Tag: social media

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Six ways to find a job on Twitter

As June approaches, graduating seniors are anxious to finish their final classes and finally dawn on those green caps and gowns. But then comes planning for life post-grad. Navigating job listings can often be frustrating. but Twitter can be a great way to find recent job postings. Here are six Twitter resources to help you land a great job:

1. Follow @PRSSANational. Lauren Rosenbaum, PRSSA Vice President of Public Relations, regularly tweets about internships and jobs that are on the PRSSA internship center.

2. Follow @SOJCCareers. The SOJC Advising Office tweets about many local jobs and internships, as well as some national opportunities.

3. Follow @ComeRecommended. Come Recommended is a content marketing and digital PR consultancy for job search and human resources technologies. They tweet helpful job-hunting strategies, and occasionally tweet about national job opportunities.

4. Follow companies that you want to work for. Sometimes those brands will post job openings, but even if they don’t, it is good to learn about that company and what a job might look like with them.

5. Follow professors such as @KelliMatthews. SOJC faculty members often tweet job search advice, as well as any local jobs and internships she learns about.

6. Follow job-listing aggregators, such as @marketjobsUSA, @comminternships, and @EntryPRJobs. These are excellent resources for the newest job listings across the country.

Even if you aren’t looking for a job, it’s helpful to know what sort of skills are necessary for your dream job. Take the time to browse current listings, identify the companies and positions that catch your eye, and make your job search efforts count.

Post by Aimee Gregg, UO PRSSA member for the 2012-2013 school year. You can contact Aimee through our blog editor at cgisler@uoregon.edu!

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The Importance of a Social Media Presence

Post by Katie Keene, University of Oregon PRSSA member.

Can the content you post on social media affect your job and internship applications? Possibly. CareerBuilder surveyed 2,000 hiring managers and found that 2 in every 5 managers used social media to screen applicants. The managers searched profiles to determine whether candidates fit in with company culture and appeared professional.

Many students rely on privacy settings to keep certain content from potential employers but having a completely private profile can be a red flag. Employers are using social media to get an idea of who you are. Using your profile to make a brand for yourself is more beneficial than hiding inappropriate content.

In public relations, understanding your audience and effectively using social media is a key skill. As students, our audience includes potential employers. The content you post does not always need to be relevant to the field you wish to work in, but should remain appropriate at all times.

Using social media as a tool reflects who you are to employers and differentiates yourself from other job applicants. Including a statement about yourself on each of your profiles is also helpful. This statement should identify who you are and your unique characteristics and strengths.

As public relations students, we are expected to be familiar with the latest technology in social media. Knowledge of each platform can be shown through effective profiles. Posting content that conveys a strong understanding that anyone can view your content on social media is advantageous.

Photo Credit: Spencer E Holtaway via Compfight cc

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Why PR Students Should Ask for LinkedIn Recommendations

On Wednesday, Jan. 16, the University of Oregon (UO) PRSSA hosted Taraneh Fultz as a guest speaker at our winter term kick-off meeting. As we have had a large number of UO PRSSA students express interest in learning about event planning, Taraneh conducted an Events 101 workshop.

Taraneh had a great deal of interesting information to share about events; however, my largest personal takeaways were regarding how to request recommendations from employers. All public relations students have heard professors say that we should request recommendations on LinkedIn, but never do we hear good reasoning behind the action. Well, Taraneh suggested many reasons why students should do so. Here are the three points she made about recommendations – specifically LinkedIn recommendations – that I found incredibly helpful:

 

The recommendation will stay with you forever
Taraneh suggested requesting recommendations on LinkedIn because they will follow you throughout your career. Yes, that’s a good thing! Those recommendations will be on your profile forever, which means that even if you are interviewing for a position several years down the road your recommendations from entry-level positions will still be visible and relevant.

You can get the recommendation while your boss is working in the same capacity
People now change jobs much more frequently than in the past. If you wait several months to ask for a recommendation, you run the risk that your boss or supervisor will have moved on to work at a different organization; this makes it much harder to request a recommendation or use them as a reference. Ask your employer to write you a LinkedIn recommendation as soon as you complete an internship.

You can request a long-form recommendation letter easier
Asking your employer to write a LinkedIn recommendation now will make requesting a long-form recommendation letter in the future much simpler. When reaching out to your former employer, you can draw attention to the fact that they already wrote you a LinkedIn recommendation, and ask them to elaborate on the points that they already made.

I’m sure there are many more reasons to request LinkedIn recommendations. Why do you think LinkedIn recommendations are beneficial?

11-300x217Post by Ellie Boggs, chapter president for the 2012-2013 school year. She is a senior at the UO studying public relations. You can reach Ellie at eboggs@uoregon.edu.