2011 Best Places to Work

From Experience.com

Experience invited employers from across the country to participate in the 2011 Best Places to Work for Recent Grads survey, and the winners are in! This exciting initiative is dedicated to identifying and recognizing the best employers for recent college graduates. As a whole, these 20 organizations offered outstanding training programs, sweet paychecks, and extraordinary opportunities for rapid career growth. Here’s a detailed look at this year’s winners (sorted alphabetically) – including some new and familiar faces to the chart.

Dos and Don’ts for Creating Your Online Presence

By Denene Brox, Salary.com contributing writer

Many of us live a large part of our lives online. So it’s no wonder that your online presence can have a major influence on your career success. If your present or potential employer searched for you online, what would they find? Would those search results reveal a professional with many marketable skills? Or could the results do more harm than good for your career?

Keep reading to learn the essential dos and don’ts for creating (or updating) your online presence.

14 Common Job Hunting Blunders

by Dawn Dugan, Salary.com contributing writer

Whether you are just starting your professional life or are a seasoned pro looking to make a savvy career move, whether you are between jobs or simply feeling the need to move on, the quality of your job hunt will determine your level of success.

If you’re a serious job hunter, you’ve probably read plenty of books and articles on job seeking steps that will give you the leading edge.  But do you know what actions might put the kibosh on your quest? This article explores 14 job hunting mistakes to avoid.

3 Things That Will Get You Hired

Originally posted on NewGradLife

It is simple – the way to stand out and get hired is to understand what a hiring manager goes through. Today, two or three times as many applications and resumes are received for virtually every open job; hiring managers are buried under reams of paper or thousands of e-mails. So, what would make his job easier? What would get his attention? What would make you stand out?

It won’t be resumes submitted on colored paper or including movie tickets with your application. It will be by ensuring that the hiring manager quickly, easily and accurately knows these three important things about you: how you perform, how you fit and what value you will provide.

Step back for a minute and borrow a little from Stephen Covey, author the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People: “start with the end in mind.” What is your real goal of submitting an application or resume? It is to convince the hiring manager that you are the right person for the job because your performance will drive the greatest value for the company. This requires that you know what you are good at (your talents), what jobs need your talents (to see whether you fit) and how your performance can impact company value. Knowing this helps you to apply for the right jobs – jobs that allow you to maximize your performance and value. When you clearly present this information, you make the hiring manager’s review process easier, more effective and more conclusive. You get his attention. You stand out. This is how to get hired.

To learn more about the three things that get you hired, or to read the article in its entirety, please click here.

More College Graduates Take Public Service Jobs

By Catherine Rampell
New York Times – Business Day

A great article published earlier this month on studies that highlighted the recent trend for seeing more college graduates taking jobs in the public service and nonprofit sectors, due both to the economy and for personal reasons.  This would be a good read for any upcoming graduate, or one interested in working in the nonprofit sector.  To view the article in full, please click here.

“Thursday Night Career Series”

In an effort to try and reach out to students and alumni that may not be able to access the Career Center during the day, the Career Center will be starting a “Career Night” workshop series on Thursday nights that will focus on a different topic each week. All workshops will be held in the Career Center (Lightsey Building, Room 216) from 5:30 – 6:30pm. Below is a full list of the Spring 2011 workshops, and if you should have any questions about them, please contact Eric Anderson, Career Center Advisor, at 953-5693 / andersone@cofc.edu.

Spring 2011 Career Night Workshop Series

Five Essential Online Social Networking Tips: How to Use LinkedIn to Your Advantage

From Job and Career Accelerator
by Miriam Salpeter

LinkedIn is more than a place to publish and store your resume online. It is a network that offers an opportunity to connect with thousands (even millions) of people who provide the potential for job leads and hiring opportunities.

For those who view LinkedIn as a “set it and forget it” network, it is time to revisit a site that is constantly updating and reinventing itself, and providing new tools for job seekers. Here are five of LinkedIn’s best features that jobseekers may be overlooking:

1. Jacqui Barrett-Poindexter of Career Trend collected several ideas to help use LinkedIn well, including advice from Hannah Morgan, career consultant and strategist at Career Sherpa, to “selectively join and participate in LinkedIn groups where you can give and receive value.” It is easy to join groups on LinkedIn. Just click on “groups” in the top navigation bar. LinkedIn even suggests “groups you may like” and provides a searchable directory. There are bound to be multiple potential groups to join, but it is a good idea to be selective. Encourage jobseekers to review groups and assess:

• How many members belong?
• How active the group is. How many posts and news items are listed? Do people seem actively engaged?
• Is the group carefully monitored? While a group that requires permission to join may seem like an unwelcome barrier, it is a sign that someone cares a lot about the group, and is willing to invest time in making sure it is useful and its membership is monitored.

Have job seekers choose several groups to join that seem to promise ongoing interaction, and then participate actively. Review contributions, make comments, add news and discussion items, and answer questions. Doing so helps raise a job seeker’s profile in a community of his or her peers, and may make it more likely to learn about useful job leads.

2.Did you know that you can follow companies on LinkedIn? Have job seekers navigate to the “More” tab on LinkedIn’s toolbar and select companies from the dropdown. This feature makes it easy to learn when people either join or leave an organization. Following a company also allows a job seeker to review activity from the organization’s employees. A user may be able to learn when and where a company’s employees are speaking at events, what conferences they attend, and what books they read (depending on how many share and update this information on their profiles).

3. LinkedIn recently introduced several new sections as part of their profiles. A user may now include the following information in its own section, which helps make it easier for people to find and search. Be sure to have job seekers add these sections to their profiles if they are relevant:

• Certifications
• Languages
• Patents
• Publications
• Skills

4. Job seekers should use all of their LinkedIn real estate to their advantage. By only including basic information or a few sentences in the summary and specialties sections, prime real estate is wasted.  It is important to include details that will make it easier for people to find the job seeker. I strongly suggest completing a profile with in-depth information that anyone who might want to hire a job seeker will find useful.

5. Remember, recruiters and employers will only find a job seeker if they use keywords in their profile. Craig Fisher, a former recruiter and current Vice President of Business Development at People Report explains, “As a job seeker, you need keywords in your Linkedin profile that will be specific to your niche, in order to help separate yours from the hundreds of less targeted profiles….Having these listed multiple times in your profile will help it come up at the top of the search results.”

Following these suggestions will help ensure that a job seeker is using LinkedIn’s tools to his or her best advantage!  It will also help to insure that one’s main areas of interests and skills are appropriately matched with the correct job leads and contacts, and ultimately the best job.

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Did you know that the Career Center has a Student and Alumni Career Mentor Network group on LinkedIn? To learn more about how you can join, please click here.

Top Promotion Secrets for Career Advancement

From JobsJournal.com and Employment Crossing:

Do you think that just by doing a fabulous job you have done enough? Do you think that just by being dedicated in your work and contributing great value you will grow in your career? Do you think that it does not matter if people do not know you? Think again. In this competitive world, the one who is in the spotlight is the one who gains the most.

Everything you do needs to be showcased. It’s true that hard work pays, but until and unless you promote your skills and abilities to the world around you, you will note grow in your career at the rate at which you deserve to.

Get started with promoting yourself:

Creative Problem-solving:
Whenever you are faced with a problem, the last thing you should do is to run from it. Look at problems in a different light. Distance yourself and take a good look at the problem, analyze it, and try and come up with a range of ideas that would effectively solve the problem. Now that you have the solutions, make sure that others know about it. Make use of conversations, emails, meeting, and practically any other means of communicating it to people who make a difference. Once you do this, others will start appreciating you for your efforts and will begin to consider you as a creative problem solver who has the ability to overcome challenges. It is a great opportunity to promote yourself, don’t let go of it.

Volunteering:
One of the most effective ways to make yourself recognized at the work place is to volunteer for taking up assignments that showcase your skills. The more challenging the project, the greater is the opportunity you have to make yourself known. Also, look out for those tasks that display your leadership, interpersonal and management skills ‘ these make an immense impact on others. Also, make sure you keep the managing heads posted on these efforts.

Make an announcement about your wishes:
It is absolutely fine letting others know that you wish to be promoted. Career influencers sometimes are not aware of what is it that you want and may not give you that promotion. Be direct. Approach them. Tell them that you wish to go to the next level. Ask them for their advice and guidance. Tell them to critically assess your skills and get to know how you need to get ready for the next level.

Try and do the ‘Next Level’ work:
You want a promotion? Then start doing work that is required of the next level. If you are in the entry level in your job and wish to become a manager, then ask your manager to guide you and mentor you for that level. Remember that your manager can go to the next level if he or she has someone to fill their post. Be clear about what you want to achieve and work towards it. In this way both sides can gain from it.

iGrad Best Career, Money, and Lifestyle Blogs 2010

From IGrad.com

To close out 2010, iGrad rounded up 30 of their favorite blogs for 20-somethings, on topics including personal finance, careers, lifestyle, and post-college life.

Best Career Blogs of 2010

• How to Use the New Facebook Profile to Get Hired
• Forget New Year’s Resolutions: How to Set Real Goals to Advance Your Career
• The Beginner’s Guide to Goal Setting
• Sorta Like Carmen Sandiego
• Spin Master
• The Worst Gift-Giving Guide Ever
• When Cover Notes Work Better Than Cover Letters
• TwitLink Your Way to a New Job

Best Personal Finance Blogs

• Hustlin’ case study: How to get into your dream organization – after getting rejected
• The Best & Worst of 2010: Money, Debt & Attempted Robbery
• All I Want for Christmas
• Financial Mistakes to Avoid in 2011
• How Do You Hope to Improve Your Finances Next Year?

Best Social Media and Blogging Blogs

• Conversation Starter: How do you feel about pimping?
• The Long Term Consequences of Your Short-Term Actions
• Bloggers Behaving Badly: Leslie A. Joy

Best Lifestyle Blogs

• Waiting for the Smiths
• Guest Post – You Don’t Need to Settle 
• The Nitty-Gritty of World-Changing Writing
• Standing Still
• Fear, Exposed – Featuring Susan Finch
• 2010 Annual Review: Braving the Rearview Mirror
• Mired in Quarterlife Crisis
• The Way I Travel

Best College, Post-College (and Beyond) Blogs

• A Letter from my Future Self
• 8 Job Search Tips to Remember
• Correlative Conjunctions: Can You Both Have Your Cake and Eat It Too?
• The Yummiest Comfort Food Recipes (That Aren’t Bad for You)
•  Transfer Friendly College Spotlight: Emory University

If you want to read more about these blogs, or write yourself for iGrad, please learn more by contacting them or visiting them on the web.

Job Outlook: Verbal Communication Skills Most Sought by Employers

From NACELink Spotlight Online:

New college graduates looking to crack the still-tight job market need to hone their verbal communication skills, say employers taking part in NACE’s Job Outlook 2011 survey. Survey respondents indicate that verbal communication skills topped the list of “soft” skills they seek in new college graduates looking to join their organizations, followed by strong work ethic, teamwork skills, analytical skills, and initiative.

Interestingly, when asked how satisfied they were that new college graduates could deliver on key skills, employer response was mixed. They reported being “very satisfied” with the teamwork and analytical skills of new college graduates, but verbal communication skills, initiative, and a strong work ethic all fell below that level, with ratings hovering between “somewhat” and “very satisfied.” 

Even if candidates can deliver on those top five skills, employers have a fairly substantial list of other skills they deem as important and other attributes they seek. In fact, employers rated nine other skills/qualities as “very important”’ to “extremely important,” and most cited GPA requirements and a preference for new graduates with internship or other relevant work experience. For more, see NACE’s Job Outlook 2011 report.

Figure 1: Employers Rank Top 5 Candidate Skills/Qualities

1. Verbal Communication Skills
2. Strong Work Ethic
3. Teamwork Skills
4. Analytical Skills
5. Initiative

**Source: Job Outlook 2011, National Association of Colleges and Employers.