Welcome to MyPath

Today I spoke with Jordan Friedman, a nationally recognized stress management expert and creator of www.dotcalm.me.

Don't miss this great opportunity to learn how to keep calm and stay healthy, even during the stresses of college, job hunting and building a successful career. Jordan answers many important questions, such as:

• What is stress anyway?
• Isn’t some stress good?
• Are today’s college students more stressed than students in the past?
• What’s the best ways to reduce stress, short-term and longer term?

Take a few deep breaths and listen to the podcast now!

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.

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!

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!