Are Internships and Work Experience Necessary

Are Internships and Work Experience Necessary In the past, it wasnt quite as common for someone to have a degree as it is today and therefore  you were almost guaranteed a job as a college grad. However, the number of people who go on to study at University has risen a lot over the years and studies have shown that starting in 1980, employers began to pay more attention to work experience and internships when they make hiring decisions. In 2013, research conducted by High Fliers Research found that it is unlikely that  college grads will secure themselves a job based on their degree alone and internships and work experience will be what sets them out from their fellow graduates when applying for jobs.   So is experience more important than education? Work experience is as important as your degree. Some college students think that working in  low-level jobs while they are at  University isnt really worth it, as they  take away from time  that could  be  used to study and they don’t think they can learn anything from these jobs, so why bother? A survey done by the Iowa State University’s Engineering Career Services found that around 90% of engineering grads were hired upon graduation, after they participated in education programs that enable them to alternate school and work terms. The survey also found that only 50% of the engineering grads who didn’t participate in one of the  education programs got jobs after graduation, suggesting that the industry in experience is valued more highly than  degree results.   How  can work experience and internships help? You can gain lots of valuable lessons through working, even if the work is boring or seemingly unrelated to the career you wish to follow. Work experience gives you the opportunity to learn useful “real-world” skills that you wont  necessarily learn in school and are extremely transferrable between different industries, such as communication, initiative  and time-management. Completing an internship or work experience will also give you an insight into what working life is like and creates  the opportunity to work with people from all  sorts of different backgrounds, who you can learn new things from that may be valuable in the future.   Furthermore, interning in a field related to your major allows you to learn more about the industry and can play a vital role in helping you figure out your career plan. If you find the industry boring or not as  you expected, you may wish to alter  your career plan. On the other hand, if you perform well as an intern, the company may offer your a permanent role when you  graduate, or at least offer you a good  reference to help your job hunt. Employers value industry  experience. Whether the work experience is paid or unpaid, the involvement in your chosen field will show employers that you are show initiative and are motivated and dedicated to building yourself a career in the sector. By looking at your experience, they know that you have the skills and knowledge to perform your job  and it is likely that  an employer will choose a candidate with work experience over someone who has none; therefore, work experience is often the only thing that stands between college grads and their dream jobs.

Exclusive Interview With International Celebrity Businessman Don Tapscott - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Exclusive Interview With International Celebrity Businessman Don Tapscott - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career Today, I spoke with Mr. Don Tapscott, who is best known as the author of Wikinomics, the international bestselling web 2.0 book. His new book is called Grown up Digital, and I caught up with Don to further investigate how my generation is changing the world as we know it. You might remember that we released an entire issue around this in Personal Branding Magazine, called Millennials: Changing The Way We Do Business. Prepare to learn all about Gen-Y from millions of dollars of research! For millennials, this might seem all too familiar, but for other generations, you will get a glimpse at how we operate. Don, what does it mean to grow up digital? To be surrounded by digital media from birth. These kids are bathed in bits. To them, technology is like the air. Born between 1977 and 1997, these teenagers and young adults have grown up surrounded by digital devices and media. I call them the Net Generation. Around the world this generation is flooding into the workplace, marketplace, and every niche of society. These youth are bringing their demographic muscle, media smarts, purchasing power, new models of collaborating and parenting, entrepreneurship, and political power into the world. What are the benefits and drawbacks to being raised on technology for both the millennials and other generations? Kids benefit from being raised in a technologically rich environment. A school that knows how to exploit the new technology gives its students a better education. Smart employers use the technology to make the workplace and more varied and stimulating environment. However, baby boomers who didn’t grow up with this technology can find the higher metabolism of instant messaging, wikis, blogs, and similar tools to be extremely stressful. [youtube=http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=EoqiRRMQ0fs] What are your top 3 ways that corporations can attract millennials and keep them happy? Re-think authority. Be a good leader (e.g., coach, mentor, facilitator, enabler), but understand that in some areas, you will be the student and the Net Gen employee will be the teacher. Net Geners need plenty of feedback, but recognition must be authentic. False praise doesn’t work. Rethink recruitment; initiate relationships. Don’t waste money on advertising for talent. Use social networks based on trust to influence young people about your company. Rethink training; engage for lifelong learning. Rather than traditional training programs that are separate from work, look to strengthen the learning component of all jobs. To achieve this, encourage employees to blog. What are your top 3 guidelines for educators to tap the Net Gen potential? Don’t throw technology into the classroom and hope for good things. Focus on the change in pedagogy, not the technology. Learning 2.0 is about dramatically changing the relationship between a teacher and students in the learning process. Get that right and use technology for a student-focused, customized collaborative learning environment. Cut back on lecturing. You don’t have all the answers. Besides, broadcast learning doesn’t work for this generation. Start asking students questions and listen to their answers. Listen to the questions students ask, too. Let them discover the answer. Let them cocreate a learning experience with you. Empower students to collaborate. Encourage them to work with each other and show them how to access the world of subject-matter experts available on the Web. How young people and the Internet are transforming democracy? Past: Up until now, the game of politics was played this way: You, the citizen, listen to speeches, debates, and television ads. You give money. You vote. But when its time to govern, you are supposed to sit quietly while the real powers the politicians, their financial supporters, and the lobbyists make all the decisions in back rooms, often according to their own interests. Present: But citizens are beginning to want more. Especially the young people who have grown up digital the same kids who helped give President-elect Barack Obama his mandate they wont settle for the old rules, and Obama knows it. Their digital upbringing conditions them to expect a two-way conversation, not a lecture. They expect to collaborate with politicians not just to listen to their grandstanding speeches. They want to be involved directly: to interact with them, contribute ideas, scrutinize their actions, work to catalyze initiatives not just during elections but as they govern. And they will insist on integrity from politicians they will know very quickly if a politician says one thing and does another. What are some ways that millennials have already changed the workplace and what do you think lies ahead in the future? Processes that were once completely contained within the boundaries of large corporations are being broken down into bite-sized pieces and farmed out via Web 2.0 to small companies around the world. These small and young companies aren’t hampered by bureaucracies and legacy systems. The opportunities are rampant and rewards are flowing to the nimble. We are entering a world where knowledge, power and productive capability will be more dispersed than at any time in our historyâ€"a world where value creation will be fast, fluid and persistently disruptive; a world where only the connected will survive. A power shift is underway and a tough new business rule is emerging: collaborate or perish. Those who fail to grasp this will find themselves ever more isolatedâ€"cut off from the networks that are sharing, adapting, and updating knowledge to create value. As the Net Generation enters the workforce, they are a powerful catalyst for organizational change. To meet their demands for more learning opportunities and responsibility, instant feedback, greater work/life balance, and stronger workplace relationships, companies must alter their culture and management approaches. Companies that selectively and effectively embrace Net Gen norms perform better than those that dont. The Net Gen culture is becoming the new culture of work, and its practices may turn out to be the key indicators of high-performing organizations in the 21st century. Its important to keep these young employees engaged. Despite the current economic turmoil, were on the brink of a major war for talent. Many companies that rely on knowledge workers already realize that the tables have turned. Twenty years ago, when college grads poured into the workforce, companies had their pick of the best and the brightest. Employees were grateful to get a job and did what they could to keep it, and the last thing on their minds was to suggest radical new ways of working and managing a company. But in the next ten years, as Baby Boomers retire, there wont be enough Net Geners to fill up all the recently vacated management spots. Don Tapscott is an internationally renowned authority on the strategic value and impact of information technology. He has authored or coauthored eleven widely read books on technology and business. His bookâ€"Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everythingâ€"is an international bestseller, has appeared on the New York Times and BusinessWeek bestseller lists, and has been translated into 19 languages. Dons new book, Grown Up Digital: How the Net Generation is Changing the World, explores how the first generation to grow up with the net is redefining todays workplace, marketplace, schools, family and government. Don is Chairman of nGenera Insight and an Adjunct Professor of Management at the Joseph L. Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto.

The one skill you need for three key areas of career growth

The one skill you need for three key areas of career growth Emotional intelligence. This is how you will differentiate yourself at work in the new millennieum. We can see the world shifting around us in response to the fact that tolerance for poor social skills is getting less and less. The need to fit in with a group on some level, is getting higher and higher, and the tendency to hire people people in countries with low-cost labor to do socially isolated jobs increases every year as well. One of the most high-profile examples of the extreme importance of emotional intelligence (EQ) is the new president of Harvard, Drew Gilpin Faust. She is the first female president of Harvard, but thats not really the big news. The big news is that her most notable qualification for the job is an ability to communicate well with a wide range of people in the Harvard community. This is an explicit nod to the fact that the Harvard faculty is no longer willing to be managed by someone who has poor social skills. Another example is the new definition of what makes a child a special needs student. Today many children who can read at age three are tagged as needing extra help in school because of signs of poorly developing social skills. Fifteen years ago those kids would have slipped through the system as eccentric geniuses. Today social skills are seen as so important to an education that they supersede IQ in terms of educational placement. In the past, power or intelligence could make up for bad social skills at work. Increasingly this is no longer true. You probably overestimate your emotional intelligence. Most of us do. You could get into real trouble when your EQ is extremely low like posting naked photos of yourself, (which, by the way, is the search string that generates the most Google referrals to this blog.) Most of us are not doing insanely stupid things. We are just doing a series of smaller EQ mistakes day after day. At some point, if your EQ is too low, you will hit a wall. Most people notice the wall when they cant get a job, because today, the job hunts that are most successful are based on networking skills in other words, EQ. But here are other areas of the workplace that are becoming more and more important. And success in each of these three areas depends heavily on EQ. 1. Project management and business analysis These are key areas for job growth in the business sector in the coming years. And while these used to be gear-head positions, today they are all about emotional intelligence. The Northeastern College of Business Administration, for example, teaches project management by focusing on three areas: planning, team management, and negotiation. And business analysts need soft skills as well. MBA students we employ as business analysts dont need to come into our company being a finance guru, able to espouse the latest financial theories, Ken Barnet of financial services firm State Street Corporation said. Whats much more important is that they know how to analyze issues and communicate recommendations. 2. Connectivity and creativity This is Dan Pinks territory. And in his book , A Whole New Mind, he predicts the workplace of the new millennium will be about how people make connections. Key abilities will not be high tech but high touch, he says. And we will value the ability to make meaning and connections in a world where information is a commodity. People who can synthesize information well to create new ideas will be highly valued in the workplace. But if you are great at coming up with new ideas, and you cant communicate them, you will find yourself in the same position as the person who has no ideas. Having the emotional intelligence to connect people and ideas effectively is what matters in a workplace thats overflowing with information. 3. Personal productivity Theres a reason that many of the most popular blogs are about productivity, and consultant David Allen has been able to create an empire around his idea of getting things done: Productivity is cool. Its about information and technology and making them work well to give you a better life. Its a concept that has become so personal, and so specialized, that at this point, personal productivity is actually unique to this millenium. The core of productivity advice, though, is self-knowledge, which is emotional intelligence. You have to know what you want most in order to know what to do first. You have to know your goals before you can productively meet them. And you have to have the self-consciousness to exert a sane, focused self-discipline to your life. So when people tell you social skills are everything, and emotional intelligence will rule the workplace, think about where you want to succeed. Surely it is in at least one of these three areas. Thats why each of US needs to continuously work on our emotional intelligence. So now youre wondering how to get more emotional intelligence, right? Personal assessment is all the rage at business schools right now, says Brendan Bannister, professor at Northeastern University. Not surprising, given that EQ is the area companies say they are most focused on hiring for. Going to business school for personal development is a lot more costly than going to therapy every week. So maybe try that first. Empathy is very hard to teach, and most of emotional intelligence includes some piece of empathy. So get professional help if youre really deficient. And if youve got a lot of money, go to business school.

International Personal Bonding - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

International Personal Bonding - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career There is about a 100 percent possibility that in the course of your day you will be communicating with someone from a different country who has had a different cultural upbringing and who speaks a different first language than you do. As one of my coaching clients explained, “I was with team members on a call today in which one person was in California and one was in Nepal, and I was in Washington, D.C. I’ve worked with these people for three years, and I’ve never met them.” There are as many ways to behave toward and with people as there are countries on the earth. And even within each country, there are regional variations of the larger culture. You cannot cover every single base, but you can have an approach that works with every single constituent: Accept differences. Be respectful and extra polite in words and tone. Use an appropriate level of formal title: Dr., Professor, Mr.,Mrs., Ms., Madame, Mssr., and so on. Use lots of “pleases” and “thank-yous.” Don’t be loud and pushy. Minimize being overly direct and abrupt. Use straightforward terminology, not big words. Slow down; speak up.That same coaching client said, “My secret to success is to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ in the other person’s language. Even if my pronunciation is clumsy, people appreciate the effort.”

Power Your Executive Brand with LinkedIn Groups - Executive Career Brandâ„¢

Power Your Executive Brand with Groups Youve worked hard on  getting your branded, searchable, 100% complete profile up and humming. Whats next? One of s most powerful networking features thats bringing great value to me is Groups. For executive job search, Groups can be invaluable for communicating your personal brand and unique promise of value to potential employers. According to the Learning Center: Groups is your destination to find and join communities of professionals based on common interest, experience, affiliation, and goals. Stay in touch with organizations, schools, and companies that you are and were a part of, network with professionals with similar interests and goals, and collaborate in a professional community online. Groups allows group organizations to extend their brand’s reach and strengthen the brand with existing users by providing additional value through ’s features. I land new business because of  my participation with Groups. You may land your next gig through your participation with Groups. Groups are a terrific way to: Hobnob with and  express your executive brand directly to key decision makers at your target companies or organizations, Position yourself as  an industry thought leader and subject matter expert, Build a strong executive network with new faces, Give value, help  your network,  and thereby build trust and brand equity, and LEARN. Getting started: Search Groups in the Groups Directory. Choose from the Categories drop-down menu: Alumni Corporate Conference Networking Non-profit Professional Or search groups by company name, industry and relevant keywords in the search bar at the top right of any page (click the drop-down menu for Groups). Some groups are open to all and allow instant membership. For others, you may be subject to review by the group manager. When you join, elect to display the group logo on your profile. This is a good way to let people who are assessing you through your profile see that youre an active, savvy user and check out your groups activities. Join and begin giving value by commenting on existing discussions and starting your own. Post relevant news items that will be of interest to members. Better yet, add your own blog posts to broadcast your personal brand and value proposition. Respond to group members who need help. Hang out with key decision makers at your target companies and others by joining groups they belong to. Find their groups by scrolling down their profiles to see which ones they belong to. Join affinity groups for your companies, industry and areas of expertise. Think about starting your own Group. Join groups where you can learn from personal branding and job search experts. Here are some of my favorites for these topics: Job-Hunt.org runs 6 (and growing) Help Groups, the  Job-Hunt Help main group  and  5 subgroups (social media, boomers and beyond, help for veterans, help for introverts, and personal branding), which youll find in the Subgroups drop-down menu on the main group  page. I manage the personal branding  subgroup. Come join us! Other excellent groups I belong to: Darren Rowses Professional Bloggers Dan Schawbels Personal Branding Network Tim Tyrell Smiths Ideas For Job Search, Career And Life  and his Career Experts Subgroup Alison Doyles About.com Job Searching Kate Loringtons Jobs Career Network Michael Quales Job Shouts Aside from connecting with people at the companies youre targeting, youll link with, learn from, and give value to new communities of thought leaders and SMEs you never would have known otherwise. Related posts: My free e-book, Executive Branding and Your Profile: How to Transform Your Executive Brand, Resume, and Career Biography Into a Winning Profile Stalled Executive Job Search? Get Busy on and Twitter YIKES! My Profile is Missing! 00 0

5 Ways To Radically Improve Your Chances On LinkedIn

5 Ways To Radically Improve Your Chances On LinkedIn 5 Ways To Radically Improve Your Chances On LinkedIn LinkedIn Profiles Sadly, LinkedIn is something many people neglect. They put in their job histories. They may even put a few sentences in their summary before considering it good to go. Huge mistake. Today, a robust, optimized LinkedIn profile that makes you stand out is essential to a successful job search. If you have a skeleton profile with companies, job titles, a default headline and little else it’s unlikely that you’ll even be noticed in a recruiter’s search. Your profile may be 679 in a search that delivers 724 results. Even if a recruiter, does plow through all 724 profiles, if a recruiter doesn’t see anything compelling he or she is unlikely to contact you. Today, hiring managers are looking at your profile too, so it really needs to pop. Here are 5 ways to radically improve your chances of standing out on LinkedIn. #1 Have A Photo Many people shy away from putting a photo on their profile. Some fear discrimination. Others don’t like photos of themselves. I fall into the former. However, the bottom line is that if you don’t have a photo on your LinkedIn profile, people are going to wonder why. Having a professionally taken, probably photo-shopped, photo is nice to have they can be pricey. A headshot of you wearing business attire and preferably smiling is all you really need. My husband took mine in my office. Don’t forget, with LinkedIn’s updated interface you need a background photo too. #2 Use Your Headline Unless you specifically change it, your headline defaults to your current position. Your LinkedIn headline is called a headline for a reason. It should be used to highlight your professional brand. Your headline should give readers an idea of who you are and what you can offer an employer. You may want to include a few of your skills and maybe a tagline that represents your brand. Here are a few examples taken from LinkedIn. Multichannel Marketer | Customer Acquisition | Digital Marketing | Social Media | Brand Awareness | Events CEO | Growth Strategies | Team Leadership | Revenue Growth | Turning struggling businesses into vital market leaders SEO Audits | SEO Site Analysis | SEO Training | Audience Development | Email Marketing Never waste your LinkedIn real estate with by using Looking for new opportunities as your headline. #3 Write A Good Summary If they use their Summary section at all, most people have a few lines that reads like a bio. That’s not the best use of the summary section. While LinkedIn is a place to show your career history and talk about your achievements, it’s meant to be more personal than a resume. Use your LinkedIn summary to tell your career story. Go beyond what you do and talk about why you do it. Why did you go into your current field? What excites you about it? Include a few of your proudest accomplishments or biggest wins. LinkedIn’s character allotment for the summary section is 2000 characters. Use them. #4 Include Contact Information When recruiters are sourcing candidates on LinkedIn, profiles fall into 3 categories: yes, let me contact them, maybe, and no. While LinkedIn provides the option of using InMail to contact people who are not connections, it’s not used as widely as you think. First, even with a premium account, InMails are limited. Second, they are notorious for getting poor results. If you look like the perfect candidate a recruiter may take the time to research you online and find another way to contact you. If you fall into the maybe list, they may not. Make it easy for recruiters and hiring managers to contact you by including contact information in your Summary section. #5 Make It Pop One thing that makes a LinkedIn profile stand out is the addition of documents, photos, and media. You might want to create a portfolio of your work on SlideShare. You could upload a white paper you’ve written or JPEGs of your certifications. If you’re looking for something different, you can put a link to a video resume on YouTube or a link to your personal website. Look at what LinkedIn supports and choose what’s right for you. Finally, don’t put your LinkedIn profile up and forget it. Keep your profile active by posting status updates and liking and sharing other people’s posts. This keeps you top-of-mind with your connections and shows you are engaged with the platform.

Track and Manage Your Job Search With Ease From Start to Finish - Hallie Crawford

Track and Manage Your Job Search With Ease From Start to Finish Job opportunities can be found anywhere. This is why you’ll want to be very organized throughout your job search. First, create a plan and schedule dedicated time for your search. Treat it like a job! Be upbeat, motivated, and set realistic goals. Then, use the following organizational tips to stay on track. Keep track of everything you do. To whom have you sent resumes? When? With whom have you networked and when? When was the last time you connected with your contact? When are you scheduled to interview? Have you sent a “thank you” note or e-mail? Have you followed up? When do you need to take that next action step? Some job seekers find a spreadsheet, such as Excel © or similar tool, an efficient way to manage and track their searches. Another way to do this is with JibberJobber. Access a free version at: www.jibberjobber.com/login.php. Keep track of where you posted your resume online so that you can update it if need be, or remove it when you find a job. If you’ve posted different versions, also track that. Maintain a password list for all of your online profiles and create a schedule for checking your online networking efforts and updates. We also recommend creating a separate, professionally-titled email address for use during your job search. No strange-sounding or confusing words, like your college nickname. This will not only project a professional image, it will also keep your online efforts organized. Want more Job Search Tips? Watch these helpful videos Hallie has created by clicking here. Schedule a free consult with HallieCrawford.com today