experience to come forward and tell us if we should be blogging beneath tinfoil umbrellas.

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Posted by Brian on 10/05/2008 11:00:00 PM
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Social Networking Damage Control

Saturday night was great.

So great that you don’t even remember it.

You log into your Facebook account, and suddenly, it all comes back to you. Every drink consumed, every obscene gesture made, every porcelain god desecrated – each has been painstakingly documented for all to see, complete with a link to your full profile.

You had just interviewed for that dream job Friday. You know that employers have finally gotten with the times and will likely be scouring your page to learn more about you and assess your character. Uh-oh... time to panic!

When not properly configured, your profile can be a huge liability. Luckily, there are measures that can be taken to keep you secure and mitigate fallout from PR disasters such as the one described above. Facebook and other social networking sites care about your privacy (and avoiding lawsuits), so they’ve implemented a number of features designed to keep you safe and lead prying eyes astray. Knowing what they are and how to properly utilize them can mean the difference between getting a promotion and getting the boot. It bears mentioning, however, that more tech-savvy HR departments have ways of circumventing whatever measures you’ve taken to cover your digital footprints – unfortunately, your safest bet is to erase the offending profile altogether. Having said that, the following precautions are a must if you’re not willing or able to jump off the face of the Web just yet.

1.) Set everything to “Private” or “Friends Only.” Always. This one’s a crapshoot, but it’s the simplest way to divert unwanted traffic from your page. All you need to do is tweak your account settings so that only friends or specific individuals can access your profile. Some sites allow you to choose exactly which components of your profile are friend-exclusive and which can be viewed by the public. Protection of this sort is laughably easy for someone with the know-how to bypass, but hey, you have to start somewhere.

2.) Delete all potentially incriminating or offensive material from your profile.If this sounds too much like selling your soul, don’t worry, it’s not. You’re simply concealing certain aspects of your inner being because they are embarrassing and shameful. Actually, “selling your soul” sounds better. Let’s stick with that. The bottom line is this – you shouldn’t have anything on your page that you wouldn’t mind your parents or kid sister seeing, regardless of how laid-back you perceive your employer and co-workers to be. If the wrong person stumbles across something questionable on your profile, it won’t be long before you find yourself in a difficult place. Better safe than sorry.

3.) Choose your friends wisely.If the Internet has taught us anything, it’s that appearances can be deceiving. No matter how credible they seem, always look upon unsolicited friend requests with suspicion. The person on the other end could be a wily employer.
Or a spammer.
Or a stalker.
Or the Feds.
You get the picture. Also, consider removing any “friends” that you have no legitimate real-world connection to. People know other people, it’s a small world, and word gets around fast. This may sound overly paranoid, but remember that saying anything online is usually tantamount to barking it through a megaphone in a public square – you’ll want a small crowd should you say something inappropriate.

Networking sites can be excellent social and professional tools, and their benefits generally surpass their drawbacks. Just be mindful of the fact that they’re to be used in certain ways – and broadcasting the intimate details of your personal life to the world’s half-billion Internet users isn’t (usually) one of them. If you play it safe, this shouldn’t be a problem. If you don’t, I eagerly await next Saturday’s batch of pictures... They’ll be good for a laugh!

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Posted by Seymour Jobs on 10/03/2008 11:18:00 AM
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Networking Events

So UM has an annual communications week where they bring in industry leaders in journalism, public relations, broadcast, motion pictures and advertising to talk about trends in the field.

One of the advantages of this is that I have been invited to a couple networking mixers. And now that I am getting closer to graduating, and watching my friends that graduated in December struggle for jobs, I am definitely taking advantage (an added bonus is free food.)

I went to our career fair, and nothing was really aimed towards graduate students. So I am going to stick mainly to networking at this point.

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Posted by Christina on 2/18/2008 10:22:00 PM
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Social Networking/Bookmarking

One of my classmates had me check her facebook through-and-through to make sure she didn't have anything offensive or inappropriate as she is starting her job search.

As I was looking, it struck me that there is no way you can have a completely clean blog/social networking site/social bookmarking site. You will always have something that reflects your politics and/or beliefs, and there is bound to be someone who doesn't agree.

I think, instead of people deleting their pages or trying to hide behind a privacy block, they should consider how they portray themselves, meaning the language used and the sources to back up your argument.

Future employers who come across a well-designed, well thought-out blog would end up drawing a more positive impression than if you have no site at all.

As our generation becomes more educated and tech savvy, few people will believe we are not plugged into myspace, facebook, linked in, etc., and a lack of an internet presence could end up detrimental, especially in a field like mine where we must all master the wave of communication trends.

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Posted by Christina on 11/27/2007 03:54:00 PM
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