How to Get the Most Out of Your Campus Career Center

Note: This is a guest post from Kelly Cuene. Kelly is a friend of mine and a Career Advisor at The University of Wisconsin. Most people I knew in college, including me, didn't take advantage of their career centers until it was too late. That's unfortunate because your career center really can be a great resource. If you're in college, I urge you to take Kelly's advice and get the most out of your career center, before its too late.

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I realize many students have serious concerns about the quality (or lack thereof) of their campus career center. It's also important to know, however, how to get the most from your career services office. Some basic tips:

Do some work on your own, first
Student services staff are always trying to conveniently deliver information to students (notice the increasing use of videos, blogs, podcasts, websites and social networking sites by campus staff). Seriously, we have committees, surveys and focus groups trying to figure this out. If you look for these first, you'll have a more productive appointment with a career advisor because you can ask follow-up questions or apply that information to your own situation.

Be prepared for an appointment
Before you visit with an advisor, think about what it is you hope to get out of the appointment. What questions do you have that you need answered? Some students with whom I meet apologize for bringing in a list of questions to ask. No worries – preparing questions in advance is awesome. It ensures all your concerns are discussed and our time is used effectively.

Visit early
Fall career fairs often launch campus recruiting for the year and usually take place just a few weeks after classes begin. This catches students off-guard, who have to scramble to prepare, or worse, miss out on great opportunities entirely. This is especially important for business majors and any students hoping to pursue careers with corporate employers, who conduct the bulk of recruiting in the fall. Plan ahead and hit the ground running once you get back to campus. Bonus points if you visit during the summer when few students are around.

Don't believe the grand daddy of all career center myths
If nothing else, please do not wait until senior year to visit the career center! Most career centers are not in the business of handing out jobs once May hits. Advisors teach students to conduct a job search and build their brand, developing career management skills to be used long after graduation. Figuring out what to do with your life requires on-going assessment of your values, skills, strengths, interests and priorities. A career advisor will be more valuable to you if they can spend 2-3 years getting to know you and your needs, as they evolve.

In addition, your advisor is part of your network – nurture that relationship over the long-term to gain more from it. Advisors often have valuable contacts, including their own personal connections, and are more likely to share those when they know students will use them responsibly and professionally. Demonstrate, over time, that you are both those things.

Make an effort to attend group advising sessions or career workshops
Students tell me they prefer to skip group sessions because they want one-on-one attention from a career advisor to discuss their unique situation. I'm not sure if this is a millennial thing or what. Chances are, however, the issues are not as unique as students think. Many individuals struggle with the same questions. Group advising or workshops help you learn from others experiencing the similar things.

If your career center sucks, let someone know
Most colleges and universities, regardless of type, have a hierarchal structure. Academic departments and faculty are priority because they carry out the teaching and/or research missions of the institutions in a direct way, on a daily basis. Even a college president or chancellor is nothing without the support of faculty.

This means resources are often allocated other places before they go to undergraduate student services. It's possible your college career center is lacking the financial or human resources it needs to meet student expectations. Start with the college career center staff if your needs aren't being met. Most staff want to hear students' ideas about how to improve services. But, if you feel like what's going on is an issue beyond the career services office, let your voice be heard. Students can have a huge impact!

Why Isn't Mainstream Gen Y Buying Into The New Web?

Generation Y practically invented social media. Friendster was the original, but when Facebook came on the college scene in 2004, everything changed. College students took their offline friends and aggregated them in one place online. Guys browsed through their college networks to find cute girls they had seen at the library, and everyone posted photos from last night's drunken party or Saturday afternoon's football game.

Facebook was like being at a college frat party with all the people from your school, but online.

Well, things changed. Facebook opened up, Second Life created a virtual world for everyone to live in, LinkedIn connected all the older white-collar professionals, Twitter jumped on the scene and let all the narcissists scream, "Look at me," and Facebook followed the trend with their new redesign.

But Generation Y is not inventing the new web. Older people are. The new web is all about hyper-connectivity, real-time updates, and living your life online. And mainstream twenty-somethings aren't buying into it.

Twitter
According to Comscore, the majority of Twitter users worldwide are 35 or older. Young adults 18-24 only make up 10.6% of the Twitter population in the US and are less likely than the average user to tweet. 45-54 year olds are actually 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter.

The traditional social media early adopters are 18 -24 and Twitter is the new social media darling. Why isn't Gen Y biting?

LinkedIn
Gen Y is not on LinkedIn. The average age of a LinkedIn user is 40-years old. LinkedIn profiles do two things. They let you show the world all the great things you've accomplished (most twenty-somethings haven't accomplished much yet) and they let you connect with other business people in your industry (Gen Y has no idea what industry they're in and don't have many connections yet).

Want more proof that LinkedIn doesn't get Gen Y? They just did a major marketing and PR push to recent grads offering their premium service for 3 months free and pitching the site as a way to get jobs in a down economy. So far, this isn't working, and I don't expect it to anytime soon.

Facebook
Facebook is growing at an unparalleled speed, and the new adopters are older folks. The 35 to 54 Year old demographic grew at a rate of 276% over the last six months and the 55+ demographic grew more than 194% over the same time period, while 18-24 year olds only grew 20%. These same older adopters are joining sites like Twitter where it's all about real-time updates and hyper-connectivity.

When Facebook made a design change to simulate Twitter, there was a major user revolt, of course, many of the angriest people were long time Facebook users (i.e. Gen Y). Sure, change is difficult and oftentimes people buy in after some getting used to. But this one just seems different.

Want More?
A recent Accenture survey concluded that Baby boomers, defined in Accenture's survey as those 45 years old or older, are embracing popular consumer technology applications nearly 20 times faster than younger generations. Compared to a year ago, Gen Y consumers between the ages of 18 and 24, are decelerating their use of consumer electronics and related services including social networking, blogging, listening to podcasts and posting video on the Internet. Yet, there was a 67 percent increase among baby boomers reading blogs or listening to podcasts..

So why isn't Gen Y buying in to the new web?

Are we simply not a group of early adopters? Would we rather be the followers waiting to see what our older, more experienced peers latch on to before we jump in?

Or, does Gen Y have an innate sense that too much connectivity and too much time online is unproductive and does nothing more than allow you to run in circles and chase something that you can never actually attain.

Or maybe, Gen Y is still all about being cool, and Silicon Valley just isn't that cool. Facebook isn't even pretending to be cool anymore.

Chris Cox, Facebook's Director of Products says, "The people who started the company weren't cool. I'm not cool, if you look at the people who work here, it's much more nerdy and curious than cool….Cool only lasts for so long, but being useful is something that applies to everyone."

He's probably right. Useful does apply to everyone, but hip, early adopters are always chasing cool. They're not chasing useful.

Personally, I think its a combination of the three and when the right tool comes along, Gen Y will take the lead. But whatever the reason is, the numbers show that mainstream Gen Y is not latching on to the newest social media tools, and for a group of people who are supposed to be the trend setters, this is a strange phenomenon.

Personal Branding is Not a Fad, and Why You Need to Read This Book

Tom Peters first wrote about The Brand Called You in a 1997 issue of Fast Company. Slowly but surely, in the 12 years since, Personal Branding has gone mainstream. Nearly everyone in the social media/web 2.0 world is aware that what we do, both online and off, defines our personal brands. College students get it too. At a University of Wisconsin panel last week, we polled the audience and more than 75% people had heard of personal branding.

Despite this, many college students and young professionals aren't exactly sure how to effectively build a brand. Lucky for them, my buddy Dan Schawbel's new book, "Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand To Achieve Career Success" will teach you exactly how to do it. Anyone who wants to give themselves the best chance to succeed in this new, hyper-connected world, needs to check it out.

If you're still not convinced, here are a couple reasons why I know that personal branding is not a fad, and why you should buy Dan's book, or at least read his blog

Everyone's an entrepreneur
The average stay at a job for Generation Y is about 18 months. Job hopping is the norm these days, and even the recession isn't going to change this fact. So, if you're changing jobs every couple of years, you need to think of yourself like an entrepreneur. Reid Hoffman, the CEO of Linkedin says, "Every individual is now an entrepreneur, whether they recognize it or not. Because it used to be that you got a job at one company and you were there 20, 30, 40, years. That's been dead for decades. That's even dying in Japan. The salary man no longer even exists in Japan."

Entrepreneurs start companies, and the smart ones spend a lot of time branding those companies and branding themselves. If every individual is an entrepreneur then it makes sense that you start managing your personal brand too.

Google is Branding You Right Now
It's true. You have a personal brand and someone can find it on Google. If it takes hours of searching to find some information about you online, then you're probably doing a poor job of creating your personal brand. If the first thing someone finds is your Facebook page with pictures of you beer bonging in college, then you're doing a poor job of managing your personal brand. Regardless, Google is branding you as a party animal, or a music lover, or a blogger or completely out of touch. First impressions are important, and increasingly first impressions are happening on Google. You may as well make a good one.

Personal branding lets you learn about you
I have to admit, when I first heard the term personal branding, I thought it was kind of lame. But as I've progressed in my career and in my life, I see the importance of defining who I am to the world and more importantly, I see the importance in defining who I am to me. Entrepreneurs deal with this all the time. I often find myself in meeting asking the question, "What is Brazen Careerist? What are our values? What's our mission?" When you figure out those questions, you can accurately define your company's brand. Well, it seems pretty important to ask the same questions of an individual. What do you stand for? What are your goals? Where do you want to end up in life?

Creating a personal brand allows you to look at where you are right now, and think about where you want to be and then you get to project that self knowledge to the world. That's pretty powerful stuff.

So, what are you waiting for? Buy the book. Build your brand.