Where Did Summer Go?!

True fact: If you had asked me earlier today when was the last time I'd updated this blog, I would have sworn to you that it was only two weeks ago. Instead it's been over 5 weeks, and I have no idea how the time went by without my notice. It is true that I've been busy; between trying to find a job and working my internship, plus trying to have something that resembles a personal life, I seem to use up all my time every day doing something.

I realized today that Labor Day is just around the corner, and since that is the day I always equate with Summer being officially over (mainly due to the fact that I've lived so much of my life in academia), I feel like I've lost a lot of time somewhere between July and now.

Things of note since my last post: I received my degree in the mail, so I am now officially Alice M. Weaver, M.S., and an alumni of Colorado State University's Graduate School. I have tweaked my resume several times, for all of its incarnations (Administrative Personnel, Communications Specialist and Technical Communications), and I'm still working on the resume that I use to apply for government positions.

I've finally found some good jobs on the website of the temp agency to which I am a member, so I'm hoping that one of those that I've applied for will bear fruit. I'm also still in the running for a position within the nearest hospital in town; my fingers are fervently crossed that I get an in-person interview!

Work at my internship has changed a bit, and I still enjoy working there. It's nice to have a little shake-up of responsibilities, as it keeps the job fresh and entertaining.

I will keep my head up and my thoughts positive and hopeful as I continue to search for work.

Cheers,
AMW

Mid-Summer Rundown

I have confirmed that I will be earning my Master of Science in Public Communications & Technology from Colorado State University at the end of this semester. So now I just have the task ahead of me of getting a job.

I am still working as an unpaid intern at Beet Street, and my writing portfolio has expanded considerably. I even had a small series of articles printed in the local newspaper (though Beet Street was credited with the writing). So things are looking far better as I look toward the end of the year compared to last year.

I am going to start taking online tutorials in CSS and Javascript, as I have come to the conclusion that my knowledge of HTML isn't enough for companies to pay attention to my resume. I may also take a few tutorials in C++ and maybe Linux or Unix, depending on how well I adapt to the language. I remember learning HTML was super-easy, and while that was almost eight years ago, I still know enough to make a webpage without having to cheat and look up codes. I will see how it goes, and if I really like it, I'll try to check out some advanced courses.

If you'd like to see what kind of writing I'm doing for Beet Street's Arts Incubtor of the Rockies (AIR) initiative now, you can go to: http://airartsincubator.org/blog.

If you'd like to read the articles that were printed in the Fort Collins Coloradoan, here are the links to the last two articles (all the others went to the archives):

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20120621/ENTERTAINMENT/306210001/Streetmosphere-showcases-work-HalfMoon-Arts-youth

http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20120628/ENTERTAINMENT/306280003/Avery-House-hosts-Streetmosphere-Fourth-July

As this is Monday, I will wish you all a good week!
-AMW

Writing Means Researching

It is Memorial Day, and I would like to thank all the people in our armed forces for their service, past and present. I have several men who have served in the armed forces in my family, including my dad, and so I deeply respect those who are willing and able to join the fight to keep our country safe and free.

Now, since I have a free day, I decided to take some time and update the blog. First of all, I have successfully defended my thesis, which means I am going to get my Master of Science in Public Communications and Technology, and I'm officially done Summer Semester 2012!!! Huzzah!

Secondly, I have been super busy with Beet Street, writing for them and researching in order to do more articles. I've also had my responsibilities augmented so that I'm writing for Beet Street's AIR and their Streetmosphere programs. So far, I have done two blog posts for AIR, and as of this blog, one article for Streetmosphere, which is in the Coloradoan, though more will be published over the course of the coming month. I have a lot of things to look into prior to making blog posts, which is fun, and I'm discovering a lot about Colorado and the art scene here that I didn't know beforehand.

If you want to read the two blog posts I've done for Beet Street's AIR, you can go here:
http://airartsincubator.org/blog/p?=432
http://airartsincubator.org/blog/p?=438

If you want to read the article I've done for Beet Street's Streetmosphere, you can go here:
http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20120524/ENTERTAINMENT/305240002/Expect-experimentation-from-Matt-Smiley-Streetmosphere?nclick_check=1

I do have to say it's rather neat to have a published bit of work in a newspaper; I don't get writer's credit because I am but a lowly unpaid intern, but I do get to add it to my portfolio of writing samples. I am hoping that all of this writing will help get me a really good job by the end of the summer, if not earlier.

Cheers,
AMW

Internship Acquired & Countdown to Degree

I am now an intern at Beet Street in Fort Collins, Colorado. I am primarily writing articles for newsletters and blogs for the Arts Incubator of the Rockies (AIR) initiative, but I get to help with other things in the office as well. I finished my first "week" on the job (I have a 10-15 hour work week) yesterday, and it feels fantastic to be useful again.

http://www.beetstreet.org
http://www.airartsincubator.org

In other news, this coming Thursday I am defending my thesis. I have a Prezi just about finished and I have plans to make cookies as refreshments are generally served with the presentation. So hopefully this time next week I will have attained my Master of Science in Public Communications & Technology.

Things are definitely looking up!

Cheers,
-AMW

UPDATE: The Musical!

The thesis is written and turned into one of my professors for the first round of edits!

In other news, I'm still trying to acquire a job by sending out a healthy amount of resumes and cover letters, as well as going through application forms online.

As for the title of today's entry, I find that listening to music is a good way to keep myself motivated when I'm getting the silent treatment from possible employers. I'm not going to give up or despair just because I don't hear back from a business I applied to for work. There are too many people out there who are much worse off than I am at the moment, so I'm going to keep my head up and my eyes locked on my goals: to get my Master of Science and to get a job.

I applied to 10 different places yesterday, all "entry level" positions save for one that would have me flexing my managerial skills more than my writing abilities, but it's technically in the veterinary industry, so I'm rather partial to it. All the other places would have me in the medical industry (for humans, not animals) in some capacity, usually administrative, which is fine because I'm familiar with a medical office set-up.

All in all, this past month or so has been good to me (stressful, to be sure, but good).

The Part-Time Two-Step

I start my new part-time job on Monday, the training portion of it anyway. I will be working customer service, mostly calling to set up appointments for people. The pay is good for the work involved, and it leaves the majority of my days open because I'll be working in the evenings, so I'll still be able to work on gathering data for my thesis.

However, a part-time job, no matter how nice, is not a way to make ends meet in the long-run. Looking for full-time work in my field is the goal, and the part-time job is a stepping stone to get me closer to that goal. This doesn't mean that I will shirk any responsibility while working at the part-time job; it just means that I need to remind myself not to get comfortable, since I have a laundry-list of things to do in order to obtain my goal.

The one perk of having employment is that suddenly a lot of people see you as more employable. I already have one or two people waiting to hear from their bosses before they hire me for short gigs in contract work for proofreading and whatnot. Dad also says that companies love to poach workers from other companies as well; so being able to state that I'm currently working is a definite plus on a resume.

I'll be staying in Fort Collins for the next couple of months, at any rate, and I won't have to move back to Michigan now that I'm employed. I'm looking forward to finally working again and being in an office setting. I'll be able to stay long enough to finish my data collection, write the rest of my thesis and defend it, so I'll be graduating officially in Spring 2012. After that, I'll see where the job offers take me (and if they take me early...well, at least I'll have my data collected by the end of this year).

-AMW

It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know

The title of this particular blog is about something that has irked me for quite some time: using relatives/friends/acquaintances to gain your dream job.

The adage of "It's not what you know, it's who you know" has always bugged me, because it should be the other way around. Do you want the guy with a degree in accounting to be doing your PR, just because he's LinkedIn buddies with ten contacts you happen to have in common?

Short answer: No.
Long answer: Nooooooooo.

You want somebody who has trained to do a job to do that job. The guy with an accounting degree should be in the accounting department, and the person you find with either a degree and/or sufficient experience in PR should be doing your PR.

My dad and I had a pretty good conversation about this bizarre turn of events where people have gotten jobs through friends/acquaintances/networking, turned said jobs into careers, and never used the degrees they worked to obtain. I understand getting a job through acquaintances/friends if you need a stopgap to pay the bills, and networking to attain that dream job. But when I earn my Master's Degree in Public Communication & Technology, I don't want to be wasting my time flipping burgers! I want to use what I learned to help the business I'm working for, in a marketing, journalism, PR or technical writing capacity (since all are under the umbrella of the degree).

I would love to start my career by getting in with a company in a low-level job and working for a Marketing Director or a Lead Technical Writer. I would prove my worth and my skills, climb the ladder to a higher position, help the company with marketing strategies or better written/formatted user guides. That is where I would be happy, because I'd be right in the thick of things and taking on challenges.

I do admit that networking is useful, and I'm not bagging it entirely because it has helped a lot of my friends get good jobs/internships. However, I'd like HR departments and Hiring Managers to consider that while the whole six-degrees-of-separation thing is a way to meet people who could be qualified, it's the people who are qualified who should be getting the jobs, regardless of who they know on Facebook and/or LinkedIn. Doing a job right means it's what you know, not who you know, that matters in the end.

That's my two cents, at any rate.
-AMW

When Prospects Don't Pan Out

Update on the multiple prospects I had last week. The receptionist job at the medical center: I have heard nothing after my initial interview from them. The editor position for the student centered paper turns out to be a super-part-time job, instead of the full-time position that I was led to believe it was when I applied. The fiction writing I was doing? Massive writer's block.

This has also been the first week of classes for the fall semester, so I have been staying busy meeting with professors and fellow grad students. It was good to be on campus again, though I'm going to miss teaching.

Of course I'm still applying to jobs; I want to work and earn my keep. Trying to stay positive is difficult when the vast majority of the answers (if they're not a silent dismissal) is "no", but it's important to keep my head up and my eyes out for an opportunity.

-AMW

Delay Due to Multiple Prospects

So after months and months of hearing "no", or hearing nothing at all, I am suddenly faced with having people calling me for interviews or writing samples. This is why I neglected my weekly update last week (sorry to those of you who were looking forward to it).

I thought I had a good chance of working in a software company/IT firm as their office assistant, but even after the obligatory call to show interest a week after the initial interview, I have heard nothing. I still may have a shot as a receptionist at a medical center, or at a publication aimed at college students. I would love to work at either place, honestly.

As always, I am still sending out my resume with industry appropriate cover letters. I always have to remind myself that even though it may feel like I'm close to getting a job, I shouldn't count my money before I earn it. This thought keeps me humble and grounded, and motivated to find the right job for me.

In addition to all of this job hunting, I have hit a snag with my thesis, and so I have to do a major revision. I'll have less work to do in the long run when it comes to data gathering, but having to do a revision that takes out a component of the thesis is just as time consuming as adding a component.

Finally, I've been doing a bit of fiction writing. At first it was just to relieve stress from the Rambler Debacle, as I've been referring to it, but then it started to take on a life of its own. I have almost an entire book mapped out, which is good, and a few short stories as well.

That's it for the update; I will resume my once-a-week blog from here on out.
-AMW

Backwards Applications Online

I have found something of an interesting trend while applying online to jobs. I posted a little snippet of what I was seeing on my Facebook, but now I want to blog about it. Online applications seem to be a bit backwards to me.

Here is an example, given in two scenarios:

Scenario One:
I apply to a really nice, full-time job; great pay and benefits, I wouldn't need to do hardly any training because I have most (if not all) of the experience necessary for the job and I can start right away. I make a cover letter and send it along with my resume, and depending on the employer, my transcripts from my graduate school as well.

This takes all of 15 to 20 minutes, and then I can go looking for another really nice, full-time job.

Scenario Two:
I apply to a slightly-more-than-minimum-wage, full-time job; it will pay my bills until I finish my degree and/or I get that really nice, full-time job. I may need a bit of training because they have "proprietary software", but the rest of the job I could do blindfolded while simultaneously juggling flaming chainsaws with one hand [WARNING: Do NOT try this at home, even if you think you're a really, really good juggler].

I can't just send in a resume and cover letter; I must fill in an online application. So I click on the appropriate boxes and start filling things in...and filling things in...and filling things in. Usually after I've manually put in all of my work and academic experience, and listed all of my referral contacts, there is a place where I can upload my resume if I choose (this is one of the few places that it is optional to input data, rather than mandatory). My resume has all of my work and academic experience on it. Oh well, I'll upload it anyway, then click for the next page.

I have to take a competency and/or personality test next. It takes at least another 20 to 30 minutes, and if I have to do both, it will of course take twice as long. By the time I'm done, I've checked about five or six boxes confirming that I am not a felon and there are no warrants out for my arrest. I've also checked at least two or three boxes confirming that my name really is Alice Malia Weaver, and I do not have a nefarious alias under which I've worked to take over the world.

The entirety of the application takes a little over two hours, give or take 15 minutes.

[End of Scenarios]

So now that I have given these scenarios, here is my question: when did it become harder to apply for a minimum wage job than it would to apply for a really nice, higher paying job? One would think that it would be the other way around, since people should be willing to jump through more hoops of red tape to get a better paying job than a minimum wage job.

I would like to hear feedback and reader opinions on this subject. Don't be shy! I would love to talk to some people about this and their view on the subject of online applications.

Now if you all will excuse me, I have some more jobs to apply to today.

-AMW

Career Advising

I went to the Career Center at my university today. I had already had a Liberal Arts Career Counselor look over my resume, but I wanted to get a second opinion from a Business Career Counselor. The counselor was very nice and looked over my resume, noting where I could improve my resume and giving me a lot of helpful hints and advise. He even got me to laugh a couple times, which was great and improved the overall experience. He also liked my business card and said it was a good tactic to use to help my employment chances.

I had been doubting my resume's ability to grab attention because I had been getting so few calls about my applications to work in different fields, and I was right to worry. My professional profile at the top is lacking in several aspects, so I will be rewriting it, as well as replacing my "Relevant Coursework" section with something else.

I also cleaned out my box at the Graduate Teaching Assistant Office today, since I was on campus. That was a little sad, but I am looking to the future, where I will finish my thesis and finally acquire my MS in Public Communications and Technology.

I guess today has been all about looking over what I have done in order to look towards what I can accomplish, and that always puts a smile on my face.

-AMW

Time Management Blues

I think that, for the most part, I do really well with time management. I can schedule things and be on time and very rarely have I ever needed to ask a professor or boss for extra time to finish a project. In fact, I can not remember in recent history when I have had to ask for extra time to finish a project, so I would say my time management is really good.

However, I am having a bit of an issue at this point regarding my duties to finish my thesis and my need to get a job. There are several businesses who are interested in me at this point, but I wouldn't be working a nine-to-five, Monday-to-Friday job with the weekends free. I would be working a job that, while a full-time 40-hours-a-week position, would be run over the course of six days a week, not five. I would have one day off a week, sometime in the middle of the week.

As for my thesis, volunteer participation has trickled to a standstill. I posted flyers all over town, and yet I did not receive one serious inquiry. Thankfully my friends have rallied and offered alternative solutions to acquiring volunteers, so I will still be able to get my thesis done the way my professors want it to be done. However, the scheduling for this makes it imperative that as long as I still need data for my thesis, I have to have the weekends open.

So now the real question is: how quickly can I get everybody together for my data collection, so that I can get in on one of these jobs and have gainful employment? Once I have the data, all I have to do is break it down and analyze it, then write the last chapters of my thesis and defend it. If I'm working, I can work on it an hour a night after my job, and then dedicate several hours to it on my one day off. I would also have to schedule my defense on my one day off from my job, which may be a bit tricky because one of the professors on my thesis panel travels a lot and he's usually only in town sporadically at best if class is not in session.

In a nutshell, scheduling far future events in the hopes that things will work out okay has been giving me problems. Also, predicting the future is not something I'm noted for, so trying to schedule aforementioned far future events is becoming very hit or miss for me, and I do not like it one bit.

-AMW

Application Forms and the Joys of Being Labeled as Over-Qualified & Under-Experienced

I understand the need to get as much pertinent information as needed from an applicant. I do, really. However, the excessive amount of forms that everybody wants me to fill out for something as simple as a cash register position is ludicrous. Yes, I know that part of the whole application process is for legal purposes so everybody is on a level playing field. Yes, I also know that one's ability to fill out the application is also an indicator of how well an applicant can follow direction. My question against all the extraneous paperwork is this: how is it any easier on the Hiring Manager to look through a hand written application when the same information is right on my nicely typed and well formatted resume? I am annoyed by this particular set of hoops and red tape, it is true.

I have also been told by several people that I am in the interesting position of being over-qualified and under-experienced for pretty much everything I apply for, due to the fact that I am currently in the process of attaining my Master of Science degree, but my writing portfolio is not as large as it ought to be.

The above statement annoys me greatly, because I do have a great amount of experience. I have about five years worth of retail experience, over two of which I was also in a management position that handled the schedules of other people and oversaw inventory (including working with vendors and ordering supplies). Also during those two-plus years I was in charge of creating pamphlets and other advertising-type things, including a website (it was these PR type things that got me into graduate school in the first place). I also have a year-and-a-half of teaching and grading experience, which means I am willing and able to be friendly with lots of people and share information in an easy-to-understand manner, as well as being able to proofread/edit lots of paperwork (which any teaching assistant can tell you, because nobody can have 50 to 100 students per semester and then tell you s/he isn't a great editor/proofreader). So technically, I do in fact have the experience, but a lot of people do not view it as valid experience for the jobs to which I'm applying.

I have applied thus far to be everything from a manager of an EZ Loan office to a cashier at Barnes & Noble and have received no word back from any hiring entity. I have also attempted to get contract work for technical writing, but getting my foot in the door has proven to be a bit tougher than anticipated.

A foot in the door is all I need, but apparently all I have to show for trying at this point are stubbed toes. I guess now I need to invest in some (metaphorical) steel-toed boots.

-AMW

The First Post

Well here I am, creating another blog...only this time, it's to help myself gain employment.

My name is Alice Malia Weaver, and I am currently in my last steps to acquiring my Master of Science in Public Communications & Technology. The last steps include finishing my thesis, as I have already finished all my coursework. However, as my attempts to get outside input that I need for my thesis have garnered little in the way of participation, I find myself looking for a job to help me pay my bills.

I am on CareerBuilder.com, as well as a few other sites. The reason I am making this blog is because of the following:
1) It is free and I need the exposure
2) I have been given 250 free business cards, and whilst designing them, I wanted to put a website on the cards
3) A blog chronicling my adventures in job searching will help me keep my spirits up as well as keep me organized

Hopefully I will gain employment sooner rather than later, but I have found that my well of patience is deep and abiding in all things, so if I have to wait to find a good job, I will wait.

So ends the first post.
-AMW