Welcome to MyPath

What are the major hiring trends on campus this year? What are the best strategies for finding an entry-level job? What are the biggest mistakes students make in the job search process?

To answer these questions and more, I spoke with with Trudy Steinfeld, Executive Director of the Wasserman Center for Career Development at New York University, and Manny Contomanolis, Associate Vice President and Director of Co-op and Career Services at the Rochester Institute of Technology.

Don't miss the opportunity to hear top tips from two of the best career services professionals in the country!

Listen to the podcast interview now.

Exercise for 30 minutes a day. Sleep eight hours a night. Floss. Good habits are the building blocks of a healthy life.

The same goes for your career: small daily habits add up to big success. The earlier in your working life you develop smart daily practices, the easier they will be to maintain and the more overall impact they’ll have.

Here are 5 important career habits to cultivate:

1. Keep up with the news. We live in the Information Age, so there’s no excuse for not being informed. Whether you read a news site every morning, watch the headlines on TV or subscribe to a major news outlet’s e-newsletter, you have to know what’s happening in the world. Pay particular attention to any articles relating to your profession. This will give you topics to discuss at networking events, articles to discuss on Twitter and LinkedIn and a base of knowledge to apply to your current and future career decisions. I landed my first job at WorkingWoman.com because I learned about the site from an article in a news magazine!

2. Share. You know those little “Share” icons that appear next to almost every video and blog post these days? Imagine that “Share” button everywhere you look. One of the best ways to maintain a strong professional network is to share articles, job leads, book recommendations, etc. with the people you know. For instance, if you read an article about grad school scholarships, forward it to your friend who is applying to PhD programs. If you come across a video of an interview with Bobby Flay, send the link to your former internship colleague who loves to barbecue. A small, kind, helpful gesture is a great way to keep in touch with people in an authentic, professional way.

3. Learn. I recently switched from a PC to a Mac and I swear I am learning how to do something new every five minutes. I can feel my brain expanding in new ways, and it feels great. Successful people are always looking to learn, from taking a tutorial on a technology product, to looking up a word they don’t know on Dictionary.com, to asking a question at a meeting. There is a saying to do one thing every day that scares you. I would add: do one thing every day that teaches you.

4. Write a to-do list at the end of each day. This is a habit I’ve only begun recently and I wish I’d learned it years ago. Take a few minutes at the end of each workday to write a list of priorities and to-dos for the following morning, including anything you didn’t accomplish that day. It’s a great opportunity to set yourself up for success in the morning and to make sure you don’t let anything fall through the cracks.

5. Relax. College is certainly a time of staying up late, running from classes to extra curriculars to the gym to parties, and surviving on coffee and Ramen noodles. But those habits are not sustainable over time. No one can work 20 hours a day for weeks at a time and perform at peak levels. No one can go 10 hours without eating and concentrate completely. Take time now to figure out what kind of relaxation is most effective for you. It might be yoga, power napping, playing video games, zoning out to music or something else. What matters is that you take time to recharge your batteries when you need it. Remember that your career is more like a decathlon than a sprint.

What other career habits do you recommend? Please share!

On Tuesday evening I gave a talk for students visiting New York City from American University. Besides the fact that I got to speak at a very cool venue – the stage of Caroline’s Comedy Club in Times Square – something else cool happened. When I asked how many students were on Twitter, almost half of the audience raised their hands.

Granted, it was a room of students seeking communications careers, who are more likely to enjoy the hyper-communication of Twitter. But, it was the first time I’ve seen so many college students involved in the three-year-old micro-blogging site.

If you haven’t yet checked out Twitter, you should. If you’re not familiar with Twitter, it’s a free social networking site that allows only 140 characters per announcement or “tweet.” Get rid of any preconceived notions you might have that Twitter is a waste of time where people post silly messages about their cats and what they had for breakfast. While some people do tweet about nonsense, there are many, many other people whose tweets can be incredibly valuable to your career.

My philosophy is that I follow people on Twitter for three reasons:

- I follow people I admire or whom I want to work with someday, so I can learn what those people are thinking or talking about.

- I follow people who tweet out great career advice and help me learn something new.

- I follow people who share interesting news, articles and announcements that help me stay up-to-date in my industry or the world in general.

You can follow this same strategy by following professionals you admire, companies you’d like to work for someday, career advisors who provide free advice and news outlets that will keep you up-to-date on current events. While there are hundreds of people I could recommend, part of the fun of Twitter is making your own unique list of people to follow. To help get you started I’ve put together a list of 10 of my favorite college-to-career tweeters:

www.twitter.com/lindseypollak - that’s me!

http://twitter.com/MyPath_Manpower - Tweets, news and updates from all of my fellow bloggers here at MyPath.

http://twitter.com/alevit - Alexandra Levit is the author of “They Don’t Teach Corporate in College” and many other career advice books for young professionals.

http://twitter.com/CAREEREALISM - Careerealism offers loads of advice from a variety of career experts, all in one Twitter feed.

http://twitter.com/DanSchawbel - Dan Schawbel is founder of the Student Branding Blog and tweets about personal branding for college students and recent grads.

http://twitter.com/InternQueen - InternQueen is a great resource for – you guessed it – internships.

http://twitter.com/SalaryExpert - SalaryExpert’s tweets help you answer that dreaded question, “What are your salary requirements?”

http://twitter.com/Under30CEO - Under 30 CEO offers inspiring tweets that motivate you to go for your biggest career goals.

http://twitter.com/willyf - Willy Franzen is the founder of One Day, One Job and One Day, One Internship – sites that share information about one potential employer every day.

http://twitter.com/WSJcareers - Wise advice from contributors to the Wall Street Journal Career Journal.

Who else do you recommend for career-minded college students to follow on Twitter? Please share in the comments section below!

I spent this morning facilitating a focus group with a dynamic group of college students and recent grads. Not only was it fun to sit in a room with a two-sided mirror (I felt like I was in a Law and Order interrogation room!), but it was also incredibly enlightening about the opinions of experiences of career-minded young professionals.

One of the topics we discussed was LinkedIn.com, the professional social network (full disclosure: I am a campus spokesperson for LinkedIn). I was really surprised to hear that some of the students in the focus group described LinkedIn as "only for highly experienced professionals."

This couldn't be farther from the truth. LinkedIn is a fantastic tool if you are just starting out in your career. In this week's podcast I share five tips that will help you make the most of this popular and powerful professional online network.

Click here to listen to the podcast now. Please share your comments, and any LinkedIn questions or additional tips, below!

At Thanksgiving dinner next week your parents and other relatives are bound to ask, "How's that job search coming along?"

While some young people fear this question, I encourage you to embrace it. Why not use your family's interest as an opportunity? If you're comfortable asking your loved ones for help, there are several ways you can enlist their support -- appropriately -- in your job search efforts.

Here are three examples of how your mom, dad and other family members can lend a hand in your job hunt. Listen to these and other tips in my new podcast.

1. Proofreading. You can never have too many people checking your resume, cover letters, grad school applications, social networking profiles and any other professional content you've created. If your parents have good grammar and spelling abilities, ask them to check some of your career-related writing and to make sure your online image is ready for prime time.

2. Rehearsing for interviews. Your parents or relatives (particularly anyone you know who has experience interviewing job seekers) can help you prepare for any upcoming interviews by running through questions, helping to choose an appropriate interview outfit or videotaping your answers.

3. Making networking connections. Your family members definitely count as part of your professional network. Ask everyone at the Thanksgiving table if they’d be willing to brainstorm any of their contacts who might be helpful for you. You’d be amazed at how many people come to mind when they really think about it.

Some people aren’t comfortable asking their parents for help and connections—it’s fine if you feel this way, and of course there are lots of other connections you can access. But if you are comfortable networking with your family, then I hope you'll spend some time talking about your job search while you're gobbling down your turkey.

For my first blog post and podcast for MyPath, I wanted to address the biggest career issue facing college students and recent grads today: getting a job in the worst recession in decades.

While I wish I could offer some secret playbook that I've been saving for a bad economy, the reality is that you have to use the same job search strategies you've always used to find a job. However, you have to use them in a way that is smarter, faster and better than you've ever done before.

• Being smarter means being more strategic about where you look for job opportunities and what kinds of opportunities you seek. Be sure to cast the widest net possible and think broadly about where you can work and where you'll come across job postings.

• Being faster means jumping at opportunities when they arise. Return all phone calls and emails promptly, show up early to job fairs and networking events and apply immediately when you find a job posting that suits your skills and experience.

• Being better means avoiding common job seeker mistakes. Proofread all documents and email messages, make sure your contact methods are 100 percent professional and check any online profiles for inappropriate content.

For more tips on being smarter, faster and better, listen to my recent podcast.

Next week I'll be back with more tips for making a successful transition from college to career!