Using the Internet as a Career Tool
One
of the great unintended consequences of the Internet and Worldwide Web
is the creation of the ultimate career tool. At your fingertips is a
wealth of information about careers, companies, networking
possibilities and even the jobs themselves. If you know what you're
looking for, you can clarify your job goals, target specific companies
and geographic regions, even train yourself for a new career.
This guide shows you how to create a useful career resource for
yourself. This resource should be a Word document that contains the
following:
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a list of the umbrella associations and societies that serve your profession--both national and regional. You
will find many; some will be of more use to you at this stage in your
career than others. Some will have membership requirements that you do
not meet--yet. Regardless, these sites will still offer valuable advice
and resources in career preparation, regional affiliates, networking
opportunities, free e-newsletters, print publications, free archives
and a list of links to other resources.
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organizations that you can and should join NOW at a special student rate.
Some of these may be same as those in the above list. But these
join-now groups with student rates deserve special attention because you want to take action now. Spend
your money wisely. In addition to saying how much it costs to join, you
also want to know the benefits of joining.
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URLs of job boards serving your specific career.
Everyone knows and frequents the mega-boards like Monster, HotJobs, and
so on. And that's their problem. Of more value to you are the job
boards maintained by career-specific organizations. You should make
special note of job boards where you are allowed to post your resume.
Unlike on the mega-boards, these corportion or organization boards are looked at
more closely because there are fewer resumes.
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networking contacts.
You are looking for working professionals that you can schedule an
informational interview with. In an informational interview you say
something like: "Hi, I'm Pat Michaels, currently a student at the
University of Maryland University College, and I'm preparing for a
career in (your field). I'm talking to experts like you in to gather
the latest information on current trends, legal issues, and other
aspects I need to know about to best prepare myself. I'd like ask you a
few quick questions." List some personal contacts that you can start
with, but also list the names of leading professionals and
officers of the professional organizations whom you will call. Don't
want to do that? That's fine--others will and they will reap the
benefits. Ultimately you will only get the job that you are
willing to work for.
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training sites/pages.
At the sites you visit, look for the group's "training and career
preparation" area. Here you will usually find an archive of free
resources that provide essential background and insider information for
anyone preparing to enter this field.
LinkedIn profile.
In every field there are often a few resources that come up over and
again as essential tools for anyone in that field. The number one
resource that recruiters are using right now is LinkedIn. If you don't
have a professional done profile on this network for professionals
(LinkedIn is not a personal networking site), get one.
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the results of one informational interview.
To finish off this document, conduct at least one informational
interview. You will collect the subject's history--how he/she became
interested, what drew them to the field, their preparation and job
history. But most importantly you want their advice about what someone
in your position should be doing right now to get ready to get employed.
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job variations. One
of the effects of doing this work will be to expand your understanding
of the many different job titles/career sidelines that may be possible
in what you once thought was a unified field. For example, on a
magazine staff you know that there are editors. But some editors have
very different duties and skills. Some specialize in copyediting
(rewriting), some in assigning story ideas and managing freelancers,
some in writing a special kind of feature (health, beauty, fashion,
equipment, and so on). As a final entry on this job resource, list
any and all new job possibilities that you discovered by virtue of
doing this work.
Finally:
How long should this document be? I have some familiarity with many of
these fields. Truthfully speaking, you could easily fill up 30 pages
with this kind of stuff as you conduct your job search, copy and paste. During my last
job search, I ended up with over 100 pages. Regardless of page count,
be sure to ask these questions about every source you visit:
- benefits of joining?
- student-rate for membership?
- job board?
- free training and resources?
- free publications?
- networking groups?
- whom would you contact for an informational interview?
- links to other resources?
Sample: Organizations, Societies, Portals for Careers in Communications
Again, I am using communications only as an example. As a communications major, here is a
sample of the major associations and societies that should be evaluated
as job resources.
Society for Technical Communication (most states and major cities have branches you can join; job board)
http://www.stc.org/
Society of American Business Editors & Writers (student membership rates; job board)
http://www.sabew.com/news/home.htm
International Association of Business Communicators (student membership rates; job board)
http://www.iabc.com/
Association of Proposal Management Professionals (includes grant writing)
http://www.apmp.org/default.aspx
The American Society of Indexers
http://www.asindexing.org/site/index.html
Public Relations Society of America
http://www.prsa.org/
National Communication Association
http://www.natcom.org/nca/Template2.asp?sid=9
American Copy Editors Society
http://www.copydesk.org/
American Society of Journalists & Authors
http://www.asja.org/index.php
Online News Association
http://journalists.org/2007conference/
TECHWR-L
http://www.techwr-l.com/techwhirl/index.php3
IEEE Professional Communication Society
http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/pcs/
EServer TC Library
http://tc.eserver.org/
Association of Teachers of Technical Writing
http://cms.english.ttu.edu/attw
Newbie Tech Writer
http://www.cloudnet.com/~pdunham/newbietechwriterhome.html
American Medical Writers Association
http://www.amwa.org/default.asp?ID=1
Canadian Science Writers Association
http://www.sciencewriters.ca/
The National Writers Union
http://www.nwu.org/nwu/
MITWA (Mentors, Indexers, Technical Writers & Associates)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MITWA/
Mike's Tech Writing
http://www.mikestechwriting.com/
KeyContent.org
http://www.keycontent.org/tiki-index.php?page=Home
INTECOM
http://www.intecom.org/
International Science Writers Association
http://internationalsciencewriters.org/
World Association of Medical Editors
http://www.wame.org/about
Wikipedia--Technical Writing (look for list of links at end)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_writing
About.Com--Freelance Writing (pop-up alert)
http://freelancewrite.about.com/
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