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College to Career: Your Guide to Starting Out

4 Posts tagged with the social_networking tag

Come listen in on my conversation with Pete Kistler, the founder of Brand-Yourself.com, who was named one of Entrepreneur magazine's Top 5 College Entrepreneur of 2009. He joins me to talk about personal branding as it relates to college students and young professionals.

 

In this podcast, we define personal branding, talk about Pete’s own personal branding process and explain why students and young professionals need to think about your personal brand -- especially the image you’re projecting online.

 

For more on this topic, here are two great new resources that can help you create and enhance all aspects of your personal brand:

 

PricewaterhouseCoopers Personal Brand Week - a terrific collection of downloadable worksheets to help you create an elevator pitch, express your passion, build a network, promote yourself online and more. PwC is also collecting free personal branding advice on Twitter with the hashtag #pwcpbw.

 

Student Branding Blog - a new resource expressly designed to help college students with personal branding. This site was created by Dan Schawbel, who also launched the Personal Branding Blog.

 

Click here to listen to this week's podcast.

 

How have you approached personal branding as a student or young professional? As always, I welcome your comments below!

0 Comments Permalink Tags: career, jobs, social_networking, work, college, personal_brand, advice

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!

2 Comments Permalink Tags: college, job_search, career, social_networking, generation_y, job_search

I’ve always loved new beginnings -- the first day of a new month, the turning of a new season, even the sunrise of a new day (on the rare occasion I’m up early enough to see it). Of course there is no bigger new beginning than the turning of the calendar to January 1.

 

This year in particular, the New Year feels like a crucial fresh start. 2009 will go down in the books as one of the hardest years ever for job seekers, especially those looking for entry-level work. If you’ve had a tough time in 2009, or even if it’s been a great year for you, here are some tips for starting 2010 on a successful note.

 

Out With the Old. To make room for new things in your life (a great job, fresh ideas, more money, a strong network, etc.) you need to get rid of any clutter that is weighing you down. This might include critical people, a job that drains your energy, college junk piled in your closet or self-defeating thoughts like “I’ll never get a job in this economy.” For inspiration, check out two of my favorite resources on the topic of simplifying and decluttering: the Zen Habits Blog and Julie Morgenstern’s book, Shed Your Stuff, Change Your Life.

 

Set Quality (not Quantity) Goals. We all know that New Year’s resolutions are generally forgotten by February. So, instead of making a long list of “rules” for my year, I prefer to declare three to five big goals or priorities. I keep them in a little note file on my computer and on a little card pasted on the inside cover of the notebook I use every day. I peek at my list constantly to remind myself what my priorities are, how I want to spend my time and what opportunities I should not pursue. If you need help clarifying your goals, check out Your Best Year Yet! Ten Questions for Making the Next Twelve Months Your Most Successful Ever.

 

Do One Career-Related Thing Every Day. This is a piece of advice I share in every workshop I lead and with every student who asks for my most important career tip: take daily action. Just like being healthy or learning an instrument or excelling at a sport, being successful in your career requires daily commitment and daily action. Here are some to consider:
•    reading a career advice article on MyPath
•    attending a local networking event
•    tweeting out a career-related question to your Twitter followers
•    posting a comment to a professional discussion group on LinkedIn
•    reaching out to an alum of your school for an informational interview
•    reading one chapter of a career advice book
•    setting up an appointment with your college career center

•    applying for a job

•    anything else you can think of!

 

Finally, please don’t hesitate to send me your career questions (and yes, sending me a question counts as a daily action!). I will be answering reader questions in upcoming “College to Career” blog posts and podcasts here in MyPath in 2010.

 

Happy New Year!

0 Comments Permalink Tags: career, job_search, networking, social_networking, job, linkedin, productivity, generation_y, jobs, advice

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!

4 Comments Permalink Tags: networking, college, linkedin, career, job_search, social_networking, generation_y

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