Job Searching can be rough, and it’s important to keep your spirits up and keep things in perspective. Today, guest blogger Carter Roane takes his turn as Monday Morning Quarterback, sharing his perspectives on staying sane during the job search.
My name is Carter Roane and I am currently in the midst of a job search to continue in the field of Student Affairs and Residence Life. It has had its ups and downs, but I can honestly say that it has been an incredible and rewarding experience. At times you may feel like the end is never going to be in sight or that everyone else in the free world has a job or getting interviews, except for you. I wanted to share some ways that I have learned to keep sane during this job search, and to keep your head up and have high hopes. I’m starting to refer to corny song lyrics. It’s time to get to my advice right away!
Good Support System- I think it is really important to have people who can be there for you to offer support, words of encouragement, and just to be there when you really need them. This can be anyone–a family member, a friend, a mentor, or a significant other. It could be the person you call right after an interview to let off steam, or the person you might practice an interview with. My wife has been amazing as my support, and I feel she is going to be as happy as I am when the search reaches an end.
Find Something Else to Do..Now!– Find a hobby…any hobby. Something that can occupy your time so you aren’t thinking about the job search all the time. I feel that if you are working on the job search all day, every day, you are going to burn yourself out. And what good would you be to any employer at that point? I think that a hobby or a pastime is a good way to relieve stress and keep your mind off of the search. Weekends seem to be the worst because you know that no decisions and no interviews are going to happen during this time. Music and sports are what I use to de-stress and relax, and many times become energized. Football makes my Sundays go by that much faster…although the Super Bowl broke my heart (being a New England fan!) Music also really helps me and I think my wife bought me a drum set intentionally so I can take out any frustrations on it..LOL! I think that is why she bought me a huge set of headphones too.
Have A Good Attitude- At my current job, I have a co-worker who has a very wise grandmother. She gives him great advice. I’ve also heard she makes a fantastic gumbo dish, but that’s getting off the subject. She gives him some great advice which he will sometimes share with me. One thing that he said that has really stuck in my head was about taking a good attitude from one job to the next, and that no matter how much you may not like your current job, you should still work as hard as you can and have a positive attitude, because you are going to carry that into your next job. That is so true! You don’t want to have a bitter attitude going into that next job, especially if it is in student affairs. You probably won’t be lasting too long. I think that applies to the job search too. No matter how long or frustrating the search might be, you want to go into that interview with the best attitude possible. I think that shows you can face adversity and come through it smiling. That is a very positive trait, I think. If you come into an interview, stressed out, burned out and bitter, that is going to show and it is pretty much a guarantee that you will not be getting the job. A job search is like a full-time job as it is. If you treat it with a good attitude, I think good things will follow.
Those are the three top things that have kept me sane during my search, and it really has kept me going. You might have different ways of staying sane and feel free to share those! My twitter handle is @CarterGRoane and I would love to hear what other people do! Thank you Sean, for letting me post this and I hope that everyone has a successful placement season and that everyone can walk away with the job they are looking for. Good luck, everyone!
Carter Groane
Carter Roane is a Residence Life Professional from New Hampshire getting back in the field and enjoying the journey while also keeping his sanity, assuming he ever had it to begin with!
I am by trade a researcher. I’ve conducted research for award-winning documentaries, media agencies and for the heavy industrial industries.
Now, a researcher has to be patient. He has to believe that he will find an answer. An accountant knows his numbers and an engineer knows his machines.
But what does a researcher have? He has his tools. The best tools are simple, nimble and can be applied across a variety of subjects.
When I read Sean Cook’s Blog, Make a Career-Plan Mind-Map and Win An e-Book it got me thinking. What if I did this? What if I took one of my strengths and applied it to a new cause?
A Shift in Thinking
My approach to the mindmap was simple: it had to lay the foundation for success. A mindmap is a guide. It puts your job search in your hands. It gives you control.Your favorite pirate used a map to find his next great treasure. Your job is your next great treasure.
Look at the center of the mind-map. It’s exact: Landing the Job. That’s it. That’s my goal. Everything in this mind-map starts with the broad and gets very specific. I have a specific date. I have daily activities.
Maybe your goal is to uncover a target list of companies, find the names of hiring recruiters or discover your destination industry. Choose your target carefully. A thoughtful target will yield thoughtful results.
Atlanta based Johann Lohrmann is a research specialist with a passion for media. He is a German-American who speaks French. His love for media grew early, and by the time he was fourteen-years old he was writing for Children’s Express-an organization that teaches children how to write, interview, and research. There he interviewed sports heroes and politicians. In his senior year of high school, he produced his first short, An Era of Civil Rights. Later, he would write, direct, and produce documentaries for a PBS affiliate, serve as a media planner and research consultant to media companies, and conduct research throughout Belgium, France, Canada and the United States. Lohrmann was recently nominated for an Emmy for his documentary, How I Survived World War II. It explored how soldiers, children and those who lived and served during World War II survived. His work has appeared on PBS, BET, TimeWarner and online. He recently finished production on the award-winning documentary, Where Wealth Lives: An Exploration of the African-American Economic Experience. It has been green-lighted for national release on PBS. He currently serves as Director of Research & Development for Noodlehead Studios. Johann graduated in 2010 with a BA in Communications, summa cum laude from Ashford University.
For more information about mind-mapping, visit Mark Dykeman’s blog, Thoughtwrestling, or buy his e-book, Unstuck, Focused and Organized (affiliate link)
DJ Coffman, the comic artist who sketched this logo, just released his first e-book.
I guess if you’re reading this far, you must have some interest in finding out why I decided to take a break from our usual topic and what on earth I could be writing about. So thanks for checking out the post anyway. Please read along.
If you read this site regularly, you’ve seen some of the awesome spot art by D.J. Coffman. He’s the guy who did the “Monday Morning Quarterback” and “Tuesday TimeOut” logos, and hopefully we’ll have some more of his stuff featured here soon. D.J. is a talented and friendly guy I met through the Third Tribe membership site (aff. link) and a respected comic artist.
His work has been published in newspapers and publications around the globe and seen on HBO, MTV, Vh1, Late Night With Conan O’ Brien and The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. In 2006, he won the first annual Comic Book Challenge with his project Hero By Night which is now in development as a live action TV show.
On Third Tribe, he’s one of those people who I enjoy connecting with the most, because he’s just a real guy, doing what he loves and has always loved, trying to balance his passions with time for his family. And he’s clearly the kind of person who likes connecting with people, helping them out and learning from them. I joined Third Tribe for an opportunity to learn from people like Chris Brogan. I stay because of people like D.J. Coffman. (No offense to Chris, though, he’s the real deal, too. But then again, everyone who knows social media and marketing already kinda knows that already.)
So this break from the usual topic comes to you with the simple goal of telling you about someone who pursuing a purposeful life, and some of the amazing things he’s doing. And indirectly, to give you a glimpse of who I am and the things I care about, like doing, etc. To let the cat out of the bag, I have always loved comic books, and I have a nice collection. I spent more time in high school with comic books than with girls. I used to incessantly draw superheroes everywhere, all the time. And I would give my left arm (hey, I draw with my right) to have the chops this guy has.
Yes, I am a certified geek. And I have always done my best to support others who are, especially if they are putting themselves out there in ways that help others. D.J.’s new e-book does just that. It’s called “Cash for Cartoonists” and it’s a guide to making money as a comic artist. I know that is kind of off the beaten path, and that you probably didn’t expect to read a post on this blog about something like this.
But look at it this way… in higher ed, we talk a lot about trying to “challenge and support” our students. The biggest challenge people face in life is to be their true selves. And support (whether it be from friends, colleagues, mentors, faculty or staff) is hugely important.
I like D.J., and I want to support his art and his business. So when he announced the launch of this product, I signed up to be an affiliate right away. I don’t know how many of my higher ed colleagues out there aspire to illustrate web comics for a living, but I bet a lot of you know people who might. And if you don’t, at least you know something interesting about the spot art on this site, and the guy who does it.
We now return to our regular topic. Thanks for reading!
Last Monday, I posted over on higheredlifecoach.com about how successful students seek help. I suggested that students familiarize themselves with resources available to them on campus early so that they know where the appropriate offices are if they need them in the future. When I was working out some of the details about my post with Sean, he suggested that I might also give some ideas to higher ed staff and administrators about how we can help encourage help-seeking behaviors in our students.
I don’t claim to be an expert on this subject, and I really would just like to start the discussion about setting the tone to encourage students (and perhaps even other faculty or staff) to ask for assistance when needed.
I started my job as an academic advisor at a new institution two years ago. When I was interviewed, I remember being asked how comfortable I was asking questions of others. As with most jobs or new institutions, there was a huge learning curve to overcome before I really felt confident meeting and talking about academic-related issues with students. I didn’t know where buildings are (I still have to refer to the campus map pretty frequently), I didn’t know the specifics of the curriculum, and I didn’t know what additional resources were available to our students. My office trained me on the curriculum throughout my first few months on the job, but much of the training about additional resources was left to me. I looked at every web site on our university’s “For Students” page. I attended brown-bag lunch presentations by a variety of people from across campus. Some of my colleagues and I set up appointments with various offices to get more information about the services they provided. It was a long (and ongoing) process to gather information that I knew my students needed, but that I didn’t necessarily have.
I am a full-time employee and I don’t have all of the information. I spend 40+ hours per week helping students, and yet I don’t have anywhere near all the answers. So how or why do we expect our students to know where they should be finding appropriate resources? At this point in my life, I have at least become comfortable with asking for help or for the answer to a question if I don’t know, but some of our students haven’t gotten there yet. For some, this is the first time that they may have encountered difficulty, either with their academics, personal life, or emotions. If they haven’t had to ask for help before, it can be a challenging thing to do, especially because first it means that they have to admit they don’t have it quite all together.
Our campuses need to set the tone that it is okay, and actually encouraged, to ask for help. Perhaps that means launching a campus-wide “Just Ask!” campaign, with posters highlighting campus resources, YouTube videos with plugs from the university president or high-profile student athletes, and a Twitter account to accept and respond to questions. A campaign of that size likely would take a lot of coordinating, but it could be really effective in the long-run. If you are looking for ways of encouraging help-seeking behaviors in the shorter term, here are some of my ideas:
Encourage students to find at least one person (faculty, staff, administration) on campus who they feel comfortable talking to, even about difficult issues. That one person might not be able to answer all of the student’s questions or solve all of his/her problems, but would at least be likely to be able to provide referrals to others who can continue to help.
Find out what resources are available to students on your campus. If possible, know the office hours and location, and perhaps even the name of someone in that office.
Keep pamphlets or fliers of available resources easily accessible to students. If there isn’t space in the office or on your desk, at least have them handy so that you could give one to a student if necessary.
If you don’t know the answer or the appropriate office to refer to, ask someone else. If students see that even faculty and staff are willing to ask others, they may gain some courage to do the same in the future.
What have others done to encourage help-seeking on your campus? Please share your ideas or programs!
As Stacy Oliver pointed out in her blog post last week on the Student Affairs Collaborative Blog, we are often afraid of asking for help because there might not be someone there to help. We all know that we work in higher education to support students and that if a student asks for help, we will be there. Now we just need to figure out how to make sure that the students all know that!
Sarah Howard is in her third year of academic advising at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She advises students with majors in natural sciences, mathematics, and pre-health fields. Sarah completed her bachelor’s degree at Ashland University in Ohio with a double major in English and mathematics and a religious studies minor; she also holds a Master of Arts degree from Bowling Green State University in college student personnel. Her favorite colors are blue and orange. She can be found online at @howardsj or her blog at http://undecidedlyadvising.blogspot.com
Mike Davenport (a/k/a LeadershipGeek) regularly contributes his “custom thought illustrations” to the discussions over at Third Tribe Marketing (aff. link), where the sketches for this guest post originally appeared. He is also slugging away at his own website, Not the Slightest Idea. You can see more of his stuff on SmugMug.
As the academic year begins this August, approximately 2 million new students will flood campuses in the United States (according to the National Center for Education Statistics), representing about 68% of the nation’s recent high school graduates.
When you work in higher ed, you spend the summer getting ready for this great mass of humanity, their parents, and all their stuff. Each year, the next most-connected generation in history descends upon campus, ready for the mythical wonderland called college…full of challenging classes, enlightened professors, new friends, great parties, and steeped in fine traditions, pomp, circumstance, and loads of fun. The newest, most exciting “best days of their lives.” And they come with almost romanticized visions of college, so we spend our time and efforts on being ready, smoothing out the edges, and making that move-in and arrival period as painless as possible. We concentrate next on getting our student staff trained (whether they’re resident assistants and orientation leaders in brightly colored move-in shirts, or dining hall crew members, desk staff, or teaching assistants, etc.)
It’s easy during busy times like this to forget how important it is to make sure our new professional staff members make the adjustment to campus successfully, as well. We hope for it, and plan for it, but sometimes drop the ball in our planning, because of all the other priorities we’re juggling. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 124,600 postsecondary administrators in the country in 2008.Of course, most of these are not new staff. As experienced professionals, they know the drill, have the routine down pat, and motor along the path of same-old, same-old. Sometimes, right over the new staff, who are still looking for the bathrooms in the building, don’t know the code to the copier, and haven’t received a computer password, not to mention a paycheck yet. It can be a rough adjustment for these new staff, and retention of good staff is always an issue. Sometimes, we burn them out with training and teambuilding before the first student moves in, or the first class bell rings.
This month, we’ll spend some time on the topic of transitions, and to invite some guest bloggers to contribute their thoughts on how we prepare our new staff.
Some possible formats include:
Philosophical pieces (like “how to think about your job,” “what you need to think about,” and “what you need to understand about our organization, field, specialty, etc.”)
Practical Pieces: (give an example of a favorite training activity, a checklist for getting started in a new position, or steps toward creating a positive routine, etc.
Creative pieces (art, video, publications, poetry, readings, etc. What do you share and why do you share it?)
Some combination of the above
If you are interested, please contact me at sean@higheredcareercoach.com and let me know which of the following opportunities interests you, and join the conversation.Guest posters will also be invited to appear on the Higher Ed Life and Careers podcast on BlogTalkRadio.
Monday Morning Quarterback: Guest posts in this category will be “thought” pieces, leaning toward the idea of having a “gameplan” for your training and transition efforts. So I would love to have some philosophical or creative pieces here, but don’t be afraid to be practical.
Tuesday Time-Out: Like the title says, I’d like these to be brief, welcome breaks from the action. This would be a good place to share your ideas on how to welcome staff to the team, build rapport, inspire, and support them through the busy transitional period. This could also be a great place to share your favorite training activities, including icebreakers, teambuilders, or even outlines for your expectation-setting activities and first meetings with new employees.
So, whether you are a higher ed professional, or from some other category entirely, you’re invited to share your thoughts as a guest blogger. Please e-mail me at sean@higheredcareercoach.com this week if you are interested, and check back next week for our first guest column.
Work with Sean. I help higher ed professionals take control of their careers with tailored services including resume and CV development, LinkedIn profile optimization and networking strategy, interview coaching, and one-on-one career guidance.
My name is Carter Roane and I am currently in the midst of a job search to continue in the field of Student Affairs and Residence Life. It has had its ups and downs, but I can honestly say that it has been an incredible and rewarding experience. At times you may feel like the end is never going to be in sight or that everyone else in the free world has a job or getting interviews, except for you. I wanted to share some ways that I have learned to keep sane during this job search, and to keep your head up and have high hopes. I’m starting to refer to corny song lyrics. It’s time to get to my advice right away!
Look at the center of the mind-map. It’s exact: Landing the Job. That’s it. That’s my goal. Everything in this mind-map starts with the broad and gets very specific. I have a specific date. I have daily activities.
