7 Things College Grads MUST Do Online to Be Employable

Online job seekers need profile cleanups, but college grads need it even more

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Recent college grads are up against the toughest job market seen in a generation. As much as the job outlook can make things difficult for job seekers, there is one area where grads need to make sure doesn’t impede them in their quest for work. And that would be social media.

Younger people tend to say what is on their minds without regard to what other people think. That may work when you’re being anonymous, but if your online profile syncs with who you really are, then you have a problem that must be dealt with.

Businesses today have caught on to what the Internet is all about and are employing sophisticated methods to gather information about job candidates through the internet. Damaging details related to your political life, religion, community activities, etc. can short-circuit your job search, in most cases without you ever learning the reasons why no job was offered. You never know who's reading about you on facebook, twitter, linkedin, why not be prepared? When job searching online as a college grad you must also be ready to have your online profile ready, clean, and essentially fit to be employed.

7 Steps To Repairing Your Online Image

1. Clean Up Your Profiles

Your online profile tells readers something about you. Trouble is, some of the information you share could be held against you. Make a point to visit your favorite social media sites to see if anything untoward needs to be removed.

2. Use A Professional Email Address

Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo each make for very good free mail sites, but it is often the choice of email address that causes problems. Several years back I posted a resume online for a young woman, but not before I told her to use a different email address besides her oh-so-sexy-lips AT hermail.com address.

3. Update Your Photographs

Avatars are fine as long as they aren’t unprofessional. But unprofessional photographs can sink you too. If you’re looking for work, then have the photograph that best represents who you are online. You may look fine in a bikini, but you won’t be wearing that “suit” to the office!

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Job outlook brightens for college grads

Job prospects improving, sources say

This post was written by Tom Zanki and was reprinted with permission from lehighvalleylive.com

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Here is a sign of encouragement for college seniors: The jobs outlook for the class of 2011 is getting brighter, a new survey shows.

The National Association of Colleges and Employers says companies plan to hire 13.5 percent more graduates from next year's class than they did this year.


The latest results don't indicate robust growth, said Ed Koc, director of research at Bethlehem-based NACE, but they show clear improvement from the dismal trends of the recent past.

Employers this year only hired 5 percent more college graduates than they did in 2009, which was a particularly weak year, he said.

"The general economy is still fairly negative," Koc said. "But it seems to be improving a bit quicker with respect to college hiring."

The survey's hiring index scored a 126.4; anything over 100 represents a projected increase. The same survey scored 86.8 at this time last year.

Koc said NACE, which researches hiring trends of college graduates nationwide, follows up each spring to match projections with actual results.

"If the projections turn out to be accurate, it will be a solid year," he said.

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New Grads Make Sure You're "Covered"

Three Rules for Writing an Effective Cover Letter

By Frances Cole Jones for DivineCaroline.com

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At the moment, college graduates nationwide are sending cover letters far and wide—many of which came to me for pre-sending inspection. Based on what I saw, I put together the following list of three things every college graduate should keep in mind:

1. HR Directors aren’t there to make your dreams come true

Don’t begin by saying what you hope to gain by joining their firm, or that you’re sure a career in X will fulfill your goals/meet your expectations. Instead, state in your opening paragraph how and why your skills/experience/education is going to make their life better. For example, “Your job description states you are looking for someone who can do X. Not only can I do X, but I can do Y.”

2. Have the values/skills you claim you have

Don’t say you’re a go-getter and then never follow up after you send the cover letter. Don’t say you have a strong network in banking if you’ve only held internship positions, and don’t claim you have tech skills that can be checked by someone saying, “Let’s have you take a crack at that right now.” Paragraph two should give specifics about the actual values/skills you embody/possess.


3. Close with Your Hard/Soft Skill Mix

Companies frequently have several choices about who CAN do the job (the hard skills) so their choice becomes: which candidate will be a good team member/colleague? (the soft skills) Consequently, I recommend closing your letter with the phrase, “Given my work experience, my education, and my life experience, I believe I have the combination of hard and soft skills required to add immediate value to your firm.”

Since HR Directors know most students get help with their resumes, cover letters are looked at even more closely. Following these three rules ensures yours will stand up to scrutiny.

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How to Write a Resume With Fast Food Experience

No job is too small for your resume

This post was written by Julie O'Malley, a Content Writer and Certified Professional Resume Writer (CPRW) at PongoResume.com. It originally appeared on The Pongo Blog on May 12, 2010.

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Fast food service may be the classic stereotype of an unskilled job, but plenty of people have launched their professional lives by flipping burgers, making pizzas, or doling out donuts.

It might feel as if you're just pressing buttons and wrapping up greasy products while wearing a silly hat. But fast food experience is actually a good way to develop a variety of skills that can transfer into other fields.

Here are 10 resume-worthy descriptions of fast food skills you might not have considered:

1. Maintained high standards of customer service during high-volume, fast-paced operations
2. Communicated clearly and positively with coworkers and management
3. Mastered point-of-service (POS) computer system for automated order taking
4. Handled currency and credit transactions quickly and accurately
5. Followed procedures for safe food preparation, assembly, and presentation
6. Assisted management with inventory control and stock ordering
7. Built loyal clientele through friendly interactions and consistent appreciation
8. Resolved complaints promptly and professionally
9. Cross-trained and coordinated scheduling with team members to ensure seamless service
10. Took initiative to find extra tasks when scheduled duties were completed

It's not that you're trying to fool anyone. After all, as soon as someone sees Tastee McBurger Palace on your resume, they'll know what was in your job description.

But if you describe your experience in professional terms, you'll set yourself apart by showing that you understand—and possess—the skills and traits that can make someone a valuable employee in any field.

Need Resume Help? Professional help is a click away… Learn More

Are there other resume-worthy fast food skills that should be on this list? If you've made the transition from fast food into a different field, post a comment below to let us know what you think!

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5 Common Job Fair Mistakes Recent Graduates Make

Learn to conquer the career fair

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Job fairs or Career fairs can often seem quite simple for many job seekers. It looks like all you have to do is walk up to a company representative, state your name, give them your resume, and you're done. On the contrary, job fairs are not as simple as one might think - in fact there are many mistakes job seekers make at these events. Below we've listed the top 5 mistakes made at job fairs and what you should do to avoid them.

#1: Don’t have your elevator pitch nailed down

Before you walk into any career fair you need to have your elevator pitch nailed. In fact, you need two versions of you pitch. The first version should be the 10-second pitch. The 10 second pitch is what you tell someone as you are introducing yourself. You also need your 60 second pitch. This is your more detailed discussion of your background, accomplishments, and what you are looking for. If you don’t have these two pitches nailed down, you are likely wasting your time. Career fairs are packed with people who are very focused and prepared.

#2: Have not researched the companies that are attending

Most career fairs provide a list of companies that will be attending. Before you attend a career fair you must (1) review this list; (2) identify companies you are interested in; and (3) research those companies. You should never go into a career fair without doing your research. Think of the career fair as a preliminary interview. The representatives of each company are looking for candidates that standout from the masses. Those candidates that are well informed distinguish themselves. Because you may visit numerous companies, you cannot be expected to be as prepared as you would be for a first round interview; however, you need to know much more than where they are located and what type of business they are involved in. Prepare notes on each company. Review them before you approach their table. Check our article on how to research a prospective employer by clicking here

#3: Didn't bring enough copies of your resume

You don’t go to a gunfight with too few bullets in your gun. You don’t go to a career fair with too few resumes. You should bring as many resumes as possible. Bring twice what you need. If this means copying your resume on simple white paper, do it. If you come unprepared to a career fair, as a recruiter, I would think you might come unprepared to a client meeting.

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What’s the ‘Real World’ Really Like for College Grads?

Post-graduation reality check

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Throughout college, students are constantly being told to prepare for the “real world.” Learn this because you’ll use it in the “real world,” in the “real world” you’ll have to do this, in the “real world” you’ll have to do that, in the “real world” you’ll have bills, etc., etc. etc. … But what’s the “real world” really like for most recent grads?

For some lucky ones, you’ll move off to some fancy high-paying job with flexible hours and lots of vacation days, live in a brand new high-rise condo in the best part of town, meet lots of great and interesting people in a new city and continue to party like it’s 1999 at least three times a week like you did in college.

For the other 99.9 percent of us, life will be quite the opposite of this fantasyland …

The truth is that your first and biggest battle you’ll face after graduation is finding a job. In today’s economy it tends to take several months for recent grads to find a job. I was lucky enough to land this job about four and a half months after graduation but I still have friends who are on the hunt for a job in their field over a year past graduation. If you find yourself struggling to find a job I would offer this advice: don’t take it too personally or beat yourself up over it, it’s a bad economy and almost 10 percent of the country is out of work, so it’s probably not entirely your fault. Just be sure your resume and cover letters are personally tailored to each company you apply for and brush up on your interviewing skills.

The learning doesn’t stop because you’ve graduated, in fact, if you’re lucky enough to end up at the right job you’ll learn more in your first year of working than you learned in all four years of college. Always be eager to learn, it’ll help you in the long run and only make your job more interesting.

The monetary aspects of the “real world” can be both a nightmare and blast at the same time. On one hand you’ll be forced to make difficult decisions like what health insurance you’re going to dedicate a fourth of your pay check to and how much money you should put away each paycheck for retirement; neither of these questions is very sexy, but they’re important decisions recent grads are faced with in the “real world.” The beauty of having a steady job and paycheck is you have some leeway to spend your money at ease and rest assured that another paycheck is coming again soon. Unlike your college days, you can go out and rack up a $100 bar tab and still be able to eat the next week and afford to buy those great shoes you’ve been dreaming about without having to sell half of your life’s processions on e-bay!

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Weekly Poll: How often do you reconnect with your employment references?

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How often do you reconnect with your employment references? Vote below and comment!

17 Million College Grads Became Waitresses Or Flight Attendants

Different job routes surprise many

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As more students obtain bachelor's degrees, the importance of higher education is getting watered down. In fact, millions of graduates are settling for underemployment.

Richard Vedder of The Chronicles of Higher Education writes, "Some 17,000,000 Americans with college degrees are doing jobs that the Bureau of Labor Statistics says require less than the skill levels associated with a bachelor’s degree." These alumns are becoming flight attendants, retail sales people, and even shampooers at hair salons.

There's no denying that a college degree is criterion for most empowered careers. But for a lot of people that go through the traditional school system, the outcome isn't paying off.

"There is growing disconnect between labor market realities and the propaganda of higher-education apologists is causing more and more people to graduate and take menial jobs or no job at all," says Vedder.

In short, a college degree doesn't guarantee a happy, middle-class life. Christopher Matgouranis of The Center for College Affordability and Productivity takes it one step further. He writes, "This is basic empirical evidence that we have produced too many college graduates. The promise of a bachelor’s degree falls short when people end up doing things that they could have done without attending college."

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http://www.businessinsider.com/17-million-kids-went-to-college-and-became-waitresses-or-flight-attendants-2010-11

Is My Job Search Doomed if I Don’t Have a Network?

Job search fact or fiction?

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Your job search is not doomed, but without networking you are doomed to suffer a longer more difficult one.

Although networking is important, it is only one piece in a multiple-channel job search marketing strategy. You help yourself best by working all your channels. Some other channels are:

- Online networking portholes such as LinkedIn, Facebook and MySpace

- Recruiters and Search Firms

- Job sites such as Indeed, LocalJobNetwork, Ladders and CareerBuilder

- Targeted mailing and Informational Interviewing

- Career Fairs, Trade Associations, and Community Organizations

Nevertheless, many jobs are found by being at the right place at the right time and that means a lot of deliberate networking. Some may say, “Being at the right place at the right time is all luck.” I don’t. I say it is resultant of “preparation” meeting “opportunity.” If you are not prepared, you may have opportunities looking you in the face and never know it; or you may recognize an opportunity and not be prepared to take advantage. It is only when preparation and opportunity meet you are likely to win a job.

The caveat: Opportunity is actually a compound-variable in the equation. The other piece to “opportunity” is “time.” In other words, you can be in a lot of right places (potential opportunities) and be prepared for each, but without a crystal ball you will not know it’s the right time until you get there. So, you must be in a lot of right places at ONE time. Implementing a strategy using multiple channels simultaneously will virtually have you in many places at one time. Equation solved! Of course everyone will say, “You were lucky.” I’ll say, “You were prepared.”

As for the networking piece of the simultaneous multiple-channel marketing strategy…


I will tell you what I tell those who have substantial networks and still suffer hard times: Make it easy for others to help you and they will. Whether you are looking to build a network or jump-starting a stalled (existing) network, here are several tips that can help:

1. Start building permanent relationships while you are still employed.

2. Become known in professional associations.

3. Reacquaint yourself with peers in other companies.

4. Push out emails to update friends and acquaintance.

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Should I Use My Money for Investing?

College grad investing advice

This guest post was written by Go Banking Rates, bringing you informative personal finance content and helpful tools, as well as the best interest rates on financial services nationwide.

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Investing in the stock market is tricky at any time, but when working with little money in the midst of a tough economy, the prospect becomes that much more challenging. Of course, this doesn't mean that you can't do it at all. You just have to make smart decisions along the way. So let's take a look at what types of investments could be a good bet for you as a person starting out with a little to work with.

Understanding Investing

The cool thing about investing is that despite the rumors you may have heard from friends or even in the media, it's not as hard as you think. In fact, it can be downright fun when you understand what's going on and begin to see a return.

There are some things you need to understand before diving in to avoid big mistakes. First, know how smart investing works. In your case, making good investments means the following:

• Starting with an amount that's comfortable for you.
• Minimizing taxes and transaction fees.
• Making money not just in the short term, but with long-term goals.

If you can keep these ideas in mind, you are well on your way.

You Can Start with $100 or Less

So you've probably always assumed that you need thousands of dollars in liquid funds in order to invest in anything from stocks, bonds or mutual funds. In actuality, you only need a little bit-- $100 gives you a great start.

Here are some tips on how to get this done:

• Do a little homework: Look at the differences between stocks, bonds, mutual funds, ETFs and more investment options to see which you feel most comfortable with. For instance, stocks are much riskier than bonds, while mutual funds can be a blend of the two. In looking at the options out there, you can decide how risky you want you first investment to be.
• Start with online brokers: Another great starting point is to sign up with an online broker. Some good options include ShareBuilder and Zecco. ShareBuilder allows you to trade for $4 and $9.95 to sell with no minimum account size. Zecco also does not require a minimum account size and charges $4.50 per trade. These sites also offer free investing tips that can help you along the way.

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10 Things College Has Taught Grads About Life

College life examined in a different light

1. Dorms

College is a time of extreme freedom but, let’s face it, not everything about college screams unfettered space. Students don’t usually have a lot of extra money and that means that their personal space is limited. In fact, the average college student has bunked down in a dorm room. According to the 2000 census, about 2 million students were crashing in dormitories or residence halls. The 2010 census is not yet complete, but expect to see those numbers balloon with an increase of college attendance coupled with a recession keeping people out of the labor market and in school.

As we all know, dorms are crowded, often messy places. They teach us that sometimes it really is time to do that laundry and take out the garbage. Sure, your mom isn’t nagging you, but your roommate sure is. Dorms force us into close confines with strangers, they teach us to adapt to new environments and to interact with myriad personalities in tight quarters. Proper dorm etiquette will prepare you for your first real job where you will spend most of your time in small spaces with a variety of people. Whether you are in a very collegiate start-up environment or a corporate cube-farm, your dorm room will have prepared you to share limited resources like: bathrooms, refrigerators, and common areas with people that you didn’t necessarily choose yourself.

Click here to read the article "5 Tips for Your First Real Job"

2. Drinking

Like in college, the modern professional is presented with plenty of opportunities to have a few pints, pitchers, or cocktails after work. Unlike your fraternity pledge master however, your work supervisor will find it much less entertaining if you show up for the job late, hung-over, or generally unproductive. Sure, you could order that last call drink on a Wednesday night… but Thursday morning will come awfully fast and you won’t have the option of just skipping this class. Save big nights for the weekend, and definitely avoid keg stands at all company parties – even if your inverted shot gunning skills are the pride of Iowa.

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Weekly Poll: Will the Republican majority in the House help or hurt the economy?

The Republicans had a huge win in the midterm elections recently, so how do you think this will impact the future economic policies that will come out of The White House? Will the Republicans help the economy recover or hurt it in the process? Vote below and comment!

15 Twitter Job Search Apps for New Grads

Tweet your way to a new job

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From the standpoint of a job seeker, if used correctly, Twitter can turn your job search from feeling like the dreaded fail whale to landing you the job of your dreams. With the right tools Twitter can become a never-ending source of information to assist you along your way.

Other than Tweeting about your job search and putting your job pitch in your bio, here are 15 Twitter Applications and Tricks to help you along the path (keep in mind there are hundreds of applications for Twitter and most of them can be used in someway or another for a job search, these are just the ones I found most interesting):

1. ConnectTweet – See what is going on inside the doors of a potential company, through the Tweets of their employees. ConnectTweet allows individuals at the front lines of the company to add a #tag to their company relevant tweets, those tagged tweets are then filtered and posted to the companies @org’s Twitter account, allowing the company’s followers to clearly see the human voices on the inside.

2. TwitterJobCast – A local job search that allows you to see who is hiring on Twitter by browsing for jobs by city, state or zip code. It works by making requests to the Twitter API. Additionally, the Yahoo! Maps API is used to translate locations into geocodes for use with the Twitter API.

3. TwitterJobSearch – An open source search engine for jobs posted on Twitter, TwitterJobSearch has posted 44,165 new jobs in the last 7 days. Many of the jobs listed are tech related jobs, but through their search you can look for the position you want in the city you want.

4. Twellow – Also know as the Yellow Pages for Twitter it allows you to cut through the clutter Twitter sometimes creates. It enables you to find real people who really matter. The Twellow service grabs publically available messages from Twitter, analyzes and then categorizes the tweets into categories. By using this service you can narrow your searching to specific niches and find who you are looking for, that way you can follow specific Tweeters and network your heart away.

5. TweetBeep – “TweetBeep is like Google Alerts for Twitter” TweetBeep is very simple, you signup for an account, confirm your email and set up alerts to be delivered to your email. Want to know whenever someone posts a job for a Java Dev? Set up and alert for that and you will be notified through email on a daily or hourly basis.

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Six Alumni Run Ad Agency

College Grads Show They Can Make It

This post was written by Frederick Holl, a writer at The Daily Reveille.

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Red Six Media is operated out of the University's business incubator — a program of the Louisiana Business and Technology Center that helps small businesses get started — by six University alumni. And they have a mission: to take a company, brand it and make it more than just a company.

They accomplish this across all platforms and in every detail, from advertising to logo creation to social media integration and graphic design. They've worked with organizations like Counter Culture, Electronic Arts and the United Way.

The idea was born when five of the six members were in an advertising capstone class together where they crafted an advertising campaign and participated in a national competition.

"This group was one of the more close-knit groups I've ever taught," said former instructor of the class Lance Porter, mass communication professor.

Kristen Morrison, account executive at Red Six, said she was trying to decide between job offers when she realized the team had an opportunity most recent grads don't even think about.

So she gathered the team, and they took Porter out to The Chimes. After a discussion over dinner, Red Six was formed.

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Job Networking Tips Every Job Seeker Should Know (video)

How job seekers can network better

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Job hunting online or offline is tough and in this economy, it's even tougher. Many people know that a huge number of jobs are filled through job networking, but what most job seekers do not know is how to effectively network for a job. Learn some great tips by watching this video and get the job you want!




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http://www.monkeysee.com/play/12630-job-hunting-networking-tips