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...