Tag Archives: Facebook

Admittedly, when I first considered applying to work with Indiana INTERNnet, I thought I was a bit aged to take on an internship.

That is until I watched the trailer for the upcoming movie “The Intern.” I am nowhere near 70, the age of the intern character played by one of my favorite actors, Robert De Niro. But I did wonder how I would compete against traditional college students. It goes to show that no matter your age, if you’re willing to learn, you can find opportunities.

I call this a non-traditional movie review for two reasons. First, non-traditional (a 37-year-old parent who works while attending college) is the type of student I am, and second, I’ve yet to see the movie, which is set for release Sept. 25. Based on the trailer, however, I expect to experience more than a few laughs and maybe even learn a life lesson …

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Indiana University senior, Tim Klawitter, tells of his experience as a student manager and how United Way team NFL interns are impacting education. Tim is specializing in sports communication, business and journalism. He will be graduating in December and is presently searching for a full-time position. As a a student manager for the Indiana Football team and a United Way TEAM NFL Intern, Tim promotes the civic efforts of Virgil Green of the Denver Broncos and Antoine Bethea of the Indianapolis Colts via digital marketing and social media. You can connect with Tim via both Twitter and Instagram.

In today’s fast-paced, results-driven world, it’s easy to get caught up in our to-do lists and forget about taking a second to give back. We focus on tasks that will benefit ourselves and spend our days consuming rather than making a difference and bettering the world we live in.

Not too …

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Megan Nelson is a student at St. Mary-of-the-Woods College in Terre Haute, Indiana. She is an employee at Lake Land College (LLC) in Mattoon, Illinois.

The goal of my internship was to use online marketing to increase the college’s non-traditional audience, expand its brand, and get noticed on the Internet. Part of my assignments involved using avenues like Google AdWords to reach this goal. I spent the majority of my first two weeks researching Google AdWords and how it worked before I determined the best way to learn was to “dive in head first” and create one. I generated three text ads on AdWords and conceptualized a single video ad to reach adult students from start to finish. I also explored the possibility of advertising on Pandora Radio by gathering demographic information and creating a survey via SurveyMonkey.com  to help determine if that opportunity would be worth the investment.

During …

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(Click above to view our video featuring Slingshot SEO)

Although Slingshot SEO is just six years old, its prominence in Indianapolis and the “search industry” is unparalleled. Slingshot provides search engine services for nearly 150 clients. With the evolution of search and the nature of constant change in the search industry, Slingshot relies on young professionals to fulfill their clients’ needs.

Slingshot SEO has launched a new-and-improved internship program called the “Search Scholars.” The company hosts interns in every department, including sales, marketing, client success, SEO consulting, search media, IT and human resources.

The program now includes:

1-2 résumé-worthy projects Mentor program Networking development A unique intern group project Variety of trainings for professional and personal growth Weekly structured meetings Final presentations at the conclusion of their internship

You may apply for Slingshot internships using Indiana INTERNnet, but we’d encourage you to check out Slingshot’s website, too. Best of …

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This week marks the end of my internship here with Indiana INTERNnet, and just by coincidence, it signifies a close to the Freddie Factor blog series. My goal with this blog series was to inform peers, employers, and educators about the opportunities that arise from interning.  

Hopefully, you’ve found this blog to be informative and gained a better understanding of why internships are beneficial. I’ve tried to give tips and tricks relating to interviews, resumes, and the latest-and-greatest Indiana INTERNnet website technology. The Freddie Factor or “FF,” as it is referred to in the “factor fan circles,” was also helpful to me…yes, there are factor fans. I did quite a bit of research when writing these blogs and learned a great deal about interning, as a result. With this final blog, I thought I’d recap my internship experience.

During my internship at Indiana INTERNnet, one of my assignments was …

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Branding, branding, branding. It’s a popular buzzword in the college, internship, and job worlds, but what exactly is it?

Yes, branding can refer to “It’s so easy a caveman can do it”— thank you, GEICO. The branding to which I am referring is personal branding. This type of branding has many different definitions, but simply put, it is the personal identity you wish to convey to schools and employers. Your “brand” can involve many aspects of your life—from your appearance, your knowledge, and your resume, to your online presence with Facebook and LinkedIn. All of these elements are visible to potential schools or employers, and knowing how to create and manage your personal brand is important to future success.

So, how do you create a brand and manage it? In creating a brand, you first need to identify your goals. If you are trying to snag a specific job, …

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Entry by Valerie Petrey, Public Relations & Event Planning Intern, Purdue Liberal Arts Career Development

 1. Stay organized
Keep an agenda or calendar. Write down the days and times of when all of your papers, projects and exams are due. This will serve as a great outline for you to refer to, and will ensure you don’t accidentally mix up times or dates.

2. Don’t pull an all-nighter
If you did number one, you hopefully won’t be pulling all nighters! Know your grades beforehand, and know how well you have to do on the exam or final project to get the grade you want. Be realistic and manage your time wisely. Splitting up study hours will also allow you to rejuvenate yourself.

3. Wrap up final internship projects
It’s not a good idea to try and fit last minute meetings …

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Image via CrunchBase

Entry by Valerie Petrey, Public Relations & Event Planning Intern, Purdue Liberal Arts Career Development

Have you Googled yourself recently? If you’re internship or job searching, I highly recommend you Google yourself to see how others view you in the virtual world. 

Everyone is always talking about setting your Facebook and Twitter accounts to private, and making sure there are no inappropriate pictures of you on the Internet. Okay, we know to do all of that so when employers Google us, they know we are responsible… but when they Google us, don’t we want them to see something that will make an impact on them?

Every job seeker’s goal should be to get on the first page of Google. It’s more difficult with names like “Kayla Smith,” but it’s doable. Rather than having your Facebook pop up, what if a well-written blog came up? …

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Entry by Pat Patterson

Social networking may help you reach your student body, keep in contact with alumni, connect students and alumni with employment opportunities, and market your events.  John Hill, alumni career services director at Michigan State University (MSU), has had a lot of success with social networking:

The MSU career services network’s social networking strategy is to have alumni help it access industries, interest areas, and professions that it wouldn’t be able to reach through traditional on-campus recruiting or career fairs.

“The MSU alumni who get involved in these groups through social and professional media are our low-hanging fruit and it’s up to us to mobilize them,” Hill says. “Social media gives us a ready-made repository to identify them.”

MSU primarily focuses on LinkedIn as there are 135,000 MSU alumni and students using it. Through information and data on resumes, the career services network creates communities that …

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Entry by Brittney Horn, Membership Intern, Greater Lafayette Commerce

By now everyone pretty much knows to keep their Facebook free of any wild and crazy pictures and ludicrous statuses. This fact is old news by now (or at least I hope so). But what about blogging? Can you blog on your own free will without worrying about future employers reading and analyzing every word you write? The answer is yes. Well, urm, sort of.

You can have a blog that isn’t professionally related, but you MUST be careful at what you write about. If it’s about your life in general, you should be aware of what you reveal. Do you want your future employer to know that you had a 3-day drinking binge to celebrate your birthday? Yeah I didn’t think so. If it’s a specific type of blog such as a food, fashion, music, etc. be …

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Entry by Pat Patterson

Just because you may not have landed the internship of your dreams in the past does not mean it’s not possible.  Writing a great resume and cover letter and “looking the part” at a networking event or career fair are not the only determinants of whether or not you will get a call back.  It is important to also pay attention to the details that may set you apart from other candidates.

Spell check your resume and cover letter over and over again.  And then after you are done spell checking, have one of your peers spell check for you.  A typo can say a lot of negative things about you – such as, you may not be able to spell, you don’t care enough to check for spelling errors, you are not organized or detail-oriented, etc. 

Invest in professional resume paper.  Although business stationary paper …

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Entry by Pat Patterson

Before you pack up your materials to begin recruiting interns on college campuses, take some time to strategize how you will market your organization. More importantly, think about the characteristics of your target audience – Millennials, those born between 1977 and 1998. The more you know about Millennials, the more you can tailor your recruiting efforts to entice their interests. Here are some Key Characteristics of Today’s Adolescents:

Self-reliance – They believe that becoming successful is up to them, and they are not depending on others for help. Finding a good job is a priority. They are the young navigators. They must chart their own course and captain their own ship: “It’s up to me to create my own well-being.” They value personal experience and are prone to seek out critical thinkers. They are independent and emotionally and intellectually open. They strongly value individual rights: …

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Entry by Pat Patterson

We launched our blog in June, and every so often I will check our Google Analytics account to determine how many people visit our blog and how they find our blog in the first place.  Today, I noticed a trend that somewhat surprised me – the majority of traffic to Indiana INTERNnation is directed from our social media marketing, more specifically Facebook.

This made me think – although all organizations and websites are different, if you are not using social media to market your organization, you are missing out on a large, free opportunity to increase your exposure.  Specifically, I encourage all organizations to market your internship opportunities or at least links to your opportunities through your social media accounts. 

Think about it – Facebook was created for university and college students, a majority of which use Facebook at least once a day.  If you want …

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Entry by Pat Patterson

In the July INTERNnetwork, I included an article about social networking and how to create a “professional” Facebook profile. However, I am going to correct myself – since Facebook is less of a business-oriented site and more of a personal social networking platform, I think the word “respectable” more appropriately labels how you should represent yourself in your profile.

Let me explain what I mean by “respectable” – the content in your profile should not be content that you would not want an employer to view. Creating a respectable profile means including both personal and professional content. For example, you want to include your career goals and interests, but that does not mean you have to exclude your other interests as well. Take look at the Facebook profile I have included for your reference – For example, Anastasiya lists “journalism” and “public relations” as some of …

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Entry by Pat Patterson

Although you may perceive Facebook as a personal social media tool, don’t think that your friends are the only ones searching for you.  I have heard countless “horror” stories of students who did not get a job or an internship or who have even been fired because of the content in their Facebook profile.  Many organizations also routinely search for students on Facebook after reviewing their resumes – this is becoming a more and more common practice. 

In the July INTERNnetwork, I included some tips on how to create a professional Facebook profile.  To recap:

– Use a head shot photo for your profile picture and delete, un-tag, or hide unprofessional/inappropriate pictures,
– in the “About Me” section, list networking as something you are interested in,
– include interests relevant to your career goals in the “Interests” section,
– join groups or “Like” pages that are related …

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