She shares how Law School Class of 2011 and 2012 J.D.’s from New York Law School, Florida Coastal School of Law, Hofstra Law, Cooley Law School, IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, DePaul University College of Law, Widener University School of Law, Thomas Jefferson School of Law, and others filed class action lawsuits against their their alma maters for consumer fraud.
These unhappy graduates claimed their law schools mislead them about their post-graduation employment prospects (direct article quotes):
Disgruntled law-school graduates who filed suits accusing their alma maters of deceiving them about their chances of landing a well-paying job haven’t had much success in court.
More than a dozen class actions were filed in 2011 and 2012, but courts across the country have knocked out the lawsuits one by one, including a recent dismissal in Florida. Only a few remain.
There’s Good News. I see opportunity for these unemployed attorneys. I see solo entrepreneurs with legal expertise to offer clients. Here are three (3) online platform ideas so unemployed lawyers as well as practicing ones can land their own clients and market themselves.
Writing to summarize results and convey information
Writing to communicate ideas or explain informaton clearly
Incorporating information to develop strategic insights
57 Resources to Land that First Marketing Job
There's Hope, If You're Willing to Put in the Work. These various resources are categorized to aid recent college graduates who majored in marketing and communications (or current students majoring in these fields) during their full-time job search (or an internship search for current students).
These resources (along with resources from previous posts in this series) can give recent graduates ideas, strategies, and tactics providing a competitive advantage not only in the job search but also in developing several of the requisite skills and knowledge employers say recent graduates lack.
The categories are listed below with a make-shift table of contents:
Resource 1: Your Online Portfolio, Evan Kirsch and FolioMatch.com
Resources 2 – 9: Resources / Ideas from Tom Peters, Seth Godin, Mitch Joel, and David Meerman Scott
Resources 10 – 18: Career Success Ideas from Dan Schawbel for Young People and Millenials
Resources 19 – 20: Job Search 101
Resources 21 – 28: Interviewing 101 (and Beyond)
Resources 29 – 30: Using Twitter's Real-Time Capabilities to Power Your Job Search
Resources 31 – 46: 21st Century Marketing and Communications: Walk-the-Walk and Talk-the-Talk
Resources 47 – 49: LinkedIn
Resources 50 – 51: Preparing Your Resume
Resources 52 – 57: Inspiration on Demand
Resources 2 – 57 are in no particular ranking or order. I included numbers to track the number of items and subsequently group them with some logic.
Addressing Unmet Needs. FolioMatch.com fulfills HUGE unmet needs for young people who may have recently graduated, will graduate in Spring 2014, or are current college students seeking internship opportunities while in school:
Providing a living/breathing, on-demand online portfolio capturing all relevant projects, class assigments, internship deliverables / work products, accomplishments, awards, etc. throughout a college student's four-year college career
Making it easy to manage and deploy this online portfolio in a one-screen world
Devoting a career-focused, portfolio-centric, social network for a narrow audience (college students AND ambitious high school students)
From the Video."We started FolioMatch to be a one-stop resource for a student to keep track of all the projects they've completed over the years. Since then we have started sponsoring educational challenges so that we could help boost the content of students' portfolios."
Required Full Disclosure / Am I Receiving Any Money / Am I Receiving Any Equity / Am I an Advisory Board Member and other Boilerplate B.S. I Have to Write For Speaking So Highly of Evan and FolioMatch.com. I receive zero, nada, nothing, and any other cliche, etc. in financial compensation for talking up Evan and FolioMatch.com.
If you're a parent who's worried your son/daughter who graduates from college in Spring 2014 may face difficulty in this brutal job market (because the odds are he/she will), go to the FolioMatch.com site and register.
2.Tom Peters / Fast Company: The Brand Called YOU: This August 1997 article is the original classic highlighting the rising importance of personal branding. Mr. Peters was ahead of his time in publishing and describing these timeless career management principles.
Bonus.David Meerman Scott — Inbound Job Search: David published this video on December 2nd. He shares five (5) inspiring stories about people publishing creative and remarkable content to win dream jobs. One of the stories is how his daughter, Allison Meerman Scott, leveraged her personal blog to differentiate herself from thousands of outstanding Columbia University undergraduate applicants to win admission!
I do. And, even though he's 20 years younger, I believe his teachings apply to any age group or professional experience level. He's the epitome of entrepreneurial hustle
These Mashable articles do a great job in describing the basics AND the things to do to stand out. The common theme here is "put in the work." No magical formulas. Just get to work.
The common theme throughout these articles: Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. Do this and you'll eliminate 50% – 60% of your competition before walking in the room.
When it comes to real-time news and responsiveness, there's Twitter and then there's everybody else. Leverage its real-time capabilities to your advantage. Finding out about that open, entry-level position before other candidates is a competitive advantage.
You don't have to memorize vocabulary lists by rote. But, you have to credibly demonstrate your awareness of how marketing, communications, and public relations are constantly changing.
51. LinkedIn Labs Resume Builder: This handy app transforms your LinkedIn Profile into a PDF resume. Therefore, fill out your LinkedIn profile with as much detail as you can.
Inspiration On Demand
52. to 55. LinkedIn Influencers — My First Job Job Series: If you're getting down on yourself during the process, GO HERE IMMEDIATELY. Everyone had to start out somewhere. That includes some of the world's most influential movers & shakers in every industry.
My First Job. I started out as an unpaid, summer laboratory tech intern / dishwasher at The Washington University School of Medicine. Luckily for me, the department's head researcher paid me that fall because my boss said I was a good guy.
56. Jonathan Fields — The Good Life Project: Jonathan is an A-List entrepreneur and a person driven to help others succeed personally and professionally via entrepreneurship. His video interviews are inspiring.
57. Video: Best Day of My Life (Dog Version) by American Authors: Trust me, this video will make you feel soooooo good after watching it no matter how bad you feel. And, it's probably why American Authors are my new favorite band and why this song is now my all-time favorite.
Closing Thoughts
This is post five (and the final one) in a series to help new college graduates and current students land full-time jobs or internships.
If you're a college graduate looking for work, a concerned parent, a worried relative, or a current college student, please let me know in the comments if the content here helped (or if it didn't).
What should be kept on this list? What should be taken off? What resources did I miss? What should be added?
Please help me in continuously improving this page as a helpful resource to others.
The Premise / Goal / Timing of This Weekly Feature
Premise. If you like the content in this blog, you may like the type of content I regularly read and study on the Web.
Goal. On a weekly basis, I'm going to publish links to three (3) articles I find interesting. I'll include a brief summary with some bullet points explaining why I think the content is worth consuming.
Timing. I'll publish this content every Wednesday / Thursday. Okay, I didn't exactly hold up my end of the deal last week and this week. 🙂
The "spray and pray" approach of sending resumes online is not an effective time investment
"Applicant tracking software makes it almost impossible for [a job candidate] to stand out, at least at the initial screening step."
Recruiters say gaining an internal referral is a game changer. When recruiters see an application comes with an employee referral "that person goes straight to the top."
The Wall Street Journal Careers Section published the following articles on January 24th describing the challenges and sense of futility job candidates encounter when applying to a prospective employer:
Both articles highlight relevanttrends in personal brand differentiation and demonstrating digital strategy / digital marketing expertise.
Bottom Line. Becoming an expert is one thing. Demonstrating that expertise online to a potential client or employer is another. Because, it doesn't matter if you're trying to earn a digital marketing or social media marketing position or another position in an unrelated industry.
Either way, your online presence must be FINDABLE and HUGE.
Clients or Employers Conduct Online Due Diligence
Is Your Online Presence Visible or Invisible? Clients and employers use online search and social networks in hiring evaluations. Key themes emphasized in both Wall Street Journal articles included:
How The Internet Reinforces a "Show-Me-What-You-Got" Mindset
Why Clients and Employers Want to Understand How You Think
Too Many Job Candidates / Self-Proclaimed Experts, So Little Time
How Employers / Clients are Using the Internet Evaluate Talents and Skills
Your Online Activity Represents How You Think. Your resume does not. The opening paragraphs of the No More Resumes, Say Some Firms article reinforce this growing notion especially among employers:
"Union Square Ventures recently posted an opening for an investment analyst. Instead of asking for résumés, the New York venture-capital firm—which has invested in Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga and other technology companies—asked applicants to send links representing their "Web presence," such as a Twitter account or Tumblr blog. Applicants also had to submit short videos demonstrating their interest in the position."
"Union Square says its process nets better-quality candidates —especially for a venture-capital operation that invests heavily in the Internet and social-media—and the firm plans to use it going forward to fill analyst positions and other jobs."
"Companies are increasingly relying on social networks such as LinkedIn, video profiles and online quizzes to gauge candidates' suitability for a job. While most still request a résumé as part of the application package, some are bypassing the staid requirement altogether."
"A résumé doesn't provide much depth about a candidate, says Christina Cacioppo, an associate at Union Square Ventures who blogs about the hiring process on the company's website and was herself hired after she compiled a profile comprising her personal blog, Twitter feed, LinkedIn profile, and links to social-media sites Delicious and Dopplr, which showed places where she had traveled."
"We are most interested in what people are like, what they are like to work with, how they think," she says."
Rage Against the Machine
A Two-Front War: Other Candidates and the Company's Online Applicant Tracking System. The accompanying WSJ video shares why optimizing a resume for keywords is vital. Your resume can be unfairly weeded out by a machine's keyword algorithm (even with internal referrals).
Show Clients and Employers Differentiating Content
"A friend of mine Eric Friedman tells the tale of his job interview with renowned VC firm Union Square Ventures in New York. During a pivotal second round interview Eric sat down with one of the partners, Brad Burnham and presented his resume. Brad told Eric to hang on to it as he just wanted to chat. When Eric pressed him as to why, Brad responded with something remarkable which went like this: “You can work really hard on crafting a well written, organized, resume with bullet points of accomplishments – but you can’t fake 500 blog posts.” On the web, it’s “show me, don’t tell me.”
Therefore, achieving this goal requires more effort. And, I'm reminding myself to focus on one thing at time.
Because, starting is everything.
Your Turn. How are you going to show your expertise / your art to a potential employer or client? How are you going to differentiate yourself among the masses?
Please share your thoughts in the comments. And, I hope you'll return next week for Part 3.
I recently read the following WSJ.com article titled: Online Compliments Can Haunt You Too (September 18, 2009).The article explains that corporate attorneys are counseling their client companies’ employees NOT TO write recommendations in social networking sites like LinkedIn for fear of possible future legal repercussions.
To a certain degree, I believe there may be some merit to the points mentioned by the attorney consulted for the piece.However, the attorney’s advice to “prohibit managers from commenting” so a corporate Human Resources (HR) Department can more easily engage in CYA activity is something I find downright disappointing and insulting.Yes, there are legal implications to everything in Corporate America but I think there’s something going on here with far more significant root causes:
Corporate America Fears the Unknown and How Social Networking Makes Talented Employees More Mobile Than Ever Organizations all over America are absolutely scared and driven by fear about the implications associated with integrating social media into their overall marketing strategies. This pervasive fear is so strong that I sometimes wonder if large organizations will ever truly embrace social media. I think this David Meerman Scott article titled, FEAR, captures my concerns perfectly.
Furthermore, talented employees who understand how to leverage social networking’s power and reach scares the hell out of Corporate America.Smart people who understand the new rules of social media possess a distinct advantage in promoting their skills and capabilities to potential employers (particularly their current employers’ most feared competitors). Smart companies find these Web 2.0-savvy individuals and discreetly contact them about opportunities via LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook.How ironic that a talented middle- or senior-level manager well-versed in social networking gains the leverage to “fire their current employer” even in these challenging economic times.I’m not the only person who thinks this way.Take a look at this insightful piece from Jonathan Fields in The Career Renegade Blog titled, The Real Reason Companies Are Terrified of Social Media.
Social Networks and Personal Blogs Significantly Decrease the Opportunity Costs of Connecting to Better Career Propsects If these potential employers are easily finding these social networkers via online search, the potential employer validates that the employee candidate understands Inbound Marketing concepts.It’s a successful litmus test for filtering out who can “walk-the-walk.”
Conducting a job search always takes significant time if it’s the candidate who is initiating contact and trying to gain access to a future employer.However, what happens when the prospective employer is the one who initiates contact and grants access via a LinkedIn Message or a Twitter Direct Message?I’ll tell you exactly what happens – all time-related opportunity costs associated with conducting a job search drastically drop.The savvy social networker is actively courted.It’s his/her email box that gets filled with requests (not the other way around).These individuals invested their time on the “front-end” by publishing blog posts and “tweets” that illustrate their love of social media strategy and their understanding of how SM fits into an integrated, multiple channel marketing campaign.
·67% will use search engines (i.e., Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.) – If you don’t already have a Google Profile, get one now by going here.
·44% will use Facebook
·21% will use Twitter
Blogging and Other Published Online Content Becomes a Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Asset for a Talented Employee If you want to build an online reputation as a Thought Leader in a specific professional area, start writing a blog. Currently, blogging is the fastest and most efficient way to build an asset actively promoting your expertise. Publishing thoughtful and meaningful content takes time, but it’s a worthy investment. Anything you publish online gets indexed in Google and becomes a professional asset.For example, my LinkedIn Profile, Google Profile, Twitter Profile, Twitter Tweets, and blog comments I’ve catalogued on BackType.com rank highly in Google Search Results for “Tony Faustino.”
If you’re still employed, now is the time to blog about your personal expertise!Don’t wait till you get laid off or downsized to build your online professional assets.One of my favorite David Meerman Scott blog posts is titled, “Downsized? Fired? Here are the New Rules of Finding a Job.”I especially think the reader comments submitted in David’s blog post offer important career advice. Pay particular attention to the ones suggesting that content creation should begin while you are still employed.Creating this content while you’re employed demonstrates your passion for participating in Web 2.0. That’s an important differentiator among all other job candidates particularly when you’re already balancing the demands of a full-time job.
I purchased Dan Schawbel’s book, Me 2.0, in Spring 2009.Since that time, I’ve diligently studied and implemented Dan’s advice particularly in creating and promoting a personal blog.Dan is the lead author and founder of the Personal Branding Blog and Personal Branding Magazine.He’s a nationally recognized expert, and I avidly read his blog for helpful insights relating to online personal brand management.Dan also has a number of talented, contributing authors to the Personal Branding Blog such as Chad Levitt and Jun Loayza whose articles I regularly study.
Furthermore, 40-Something Working Professionals (like me) can tremendously benefit from Me 2.0’s advice on online personal branding.According to Me 2.0, effectively creating and promoting a blog are foundation principles in successful online personal branding.Until I started studying Me 2.0 and Dan Schawbel’s free eBook, Blogging Your Brand: A Complete Guide to Your Success, I had no idea about “the basics” and overall commitment required to effectively create, optimize, promote, and maintain a blog.These two resources educated me on purposefully:
·Positioning my knowledge about a subject I’m passionate about (e.g., social media and digital marketing strategy)
·Establishing my personal brand online (as evidenced by Google Search Engine Page Results / SERPs on my name)
·Optimizing and promoting my blog via search engine marketing and by commenting on other bloggers’ blogs
·Evaluating and selecting a blog hosting service such as TypePad or WordPress (along with other infrastructure considerations)
·Claiming my blog on Technorati.com (and other relevant steps to “owning” my online identity)
I’ve been executing Me 2.0’s lessons in professionally branding myself as an inbound marketer and social media / digital marketing advocate. Writing The Social Media Reinvention Blog and earning the Inbound Marketing Certified Professional Certification are cornerstones of this branding strategy and the reinvention of my professional skills. The online publication of my new blog, catalog of blog comments, and tweets on Twitter will credibly present my personal wherewithal and knowledge in a Web 2.0 world.
Studying and implementing Me 2.0's lessons provided me the "hands-on guidance" I required to purposefully build and shape that knowledge.
