Sunday, January 31

Internships?

(me at my internship for a customer service photo shoot..and guess what..I ended up in an advertisement in photography magazines!)


Internships might just not be for college students anymore. It seems as though every article related to unemployment or job searching tips that I find myself pouring over are saying that internships are the new jobs (particularly for college grads!)

I remember watching The Pursuit of Happiness in college and thinking how horrible it must be as an adult to take an unpaid internship. But alas, here I find myself seriously considering taking part in an internship program. I think alot of people are finding themselves considering the option. I mean, there is nothing wrong with an internship! I had a wonderful, paid internship and learned alot from it. However, the thought of taking possibly an UNPAID internship scares the dickens out of me! That could have been a possibility whilst in school but it would be a tough option to not get paid. It scares me to think that money will be coming out of my bank account and not going in; no matter how well I save.

Let's just highlight some of the positives of an internships (which far outweigh the negatives):

-They are the middle ground for someone like me between having zero experience to having 5 pages worth of experience. Internships don't require you to have extensive experience. They create experience.
- Many internships lead to actual positions and if they don't they sure are a good resume booster and a good reference. That's why it is important to take your internship seriously and do your best work; even if you aren't getting paid.
- You can get a feel for what you want to do (or don't want to do). I've been looking at internships as a way to see what possible careers there are for me out there and how well I fit into those fields.
- They are generally part time. This is important for those of us who are absolutely broke. You could always pick up a few shifts waiting tables or working retail. It will be hard work to juggle an internship, a job, and a LIFE but it will pay off in the end.
- There are some amazing, crazy internships out there! I'm actually in the midst of applying for an internship with a travel company to travel for 3 months and document it. I'm also looking at Cross Cultural Solutions for internship opportunities in India and China (they have many other countries available.) You just have to seek these internships out. Thinking outside of the box is always beneficial.

Those are just a few of the benefits that came to my mind while I was weighing my options.

So, my dear unemployed (and employed) friends, what do you think about internships?

You can find internships all over the web. Remember to look on websites for industry associations. I know that the American Marketing Association has marketing specific job boards with internships.

And check out my FAVORITE resource for awesome internships and intern advice:

Intern Queen!!

Saturday, January 30

Give back.

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
Mahatma Gandhi

All you have to give is your time. And, as we unemployed folks know, we have plenty of that to spare. As I was selfishly moping and sulking about being jobless, I realized that there was a solution to the issue of feeling as though my days were wasted. I realized there was a way I could get out of the confines of my house AND make connections with others that want to make a positive impact on society. I could volunteer! It's not a novel idea or rocket science. However, when you are consumed with moping and sulking, helping people may not be on the forefront of your mind. I began my arduous task of picking just one volunteer opportunity that matched my skills and passions. I happened to find an organization in my area that needed some help with administrative duties and event planning. I can do that for sure! I filled out the application today and am excited to see what kind of experience it will be.

I just think that volunteering would be a really great way to pass those unemployed days. Here's why:

1. You are getting out of your house! For me, it doesn't help to be sitting at home just feeling all the more miserable about my jobless status. Get out of the house!!

2. You are doing good for people. I firmly believing in giving back to your community and to the world. I just think about all the times I've been helped in my life and what a difference that has made. Depending on what you are volunteering for, you are going to be helping people directly or indirectly (what I'll be doing) but either way you will be creating change and serving society in a better way.

3. Helping=Happiness: I've always noticed that every time I've volunteered for something or did something for another human being, it has always boosted my mood--even if I was never recognized for it or it was an anonymous type of thing. Doing something useful with your time can help fight those unemployment blues and help your community at the same time!

4. Resume Booster: Obviously this isn't the only reason you will be volunteering but the reality is that it is something to put on your resume and can be a possible reference. Work as hard as you would if it was a paid job. In a time when you can't find someone to pay you for your skills, volunteering is a great way to get experience to put on the resume. And if you are like me, you need all the resume boosting you can get! So find an organization to volunteer at that is a good fit and work hard!

5. You never know who you will meet: By volunteering, you are expanding your social circle. This is some of the best type of networking you can do. Make sure you maintain relationships with these people and remain professional while volunteering. Work hard and refrain from complaining! You never know who these people might know!

Have any of you had some great experiences volunteering? Do share!

A few great resources:

Volunteer Match
ServeNet
Idealist

Friday, January 29

LinkedIn!

I was urged to join LinkedIn by a few friends. They said it's the place for serious job seekers and networkers to be. Well, I thought to myself, I had better head over there because that is what I am!

Basically LinkedIn is the professional world's version of Facebook. It's pretty fabulous. You aren't being bombarded by dumb quizzes about which Twilight character you are like and Farmville applications (no offense to anyone..I know how addicting these things can be) nor do you have to see pictures of little hoe cookies half naked and drunk on your news feed. You know, those girls you were never friends with in high school and still have NO idea why they have added you as a Facebook friends. I have to admit it doesn't quite have the fun factor like Facebook has but it's a really good place for people serious about networking. You can link up with your old professors, friends, family and then you can see who they know. It's quite a shame that, so far, none of my contacts know people high up in places I want to work! Jeez, I mean, why can't somebody I know be the sister of the higher ups in Vogue or at Michael Kors! :)

Anyways, I can't boast of some huge success story with LinkedIn quite yet as I'm still new. However, get on over there and create a profile and add everybody you know! You never know the connections you might come across.

Thursday, January 28

Non-Job Searching Ways to Pass the Unemployed Days!

It's easy to get the unemployment blues. Trust me. I've been there. It's easy to throw yourself a perpetual pity party that nobody (and I mean nobody) except yourself wants to attend. It doesn't even matter if there is a pinata. Nobody wants to come. I had to start finding ways to keep myself occupied and ward off those feelings of failure, self loathing, discontentment, & boredom. I wanted to use this time I had productively.

What are your favorite things to do to pass your unemployed days? (Past or present)

1. Read! I've always been a reader but I've been spending alot of my days reading. I read pretty much read anything. I've been knocking out some classics, some "fluffy" light reading, memoirs, self help, and of course reading related to the field I want to get in. I like to read outside when it is nice, in a cafe, a bookstore, a park, etc. I'm pretty addicted to Goodreads . I even started an online book group for College Students that is extremely active and has almost 800 members! It's a fun group. It's been fun to use all the things I know how to do for something I love (organizing, starting discussions, marketing the group in different ways, planning events and book giveaways, etc.). I'm all about stimulating my mind while I'm unemployed.

2. Vocab Sushi: I promise you I'm not a nerd. Ok, well, I can't promise you that. Anyways, has become my latest obsession. You take a little test and then it figures out where you stand vocab wise and then gives you an appropriate list of words to learn. You can see the words used in articles and sentences and do little word games. It's a really great way to keep your brain stimulated, build for yourself an extensive vocabulary, and, hey, you might even be able to through in a $3 word in an interview and sound extremely smart! Just make sure you are using it properly! :)

3. Learn How To Cook: I have considered myself one of those people who can cook or bake. I had never really done it before. Unless you count my little stint with my Easy Bake Oven as a child. However, through my own attempts out of unemployment boredom (and a little lesson from the movie Ratatouille) I soon learned that "anybody can cook!" Cooking can be expensive but luckily for me I still live at home with my stepdad and sister, neither of them who like to cook, so I'm given the money to buy groceries and they get a home cooked meal! You can find recipes that aren't too costly when you go to the grocery store. Always be on the lookout for specials going on and cut those coupons! Anyways, I just started picking things from allrecipes.com that sounded good and after my first experiment in cooking was a success I decided to keep trying. It's been fun and it feels really nice to cook something good for other people. It's also a nice skill to have for when the boyfriend and I get married! :)

4. Blog: I like to write so blogging is pretty fun for me! I have a few blogs that I write on and I've been enjoying the process. If you are passionate about something that relates to your particular career, blog about it! If you are into fashion, create a fashion blog. If you are a photographer, blog about the photography world and share your own shots! You never know who is going to stumble upon your blog. And at the end of the day, it's really nice to have documented your life.

5. "Spring Clean" Your Room/House: : I loathe cleaning. However, I have found that really tackling my room has been a productive and useful way to spend my day. I have been purging my room of clutter and trash and things that are no longer used or useful. Then I start organizing like a mad woman. It's just really nice to have an uncluttered headquarters here at camp unemployed. I've found some great tips and methods on a few blogs and websites. Let me know if any of you are interested in the links!

Anyways..those are just a few of the ways I've been spending my unemployed days. More to come!

XH5WMYEDYSMR

Wednesday, January 27

A little more about my past and my future goals..

So what is it that I actually want to do?

I didn't really know what I wanted to do when I went to college, like most people I'm sure. I picked Business because it seemed that you could do anything with it. I became bored with Business and didn't see myself in that environment UNTIL I took my first marketing class. I fell in love with marketing, advertising, promotion, and event planning. I thrived on writing marketing plans and business plans for classes. I was so excited with a side of business that could let me be creative and use the skills that I'm naturally good at! I didn't know what "area" I really wanted to do with marketing/advertising but I've always known that it was what I wanted to do. Too bad that everybody wants to do marketing. haha. Then I started thinking that I love fashion and I love books so I wouldn't mind being in either one of those industries. I'm passionate and knowledgeable about them. I've come to realize though that, for now, I'm really fine with doing any sort of marketing/advertising. I just want to learn and I just want to be happy doing what I'm doing in a setting where my skills are important to the business. That being said, I can't really say as of yet, what I'd like to see myself doing in 10 years or what my ultimate career goals are. I haven't even started a career. I just want to get hands on experience in any setting doing marketing or advertising!

The problem with getting a job, for me, has been my resume. It's not the actual format of the resume or anything. It's that it really does not have much on it that shows a company my experience and what I can do and nobody seems to care that I graduated college with a high GPA! Here's my annotated version of my resume (you know..all the things I can't say in an actual resume but want to brag about).

From 2003 and then all throughout college, I was a nanny for an autistic boy and then his younger brother was born with Aspberger's and I was his nanny too. It was a high school nannying job and it was great. I learned so much and during the summers in college I would work for the family 40 hours a week. I've remained close with them and help out whenever I can. This has been a downfall in my career because nobody cares that I was a nanny (although if you worked there you would see it was more than that) for all those years. Yes, I probably should have done something more relevant but I LOVED what I did and I've always been the type to do what I'm passionate about. (TRANSLATION: I'm EXTREMELY loyal, able to multi task like you wouldn't believe, have the utmost patience, and I like a challenge!)

Then I had to do an internship for school in order to graduate. I ended up at a professional photography company and it was wonderful! I was a customer service intern but because it was such a small company I was able to get to learn alot about the marketing and the sales. I did your typical customer service type thing and really excelled. I loved the competitions for signing people up for our yearly service. I just loved learning everything! I would have loved to stay on and move over to marketing (Things I wish I could say on my resume: I was so fabulous that the hired me on full time but due to having a semester left in school I wasn't able to do the 40 hrs/week that they needed me. Then when I graduated they didn't have any positions left..they were actually laying people off!)

Then, upon graduation, out of desperation, I took a job in retail hell. I won't say the name but it is a trendy teen-20's store that is CRAZY busy all the time. It was my first job in retail. The 3rd job I ever held. This job should have been a job I had in high school. It might have been fun then. It was horrible! I went in there to do a job with a very high work ethic and a mentality to do my best! I realized that hard work wasn't really rewarded. Girls who had worked there for YEARS were never promoted because they were "too young" even though a manager that is there was just the same age. Sometimes the girls were promised a position in the future and then they go and hire from OUTSIDE. It was crazy. The hours were crappy along with the pay but worse than that it was a job where you felt like you weren't taken serious and people just liked to make you miserable. The store manager was a JOKE. (My interactions with the other managers and the District Manager were really great though!) She didn't really care about much and was way too lax and didn't hold the standards that needed to be met. She had a horrible leadership style that wasn't effective. I couldn't stand being in an environment where people didn't value hard work and that girls were telling their managers off if they were asked to do something and somehow nobody EVER got fired?! It was insanity! I quit after 8 months..so it is by my own doing that I am not employed essentially. However, sometimes you just have to do what is best for you and I didn't want to be there any longer. It was hard because I'm not a quitter in normal circumstances but I wasn't growing or learning there anymore. There was no value in being there to me. (Things I wish I could point out on my resume: I was offered the manager position there after 6 months but I turned it down due to the fact I really could not handle working with that particular store manager anymore. I couldn't work somewhere that did not value hard work and a place where everything was just a joke. It's unfortunate because I really could have seen myself doing well in that company at the corporate level or even doing visual merchandising since I was always doing things for the visuals anyways..)

Anyways, that's where I'm coming from. I'm not some person that had a good job and got laid off. I know I have to start from the bottom but I want to start from the right place on the bottom. Working jobs that aren't going to get me on the path to my career goals are just not something I'm looking for right now. Everyone has their own standards but those are mine! :)

Tuesday, January 26

Just another fish in the unemployed sea..

except that I am pretty fabulous..and these potential employers are going to find that out! :)

I would have never in my life imagined that after graduating from college I would have been where I am now-unemployed and being rejected day after day for jobs I know that I could do very well. No call backs, no interviews, not even a chance. I also never imagined that I would graduate smack dab in the middle of a really bad recession where the job market is the worst it has been in a long while. I guess I didn't sense the impending doom in the voice of our graduation speaker that day. I remember he talked about hard times in the job market but I didn't think that I applied to me.

I thought it would pretty much go down like this- I graduate from college. I take a little time off to travel. This would entail "finding myself", becoming more of a cultured individual, become free from the shackles of conventional university learning, and just altogether enjoy the merriment of frolicking around Europe as a young, ambitious 23 year old.

I would return from my great adventure relaxed and ready to have some structure again and perhaps a lot more broke than I was before I left. I would start sending my resume out and then the phone calls would come. They would call and request an interview with me and be very excited about what I could bring to the table. I would be overwhelmed at the job offers I received and I would go back and forth on who I would choose. I would eventually choose the one that suited me the most and could become the start to a successful career. It was a wonderful daydream.

But here I am. A year later--unemployed, jaded, feeling like a failure, ready to give up, and deflated to umpteenth power. I was ready to concede. I was. But I realized I have a lot more fight left in me. Thus sparked my mission to land myself a great job in 2010 and to record it as a way to keep myself accountable and to possibly give encouragement to others in the same situation.

What is your story?