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Employment

How To Rock The Career Fair And Make Recruiters Love You

There are a lot of ways to go about looking for that dream internship, but few are as effective and time-worthy as a career fair. If your school is a big one, it probably has one; if not, there’s probably a big school within 50 miles (if not, you need to move).

This article was originally published in September of 2011. I’ve gone through and updated a bunch of sections with knowledge I’ve acquired since then.

Career fairs are a freaking gold-mine of networking opportunities, and they are easily the best place to look if you’re seeking an internship or job with a larger company.

However, you can’t just waltz willy-nilly in to a career fair. Not being prepared is a recipe for failure, and failure is for tools.

Unfortunately, I see far too many students attend career fairs like complete dumb-asses; they go dressed like they just rolled out of bed, don’t prepare at all, and lack any enthusiasm or self-confidence. Read More →

4 Essential Tips To Make Your Resume Stand Out From The Crowd

Shankar Ganesh Employment

This is a guest post by Shankar Ganesh, one of my long-time blogging friends. He’s also the founder of Red Squiggle, a service that helps students and professionals revamp their resumes and land the jobs they want.

Seth Godin says if you’re remarkable, you probably don’t need a resume at all. That’s not the case with many of us in college though – almost every job interview requires you to submit your resume listing information about your academics and internship experiences. However, there’s more to creating an attractive resume than just firing up a word processor and typing out bullets. Read More →

5 Things You Can Do Today To Make Yourself 2 Billion Percent More Hireable

Thomas Frank Employment, The Best Stuff

Outlandish claim time: This post will make you a million dollars and will make your life 600 times better. Yup - I even sent my friend Chris to the future to verify this and he said I was totally right.

Okay, maybe that’s not true. But. I will say that this post does have the potential to get you closer to those two things.

This post is about making yourself the most irresistible candidate possible for any internship or job you might be going for. It’s about standing out from the crowd and being impossible to overlook.

Think about it: you might be incredibly freaking awesome at whatever it is you’re studying. You might be a badass programmer, or know the details of every court case since 1894, or have a ton of experience in forensic accounting. You know that you’d kick ass doing the job you want – but the problem is that other people aren’t so aware of that talent.

That’s why you can’t rely on your talent and raw experience alone to stand out. Other factors count, and they count a lot.

In this post, I’ll detail not 2, not 87, but 5 things you can do (or at least begin) today that will help you to become an irresistible hire. Remember, the key here is doing them - just reading over this post won’t get you anywhere. Challenge yourself to actually do a few of them now. Read More →

More Internship Hunting Tips For N00bs

Christina Samurkas Employment

Internships are like steroids for any resume, and like all steroids, they come with different strengths. So working for the NIH (National Institute of Health) on groundbreaking cancer research as a pre-med student from Johns Hopkins is more badass than interning at the Humane Society in your hometown (the only place that would accept your unqualified ass if you’re studying creative writing) Read More →

How To Create Your Own Jaw-Dropping Business Cards

Thomas Frank DIY, Employment

Back in September I posted a pretty extensive guide on how to succeed at a career fair. One of my tips on how to prepare for career fair success was to have business cards – not just any business cards, but beautiful business cards. Beautiful business cards a like glue that goes between a recruiter’s brain and your name.

Beautiful business cards aren’t the boilerplate ones you can get printed at your schools. While there are nice-looking templates out there that you can use, I believe the best way to make an impression is to design your own. That’s what I’m going to teach you how to do today. I’ll first go through a tutorial on how to actually design the card using Photoshop, and then show you how you can get it printed for cheap.

Note: Before you start this tutorial, I highly suggest making your own website first! That way, you’ll be able to put your URL on your card and give people an awesome way to connect with you. Get started with my complete website building guide.

Guest Post: 5 Tips To Aid Your Internship Search

Jeff Anderson Employment, Guest Post

This is a guest post by Jeff Anderson. Find out more about him in the author bio below this post.

I am a senior at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Like many seniors, I spent the end of junior year stressing about finding an internship for the summer. Thankfully all of my work paid off – I found an internship and learned a few valuable lessons about job-hunting that I’d now like to share with you. Read More →

Guest Post: Goofing Off Makes You A Better Employee?

Michael Plis Employment, Guest Post

This is a guest post by one of our long-time readers, Michael Plis. It’s pretty awesome to see readers getting inspired to write their own articles! Learn more about Michael in his author bio below.

I recently read this article on how companies are losing money because their employees access social media during work hours. It seemed like a pretty innocuous article at first, but then I thought about it a bit more and it started to bug me…a lot. Read More →

The Internship Experience: Week 11

Amy Cooney Employment

As my time interning at The Principal is nearing its end, I can’t help but wonder where the summer has gone. While this isn’t exactly a comforting feeling knowing homework, tests, and studying are just around the corner (less than a month away!), I’m finding it to be a good sign due to the saying “time flies when you’re having fun”… although I also believe that the word “busy” could be substituted for the words “ having fun” in this phrase. However, I do think that in this case it is both for me – this summer has been very busy but also very fun and rewarding due in big part to my internship experience at Principal Financial Group. Read More →