ResearchGoddess

I’ve lived in Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, and now Washington state. I’ve traveled up and down the eastern seaboard and been in or at least through almost every state in the continental US. I’ve spent time in 8 foreign countries and racked up some serious air miles. Hi, my name is Amybeth – I’m a travel addict.

I don’t mind long car trips – I’ve driven from Cincinnati to southwest FL more times than I can count, and I took a 2600 roadtrip with my friend Jennifer when I moved out to Washington last fall. No matter the method, I have some serious wanderlust. I long for the opportunity to see new places and experience new things. While I love the comforts of home, I don’t mind hopping on a plane or in the passenger seat and strapping in for a journey to an exciting new place.

My purpose in writing this post isn’t to bore you with the details of my travels. I’ve found that many people don’t care to hear about the cool places that others have been to (which I personally don’t understand, but whatever!) so I’m not going to do that. But what I DO want to share are a couple of thoughts about the benefits of being open to travel, relocation, and experiencing new people and places. This applies both to pretty much everyone because it helps to broaden your horizon and gives you tons of stuff to discuss with new friends. However – I want to focus these thoughts today on those in recruitment roles and those who are looking for employment, in particular, new college graduates.

I graduated from college about nine years ago. I wanted desperately to stay in Florida upon graduating, but I found myself unable to find a job that fit into my area of study (Exercise and Sports Sciences) – at least one that made more than $7/hour. Frustrated, I took a position that forced me to relocate to Cincinnati. I ended up staying in Cincinnati for seven years, until I moved to the Pacific Northwest last fall.

I’ve hopped across the country as far as residences are concerned, and I believe this has been very much to my advantage in my line of work. I am a networker by profession, and by having experienced as many different place as I have, it’s given me lots to talk about with new connections. I can converse with knowledge about lots of things because I’ve been open to new experiences, living arrangements, and activities in the various places I’ve lived and visited.

Why is this important? A golden rule when networking is to make others comfortable. When you allow others to speak, you let them choose the topic and thus create a more comfortable environment. Lots of times, people bring up activities or places that I’ve had the pleasure of experiencing myself, and those shared experiences form new bonds. They give you common areas of interest and help the conversation flow to many other places. For example, I wrote a post 2 years ago about a woman I met on the boat to Alcatraz in San Francisco, who has become a dear friend today. Also – a time when I was stuck in Houston, someone I had formerly worked with graciously put me up for the evening based on one text message sent from the plane. There are tons of other examples from my own travels that I don’t have space to share – but I would be happy to talk with you about them if you want to reach out to me!

Things to consider regarding being open to new locations for job-seekers – in particular, new graduates:

• Don’t be afraid to spread your wings when you graduate! Get out there and see the world. Yes, your parents will miss you, but they should be proud of you setting out on your own and making your way in the world. You’ll learn valuable life skills and independence. These are important skills to have if you’re going to be a successful professional.
• More times than not, your dream career is not going to be in your backyard (translated: within a 20 mile radius of where you grew up or went to college).

If you have a great story about a new connection you made or a new opportunity you found while experiencing a new activity or location, please share it in a comment – we’d all love to hear it!

In February, I enjoyed watching the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics and was surprised and pleased to see a fellow alum from the University of Florida, Steve Mesler, competing in the 4-man bobsleigh team. Even cooler is that I discovered we had actually graduated from the same program, Exercise and Sports Science, and in the same year (2000). It was awesome to watch Steve and his teammates go on to win a gold medal in the bobsleigh event, and I went to Steve’s website to read up on how he became involved with bobsledding. What I read was so interesting, and so applicable to what a lot of you who are getting ready to graduate from college and start a new chapter in your lives are preparing for. I saw many actions that Steve took to realize his Olympic dream that would also work for a student preparing to start his or her career following graduation.

I took a shot at reaching out to Steve to see if he would talk with me a little about how he got to the Olympics, and I was pleasantly surprised at his rapid response and enthusiasm to share with me. (There’s lesson #1 to you, students: you’ll never know what is possible until you ask.) We spoke on the phone for about 30 minutes and I got to know a man who is quite dedicated to his work as well as very determined to pay it forward and do a lot of good with what he has accomplished. But he didn’t get to where he is by sheer luck… he was focused, he worked hard, and he was very proactive about getting to where he wanted to be.

Whether you are getting ready to graduate from college or you still have a year or two left before you need to start thinking about post-graduation plans, there are some key points to keep in mind as you look toward your future. Chances are any number of the following questions have been racing through your mind:

• What’s next? I have no idea what I want to do…
• Will I be able to find a job that fits what I’ve studied in school?
• Who to I need to contact to find a job?
• What do I need to say or do to make myself stand out from the crowd?

Much of Steve’s history deals with these very questions, and as an Olympic gold medalist as well as a 2009 World Champion, Steve is certainly someone from whom you can learn a great deal about hard work, determination, and focus. For example, Steve actually spent most of his early athletic career as a decathlete. Only toward the end of his senior year in college did he contemplate bobsledding. This was a result of multiple injuries during his college career. Steve realized that if he wanted to continue to live his dream of becoming a professional athlete, he would have to make a change in direction in order to do so.

Lesson: You may not end up working in a position that is completely aligned with what you studied. Be flexible and willing to bend with the winds of change.

Steve referenced the book Good To Great by Jim Collins – to succeed you have to be able to move on, make changes, and have confidence in your abilities… but you also need to look at your current realities and accept what needs to be changed.

Steve began doing research on bobsledding before he graduated. In fact, he knew long before graduation that he wanted to continue to pursue professional athletics as a career. He started figuring out what he would need to do to make this happen the summer of his senior year. In the meantime, he worked internships and continued to workout and improve his strength and conditioning in preparation for his desired career path.

Lesson: Don’t wait until the last minute to start scheduling interviews, and keep up with your studies while you’re figuring out your post-graduation plans.

When Steve set his mind on joining the Olympic bobsleigh team, he knew he had something of value to offer, but he didn’t know whom he would need to speak with in order to prove it. He began doing some research to find the correct channels. Since this was in 2000, Internet search was not what it is today so he had to work hard to find the right people to connect with. Once he found the right people with whom to connect, he wrote to the Olympic committee and shared his attributes, strengths, and testing numbers, and he ended his email with, “If this is something I can do, please let me know…if this is something that I have no chance with, just let me know and you’ll never hear from me again.” While recognizing and showcasing his value, he did so without a sense of entitlement and with a request for an answer, even if it wasn’t one he wanted to hear.

Lesson: Do due diligence in researching the companies in which you are interested, and make sure you are reaching out to the right person/people. Personalize your outreach.

Lesson: Be confident in your abilities without coming across as entitled. Be receptive to whatever response you may receive from potential employers. Learn from their feedback and make appropriate adjustments in your search.

While Steve did receive a positive response from the Olympic committee, he was told that he had some areas that needed improvement first. It was almost a year before he qualified and was invited to compete on the national level – June 2001 was his first invite to a national event. In the meantime, he was working part-time at the university and coaching high school athletes. He had to figure out his own training regiment to prepare to compete as a bobsledder. He sought out a strength coach and together they sat down and determined what goals he would need to achieve in order to make the team.

Lesson: be proactive about your own career development. Don’t expect everything to be handed to you. Seek out a mentor or coach. Working hard toward a goal makes achieving it much more satisfying.

With a World Championship and an Olympic gold medal in his possession, Steve now has a huge platform from which to speak. He has chosen to take his fame and use it to pay it forward by starting the Back To School Project. This project helps to personalize the Olympic experience for young students by giving them a direct connection to Steve and his travels and competitions. As a young athlete, Steve remembers getting to go watch the Atlanta 1996 Summer Games in person and the experience that he had doing so. He remembers coming back from the Games pumped up about the experience and wondering, “What’s next?” With the Back To School Project, along with his sister, they invite teachers to sign up and send videos, letters, etc. and he in turn sends messages back to the classrooms taking them through his own competition experiences, helping them to feel more involved and connected.  Steve says it is a neat feeling for him to receive a letter from a seven-year-old telling him to ‘eat his vegetables and be safe’. His desire with the project is to get better technology into the classrooms that he is working with and to encourage more athletes to do the same and bring their own experiences into the classrooms for kids to enjoy.

Lesson: Remember where you came from, and always reach back.

A final thought from Steve: “Being an Olympic athlete is a selfish endeavor that not many people will pursue. You can’t lead a normal life. But what you’re training for is so worth it. Many times I’ve thought about how my life might have been without pursuing this. But over the last year, winning world championships and all, I wouldn’t give those up in a million years.”

Lesson: Pursue your dreams. Don’t let anyone tell you what you can or cannot do. Know that it will take hard work, focus, and determination to achieve anything worthwhile. Be flexible to change along the way. But always enjoy the journey and learn from every experience.

You can follow Steve on Twitter at @SteveMesler and learn more about what he is doing with the Back To School Project.

These spotlights are opportunities for you to get to know some individuals who were recommended to me for the article I recently wrote for Mashable, 4 Essential Traits for Social Media Success in Your Career. The purpose of my project, detailed here, is to profile some social media professionals to keep an eye on in the coming year.

Spotlight:

What Brian had to say about Venessa: “Venessa is a philosopher and a futurist, exploring the advanced art and science of human connections and conversations and bringing observations and revelations from the edge to the center. ”

Venessa earned a BA in Psychology from Miami University of Ohio, and currently she is pursuing an MA in Media Studies through the New School, a progressive university located in NYC. Back in 2006, a friend asked if she wanted to be involved in a social media start-up company he was planning to launch. At the time Venessa had never even heard the phrase “social media” before, but was eager to explore a new direction. She spent the next year just learning the basics of how technological developments were affecting the way we communicate and understand the world. Since then, she hasn’t been able to stop. Each new evolution of the social web is allowing unexpected behaviors to emerge that are challenging the norms of how our society operates. Venessa believes it’s only going to get more disruptive as time goes by.

What interests Venessa about social media: How we can better access and use information, and how we might leverage the power of social networks. Unfortunately, the internet is rife with marketing and spam, and the noise is growing exponentially. Venessa believes we need systems that will help us quickly cut through the crap to get to the credible, quality content. Then we need to know what to do with the information. She has been experimenting a lot on Twitter and is finding that by building a network of knowledgeable people in her interest area, she is being exposed to information and ideas that she wouldn’t have been able to find from a quick Google search. As a result, there’s a really interesting informal learning process that’s being recognized there. Venessa has noticed a lot of people taking advantage of it in order to stay on top of what’s going on in their industries and to exchange ideas with peers around the world. She believes it’s going to become clear that businesses that aren’t integrating social media into the culture of their organization are going to be at a disadvantage against the competition. And not just because it isolates them from the opportunity to interact with their customers, but also because they’re going to have a less educated workforce.

With that in mind, she also thinks there’s a tremendous opportunity now for people to do things on a scale that has just never been possible before, from facilitating innovation in businesses to sparking movements that will lead to true social change. She had the opportunity to share some thoughts on this recently on Nokia’s IdeasProject website.

Where Venessa sees social media going in the future: Venessa says, “It’s easy to get caught up in the tools themselves and forget about what it is that the tools enable. Social media is just a means of communication. People are interested in sharing knowledge and information, in making life easier, and in having fun and being happy.” She thinks we will see some of the following stem from these interests:

• The mobile phone will play an increasingly important role as the medium for connecting online because of its portability and reduced cost in comparison to purchasing a desktop computer.  We’ll also see more tools emerge that will enhance the mobile experience, from augmented reality apps like Layar to portable credit card payment systems like Square to location-based services.
• We begin to embrace a new oral culture. Venessa thinks social media has established a new type of communication, and businesses and individuals are still figuring out how to use it effectively. But people have always enjoyed a narrative, so we’ll begin to see approaches to business that move more along the lines of storytelling and visualization. It’s not enough to sell a product or service anymore. People want to see messages that are visually appealing and understandable, like infographics, and they want ideas packaged into stories, whose foundations are built on values instead of material things.
• Tools will be built that make tasks feel more like fun and games. There’s a site called thefuntheory.com that has some really neat videos embracing this concept. Same with Foursquare – why would you want to constantly be updating your location for anyone to see? Because you can earn badges and become Mayor of the local cafe, of course! Whether for educational purposes or on the job, Venessa believes that there are going to be interesting social media tools developed that give us incentives to complete tasks because they feel more like games than work.
• Better tools for search. As mentioned earlier, information streams are already polluted with noise, and there isn’t enough time or attention to be given to filtering it. Tools will be developed that do a better job of catching spam and enabling us to find the kind of content we want.

Connect with Venessa on:

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Blog

A large chunk of my time right now with AT&T is spent doing proactive research for our Campus Recruiting efforts. I look for student profiles in a number of places, and some of the most important things I look for are good GPA, good experience working with groups of people, and some form of leadership, whether it be in athletics, clubs, or an after-school job. These are traits we look for in our future leaders. We put our Development Program participants through training in many areas, including ones that may not be directly related to their ultimate job function, as well as all levels of work within their career track. Why? Because to be an effective manager, you’ve got to pay your dues.

So often, I read student profiles who list amongst their objectives when coming out of college, “To find a management position…” While I applaud your moxie, there are certain steps one must take first in order to reach management, and this includes earning some experience. I’m sorry to say this, but you can’t come straight out of college and land a management position for your first job – not unless:

1. You’re going to work for the same company you’ve been working for throughout school, or
2. You gained corporate experience prior to earning your degree (in most cases, this applies to graduate degrees)

I’ve written about this in the past. You can’t just start off at the top unless you’re going to start your own company, and that’s a whole different ball of wax. Career paths have fairly well-defined start points and those typically aren’t halfway down the trail. I’m certainly not trying to kill your dream here. I’m simply asking you to be realistic about your expectations of yourself (and your future employer!) upon graduating. And if you think about it, starting off with an entry-level position, which is what typically happens, will help you to be a better manager in the long run.

Learning the various levels within a company firsthand helps you to understand how things work. When you start from the bottom and work your way up, you gain understanding along the way of how various departments and levels of the organization operate. This firsthand learning is valuable and earns you wisdom about the inner workings of a company that cannot be gained in other ways.

Managers need to be good leaders, but you don’t have to be a manager in order to be a leader! Leadership experience can be earned at all levels in your career, including entry-level. Leadership is shown through taking the initiative to learn about new products/processes, asking to participate in projects outside of your normal job duties, helping and encouraging your co-workers, and taking an overall proactive approach to your career. These things can all be done as soon as you enter the workforce and will help you to be a better manager when the time comes. Managing well should include leading, guiding, encouraging, and mentoring. If you’ve no experience in these areas, then you’re not ready to be a manager.

Don’t rush the natural progression – this is your opportunity to enjoy the journey! When we were little kids, we whined and complained to our parents about how we wanted to hurry up and be a grown-up, and our parents almost always told us to be patient and enjoy being a kid because they knew we were building solid foundations for our adulthood during these years. Same goes with your career – don’t speed through the foundational times because they will provide a more solid ground for you to stand on for your future. Pay your dues, earn your experience, and you’ll have a more fulfilling and successful career in the long run.

My primary focus with the AT&T Talent Attraction team at this point in time is working with our Campus Recruiting team to find new and innovative ways of reaching students and new grads to make them aware of the opportunities we have at AT&T. I found this video this morning – an interview with several college students regarding their thoughts on Twitter:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9H_HQtvUkk&feature=player_embedded]

“It’s a lame way for celebrities to share information about stuff that nobody should really know.”
“I feel like a lot of people just … talk about random stuff.”
“I don’t think people really want to hear about my personal life.”

Hearing these statements is disheartening and tells me that those of us who are proponents of the professional use of Twitter are not doing a good job of sharing with this particular demographic how it can be used.

This is a call-out to all of you who read this blog and are current students. If you’re a college student, please leave a comment with your thoughts on Twitter. Share with us why you do or don’t use Twitter. I’m most interested in what your perception of its purpose is and why you do or don’t see the value in participating in the Twitterverse.