Archive for the ‘Preparation’ Category

Each week I’m blasted with emails and tweets from random people hoping that I will mention their blog/service/article on Gradversity. Most are just looking for free advertising without any thought about how you (the reader) will benefit.

While I almost always give them a chance to impress me, most of the time they fall short. However, Sara Allen is not in that category.

A few days ago she sent me a link to a blog post called 10 Things I Learned from Graduating in a Recession. It focused on her candid thoughts and experiences from graduating into one of the toughest entry level job markets in recorded history.

I won’t steal her thunder by quoting her post, but check it it out. It’s one of the most uniquely uplifting things I’ve read in the last month.

Enjoy!

Some people just don’t get it. I know that the job market isn’t “hot” right now, but you still need to be respectful towards prospective employers and their employees.

Case and point: Annoying People Don’t Get Hired. This post from Secrets of the Job Hunt outlines the mistakes that one job hunter made while trying to land a job. Worst of all, these mistakes were made AFTER she was referred to the company by another person.

I could outline the whole situation, but it’s best to let you read it for yourself.

The lesson? Don’t make your contacts look bad. Respect the companies, their employees, and the process. Things will work out better in the end.

Sage advice from one of my favorite fictional characters. Good for a laugh.

Enjoy!

In Overcoming Gradversity I talk about the importance of having a professional email address. There are two key points that I focus on:

1. How professional your email address is
2. The importance of avoiding your school address

But I recently read What’s Your Email Address Prejudice? on Lifehacker and thought that they made an excellent point.

If you are a new grad or someone who is interested in landing with a technology firm of any kind, the domain portion of your email address (the part after the “@” sign) could be hurting your cause.

In the article, the author explained how she is still using an AOL email address and how her sister (an “in-the-know” publicist) had to tell her that her email address was outdated.

Here’s how this might work.

Let’s say that you apply to a large technology company straight out of school and the company has to choose between you (as a tech-savvy new grad) and another new grad (of equal skill, but less tech-savvy). Because you are more “up” on technology, you have a Gmail account.  However, your competition has an account from a “passé” email provider (like AOL).

Sadly, this just might subconsciously bias the recruiter. Many companies (especially tech companies) like candidates who are at least aware of the latest technology (with bonus points if you actually use it).

I’m not saying that an employer is ever going to base a hiring decision on an email address. This will most likely never happen. The point I’m trying to make is that you want to do your best to remove any possible point of subconscious bias that might exist. You don’t want to take the risk that you are passed over for something that you could potentially control.

Anyway, those are my two cents. Feel free to disagree on the comment board.