Spring is here and I'm all a twitter...

It's official, spring has sprung! The trees are starting to bloom, the sun has finally broken the months of dreary overcast, and college students everywhere are frolicking in the sun and sand... Unfortunately, I am nowhere near the sand. I am spending the spring break picking up a few extra hours at work, maintaining the endless job search, and trying to cure myself of senioritis.

If you are a senior, or have ever been a college senior, I'm sure you're familiar with senioritis. Graduation is so close you can taste it and all the formalities of class, assignments, and exams just seem like silly busy work. Yes, I am a victim of senioritis. Luckily, I enjoy most of my classes this semester and my professors are easy to please. While I don't think there is a cure for this disease, I have found that thinking about how I have no idea where I will be in 2.5 months makes me value the time I have left in school (even if it does mean doing homework and job hunting over spring break).

Along with spring, I have also recently embraced Twitter. I have been a member for awhile, but over the last several weeks I have become much more proactive in learning to use it, finding the value in it for personal use as well as for PR professionals, and it's paying off! I've found some really interesting people to follow, including PR pros and agencies all around the country and organizations that work in corporate social responsibility (a true passion of mine). Twitter is also proving to be a rather helpful job search tool... one that I have been recommending to all my friends! Not only is it great for keeping up with news and trends, but it also has an endless supply of job search advice and entry level job postings from professionals looking for smart, outgoing new grads - like me!

Some of the conversations and people I follow include:

#HAPPO - help a pr pro out: Always great advice from professionals to new grads
#entryPR - entry level jobs in public relations
#PRjobs
PRstudchat - for PR students
ConeLLC - one of my favorite brand marketing firms, located in Boston
wsocialimpact - Weber Shandwick's Social Impact blog... LOVE their work!
balcomagency - amazing local agency in Fort Worth
RichardsGroup

....I could go on and on here. If you want to see more of who I'm following check me out on twitter - memckeown. You can see my lists and how I'm trying to use twitter to further my job search and maybe get inspired to add it to your job search tools. And of course, if you have any suggestions for me leave them in the comment box or send me a tweet! Happy Spring!

Confessions of a control freak

Take a look in my planner and you will probably think I'm insane. The truth is my daily organizer is nothing compared to what my consolidated calendar actually looks like. Everything is color coded, put on a weekly to-do list, daily to-do lists, prioritized, and noted as to what time slot it could fit into that day (i.e. before school/work, at lunch, between classes, after school/work). It's a little extreme to say the least, but it keeps me organized.

What can I say? I'm a busy girl, and in order to stay on top of everything I have had to develop a system. It gets me through the week, the day, and sometimes just the hour... but the bottom line is it keeps me sane. Of course, it takes a certain amount of organized acrobatics to make it all work because nothing ever goes exactly as planned - surprise assignments, unexpected interruptions, these I can handle... I even managed to stay on schedule when my car died yesterday! All thanks to the art of the to-do list (and the iDisk on my iphone). 

The beauty of my planner is that to me it represents a continuous flow of life. I know my life is hectic and crazy, but it's mine and I love it! The busier things get the more fun I have - partly because I enjoy school and love my jobs, and partly because of how much fun I have doing it all with my roommate Darby who is equally busy. 

The problem with my planner is that on May 8 everything goes dark. 

No more school. No more work. And three weeks later, no where to live.

To be honest, it is REALLY starting to freak me out. Does anyone else feel like this whole job market thing is less a reflection on the economy and more a secret plot to make new college grads pee their pants looking for a job?

Because that is how I feel. I'm doing everything by the books and I'm just not seeing any results. Granted part of the process is waiting... I hate it. The hardest part is not putting all my hopes on one position or school. I am open to any and all opportunities and I know that it will all work itself out. And I will continue to repeat mantras of optimism until it happens!

Cover letter drama: "I can't believe I did that!!"

How many lectures on cover letters do you the average college senior has heard? Seriously, in your last semester of school, suddenly everyone becomes OBSESSED with cover letters. I get it - they are über important! And yes, they have to be flawless, especially if one of your strengths is attention to detail.

I will not disagree with the importance of a strong cover letter, but the way they (the institution - also known as your professors, career counselors, and other employment pushers) beat you over the head with the cover letter speeches is nauseating. Now, I will admit once you get comfortable writing them the dreaded cover letters are not so bad. But it can be a difficult thing to do. 

My biggest hold ups in writing cover letters have been that I want to include too much information and that I don't know how to clearly articulate my strengths or what I can do for them --- that's the key phrase here. So now that I feel like I'm finally getting the hang of this cover letter thing, I have a few tips to share with you... Don't accuse me of being one of  them... I'm only trying to help! 

Here ya go:

1. Your cover letter is not an interview. But it should get you an interview. My point: DO tell them why you would be good at the job (what you can do for them) and why you think you'd be a good fit for the company. DON'T need to put in EVERYTHING about you, your college career/previous employment, or your theory on relativity... Save something interesting for when they meet you!

2. Don't follow a template. There is no template. Be smart enough to use a nice letter head and all the formalities of a return address, Dear (insert name of recruiter here), and your autograph at the bottom... but don't think that you have to follow some monotone letter you found online. Your cover letter will sound like all the other cover letters - think the teachers on Charlie Brown. Not ideal.

3. PROOFREAD! PROOFREAD! PROOFREAD! And then have 10 other people read it just to be safe. It sounds ridiculous, but stuff happens. Face it, A LOT of the jobs you apply for will probably require A LOT of the same skills and the job descriptions will sound A LOT alike. So you may write a few cover letters that will work for several jobs, swap out some details, change all the mentions of Company X to Company Y, and call it a day. SO PROOFREAD!!! Double check your work because you will want to shoot yourself in the foot when you hear what happened to a friend of mine...

A close friend of mine wrote a fabulous cover letter. Really, it was great. She sent it to one company where she REALLY wants to work, and she got an interview (Yay!). But then she needed a cover letter for another internship application. Since the first cover letter was so great she did was we all are guilty of doing: she switched out some details about the company, made sure the strengths and skills were applicable to the second job, attached the cover letter to an email and sent it on its way. 

The next day she was reviewing her application and saw that she in the last line of the cover letter where she stated how enthusiastic she was about working for the company, she had forgotten to change the company's name. 

DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOU! Let a friend read your cover letters. Haha, ok it's not that dramatic, but we all know how hard it is to get a job. Try to avoid the stupid mistakes. 

So, do you have any cover letter or other job application drama? Anything you said on a phone interview that make you hit yourself in the forehead? 

Monday, Monday...

Happy Monday!
How was your weekend? This was probably one of the nicest weekends I have had in a long time... Celebrated a friend's birthday Friday night with some of my favorite people, enjoyed the first sunny Saturday by opening all the windows and watching movies in bed, and wrote what I believe is a very effective first draft of my personal statement for my top law school pick. Yes, it was a great mix of relaxation and productivity.

And I found out I have an audience here at Loving Limbo! I have one reader (hey Heidi!) and it's exciting because I didn't even ask her to read it! Haha... a select few have been given the website so that they could check out my little blog, but for the most part I have kind of been keeping it on the DL. I thought I would feel weird about people I know reading my blog. But as it turns out, I think it's pretty sweet!

So, for those of you who are reading I have a little something to share with you today that you might enjoy. Since we all lead busy, over scheduled lives, multi-tasking is not just a talent - it is a way of life. And it seems that the faster our brains move with us throughout the day, the harder it is to hold on to the brilliant ideas we come up with when we're least expecting it. If you're like me, you probably do your best thinking in the shower - the only 15 minutes of the day when you can think! The problem is, the moment you step out of the shower... POOF! The idea is gone. Enter AquaNotes.




AquaNotes are completely waterproof and perfect for taking down those brilliant ideas you get in the shower! That way there's no more wasting that solid logic you find when you're belting out Madonna's greatest hits! Head over to Gadget Nation to order some for your favorite shower thinker - I'm ordering some soon so I'll definitely let you know how they work... 

Making time and workin' it

Lately I've been finding that the hardest part of being in this Limbo area of my life is managing my changing priorities. I have always considered myself good at managing my time - I'm super organized, I have three calendars, to-do lists organized by days, weeks, months.... But lately I've been having a hard time deciding what should come first.

Of course it's easy to look at the deadlines and work on things in order of due date, but it's just not that simple when there are so many categories of work and so many deadlines to meet. For instance, this week I have a Criminal Justice exam, an internship application due, and a law school application due... not to mention 3 or 4 busy-work assignments in my classes. This particular law school is not one of my top choices, so I've pushed writing the required essays back for far too long now and the internship application requires some re-working of my resume and the writing of the dreaded cover letter... Then there's the last chapter of reading I need to catch up on for my Criminal Justice exam and of course I need to study.... But I have to work an extra day this week to be able to make rent.

As my wonderful professors keep reminding me, there are so few days left until graduation and there are so many things that need to be done! On my list of priorities, job and law school applications come first, period. But all the time spent on researching, planning, writing essays and cover letters, and preparing for interviews is not only time consuming but exhausting. So where is the time and energy for school work? After all, there is no way I am going to let the hard work I have put into my academics fall to the side, but after the torture I put my mind and body through last semester trying to "do it all" I know that I have to maintain a better balance this semester or my post-grad plans are going to include some time in an institution.... Just kidding...

So what's my solution you ask? So far it has been to add a few hours to my day and few more items to the list... I know what your thinking - less sleep and more to do... not much of a solution, huh? Well, I started by recognizing that a lack of sleep is going to get me nowhere. Coming home at night after work and trying to unwind from my day AND finish an essay or homework or meet some other deadline is not going to help me produce my best work. So instead I've decided to go to bed earlier - 10:30 or 11 instead of 1 or 2 am.... HUGE DIFFERENCE! Then, I get up a couple hours earlier. That gives me time to eat a good breakfast and get in the reading or research I need to do for the day before I even have to worry about anything else. I've also committed myself to an exercise routine that boosts my energy in the afternoon so I don't drag through work in the evening and I can even get a few more things done before I go to bed.

Maintaining a balance between work, school, and preparing for life post-grad is tough, but finding a way to work your day instead of letting your day work you can help a lot! So, are you workin' it or gettin' worked?

The day I gave away $5,000...

Last semester, I was part of a class competition in which my team put together a campaign for ExxonMobil. As with every great competition, there was a secret grand-prize for the winning team. One year the winning team took a trip to New York City, another year the winners got round trip airfare to anywhere in the world.... This year, the grand prize was that ExxonMobil would donate $5,000 in our name to the Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County!

So, this morning part of my team and I had the opportunity to go down to the Union Gospel Mission to see their facilities and present them with $5,000. It was an incredibly humbling experience... My team and I worked so hard on our project last semester and it felt great to win, but being able to take our success and use it to help an organization that helps other people succeed feels even better!

The Union Gospel Mission of Tarrant County is a local Christian organization dedicated to providing a new beginning for the homeless, aiming toward productive independence for each individual. They serve more than 200,000 meals a year and can provide shelter for up to 300 people a night. While they do serve as an emergency shelter for the Fort Worth homeless community, they also offer permanent and semi-permanent housing for individuals and families. The programs and services they provide for their residents and guests are remarkable and I am honored to be able to say I am a part of what they are doing!

Toyota almost does something right...

Just when I thought Toyota was going to completely pass the blame off to the manufacturers of the malfunctioning parts on their accellorators, they finally take a step in the right direction… they apologize. The first think I learned when I began studying Public Relations was that when something goes wrong, the first think a company should do is take responsibility. More often than not, this involves a heartfelt apology. Toyota President Akio Toyoda did express regret in October for the deaths of four people in a California crash related to the accelerator defects. Unfortunately, we did not hear from him again until February 1 as he apologized for “having made customers uneasy” with the recall of  5.6 million cars in the United States alone. 

While I think this public statement of remorse is a step in the right direction for Toyota, I do not think that the communications Toyota has put forth during this crisis have relayed the urgency that their drivers are feeling when they put their families in the car every morning. Toyota’s attitude throughout the last few weeks has been to remain calm, cool, and collected. While they may have been aiming to appear as if they have everything under control, to me they have come off looking rather blasé. And as a brand that has been built on dependability, the last thing you want to portray to your loyal customers is that you don’t think they’re concerns for are important. 

As their problems continue to grow with the announcement of brake issues in their 2010 Prius, the public will be looking for Toyota to be proactive with a solution to the issue. And while their competitors may be seeing blood in the water, I’m rooting for Toyota to be accountable for their mistakes and come up with a solution that reminds us all why they have some of the most loyal drivers around...