Do parents need to ease off a bit?

I'm featued in an article on MSNBC by Eve Tahmincioglu with a really interesting concept: Are parents going overboard to help their kids get jobs?

I'm interested to know if your parents are helping you find a job at all. Do you welcome their help? Did you ask for their help? Is this a new breed of helicopter parenting, or just helpful people? What constitutes going too far?

Read the story here and let me know what you think!

Where's the love? (A plea for reviews, essentially!)

Like most authors, I frequently visit my Amazon page. I buy just about everything on that site. I recently updated the page with more information but there's one thing I can add:

Reviews.

Have you read the book? If so, would you mind giving a quick review of it? What did you like? What were you hoping for when you read it? Did you like the anecdotes from other grads in the book? Please, share!

Cool Finds for New Grads

Some good finds for new grads!

Good job options for grads in a sluggish economy: Article from Dawn Anfuso of the Daily Breeze.

• Writing your resume with quantifiable achievements: Good post from Gradlife to help you get down to those knitty-gritty details!
• The Joy Equation: A course on being happy in your 20s.
  
• MSNBC Misunderstands Role of Social Media in Job Search: Cool perspective on using social media to get a job.
• One Person, Multiple Careers: A new career book by Marci Alboher.
  
• Athleta: Well, I just like their clothes!

Are you part of The Lost Generation?

Today's awesome read is "The Lost Generation" by Peter Coy, which is in BusinessWeek.

I'm not sure why the topic uses the word "lost" because aren't all 20-somethings sorta lost? I mean, that's part of growing up. It's okay to be unsure now about your life. About the economy. About everything!

The article talks about the current economy and how it is affecting grads. I understand it's tough but I think that aside from the numbers, grads have dealt with stress, anxiety and depression long before the economy tanked. Indeed, these are things that "hit" 20-somethings even when they economy was great. (I know from experience!)

I'm not saying it's easy to get a job--but I am saying that this isn't all new to grads. It's always hard. Now there are some extra challenges, but I fully believe today's grads can handle it--and RISE ABOVE!

Creating a "Text Version" of Your Resume

Your resume is all set to go--right?

Well, if you don't have a text version, you'll be formatting it every time you go to post the text version...and that could cause you to go batty. Instead, create and save a text version that you simply copy and paste whenever a text version is requested.

Here's how to do it in Word: Hold down “Control” and hit “A” and then “C,” then open up a new document and hit “Control V” to paste the text. Scroll down to the bottom of the text where you see that little clipboard and click “keep text only.” Reformat the resume to substitute any bullets with hyphens and space out the text a bit.

Next, highlight all of the text and change the font to CourierNew, preferably on 10 or 11 point. Then save the resume as a “text document” (scroll down on the “file type” prompt before you save, where you usually see "Word document"). Save the document. Then another window will pop up asking about the conversion type--click MS-DOS.

Close the document then open it back up to look at the formatting and make sure you don't have any funky wingding types of characters. Edit as needed, then resave.

Easy breezy, right? Now you have your text version of the resume and it's ready to be sent out!

College graduation...10 years later

me...circa 1999/2000



The day came and went. I thought about it more leading up to it than I did on it. But there it was: May 6, 2010.

That marks 10 years since I graduated from Stockton. And I reflected more on missing school--and campus life in general--than the concept of success. I'm happy about where I am now, but dang, I just miss that place.







dan, johnny and I when I ran for Circle K Governor in 1999 (they were on my campaign staff)
(still talk to them all the time!)




So I don't want to sound all adultish to you. Because really, I am still that 20-year-old girl living in L-Dorm. Staying up till 4 a.m. and making it up to an 11 a.m. class. Trying to reheat meals via the steam of a hot plate. Going to class in flannel PJ bottoms.















with my best friend from college (and still today) Sharon...2000




Sometimes I hesitate to share my age with my readers here because I don't want to come off like I know it all--cuz I don't. I'm just a girl who loved her time in college, learned some valuable things about starting a career afterward and wrote a book to tell you about all of it. I'm 31. I'll be 32 next month. I miss college so much it hurts sometimes. I miss the freedom and the possibilities. Not to say there isn't freedom and great things happening after college. I just happen to have had a fantastic four years that I will always cherish.



























May 6, 2000: Graduation Day




So the day passed...I'm so happy to have had that experience...being in college. And I'm so happy to be able to share it--along with all the other stuff I blog about--with you, dear readers. Embrace it all: past, present and future!


























me, mom and hubby...2008

New rules of job hunting--for new grads

There is a great article on Yahoo today about the "new rules" of job hunting. I realize that many new grads already know these, but in case you have your parents and family members breathing down your neck with, "When I was looking for a job..." you may be able to rest assured that if you're using the latest approaches, you're doing good.

Some of the highlights are:

You can't just send out a resume anymore. Love this. Because it used to be that you could and you would at least get a response, but for some reason it takes more than that these days. Maybe society is too impersonal? For whatever reason, you've got to do much more than send out a resume if you want to hear back from most large companies.

Get a digital-friendly resume. Not only will you need a Word version, but if you really want to make the grade, so to say, you'll have to have a text version and a scannable resume. I'm going to cover this in a future post, so stay tuned!

Network, network, network. This is hard for some people. Especially when you are fresh out of college it's like, who will I network with if I have no experience? But even getting a LinkedIn profile can help. The article mentions that employers will likely Google you, so not only networking, but having a positive online reputation is key.



What "new rules" are you using in your job hunt? I'd love to hear them--leave a comment!

Job hunting on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn

Many new grads are leveraging social media to get a job...whether it is via Facebook or LinkedIn. (I vote for LinkedIn, it's more professional in nature.) What are you using--any social media tools? How have you used them? Just by searching for jobs or by forging connections?

Speaking of social media and job hunting, Steve Weber is giving away copies of his book Wired for Work: Get a Job FAST using LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

To get your free signed copy of the paperback, you can send your postal address to weberbooks@gmail.com. Or you cancan download the ebook in Kindle, iPad, PDF and other formats at http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/11179.

Dan Finnigan of The Wall Street Journal also covered the concept of social network job hunting today. Read that article here.

In the meantime, I'd love to hear how you are using social media. It's a whole new concept for me--just 10 years ago when I graduated, none of it existed.