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Forum 1: Personal Profiles and Portfolios (2 POINTS)
In this course, you will have two main projects - one is a team project
where you will be creating a personal profile of
a graduate of the MKA program here at Seneca. You will be contacting graduates
found through the Alumnae
Association in order to select one to be featured in your profile. The
other project is to reflect your own professional
profile - a portfolio - both one that is hard copy and one online - an
eportfolio. In this Forum, the following items are
up for discussion:
1.Give the criteria by which you think you will determine which graduate
to feature in your team's profile project.
2.What questions are important to ask this person about their activities
since graduating from the program?
3.What items need to be included in your professional portfolio and eportfolio?
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Forum 2: Trends in Marketing
Careers (2 POINTS)
1. What resources can you access in order to determine the latest trends
in Marketing Careers? Visit the Career
Centre on Campus and post here on this discussion board the kinds of materials,
workshops and support available to you through this centre
that would give you information about jobs for graduating marketing students.
2. What job search sites have you visited online and which ones seem to
you to have information helpful to you in your
job search - give examples.
Part 1: A valuable job search tool that you can develop is a calling card.
On this card, in addition to your name, phone
number, e-mail address and URL to your eportfolio, you might want to list
four "highlights" that feature your
outstanding skills or attributes as an employee. What four descriptive
highlights do you think apply to you?
Part 2: Once you have created your calling card - how can you use it for
networking? One idea is to give five cards to
five friends or associates that you know and who support your job search.
Ask each one to pass along your card to
five people they know well who might be able to use your talents. In this
scheme - if EACH person contacted has 5
cards to distribute, before long you can have an army of supporters helping
you with your job search. Tell about two
people who might support your job search and why.
A very helpful exercise when job hunting, is to conduct "information interviews".
Contact someone you know
who is working in the marketing industry either as a boss or as a seasoned
employee. Ask to meet with them for a short
information session. Suggest a time and date until you can find one that
is mutually acceptable. Let them know that
you will only need twenty minutes to one half hour of their valuable time.
Be sure you get all of the information you
need regarding their location so that you can be sure to be on time. Name
two potential interviewees that you can go to
talk with. Tell why you think they could be a valuable resource for you.
Do some research about the company where you will be making this interview
visit. Make a list of questions that will
help you to know more about the work of the person you are interviewing.
Post your list of questions here.
TIP: When you go for your information interviews, dress appropriately
for that workplace. Take along some
professional reading material to have handy if you are asked to wait. Also
take along an updated resume and calling
card) that you can leave with them in case they hear of anyone looking
for someone of your skills. Also ask if they
can recommend anyone else you might talk with and if you can use their
name when you call this person for an
appointment.
Forum 5: Interviewing Do's and Don'ts (5 POINTS)
Based on your research and attendance at an interview skills workshop,
design a handout for job searchers giving
interviewing do's and don'ts. Bring together all of your marketing skills
as you prepare this handout - make it
visually attractive and appropriately written to interest and inform the
job searcher audience. Post a message here
talking about your preparation of this handy item and attach a copy of
the resulting product.
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Forum 6: Project Planning
(Project POINTS)
Please give the name of your team and the team members for the Profile
Project. Discuss who will be doing what in
order to create this profile. Artifacts to be developed include:
The communication styles available these days includes not only how to
write a decent and intriguing cover letter,
but also how to get past the gate keepers who answer the phone when you
are calling about work. No matter how
fancy your cell phone and PDA, you still need to know how to communicate
effectively be it online or on the phone.
Discuss strategies for communications that will enhance your job search.
1. Give an example of a cover letter you might use to accompany your resume.
2. Write a short e-mail introducing yourself - one where you could attach
your resume.
"If you love what you do, you'll never have to work a day in your life". That quotation has a lot of wisdom in it. When you first go out in to the working world, you can expect that you'll be in an entry level position unless a close relative owns the company. You'll be under a lot of scrutiny to see what you can actually contribute to the working environment in which you find yourself. Many employers feel that they can probably teach you how to do things their way, but what they can't really teach is a good attitude and a willingness to learn.
One way that you can demonstrate that you are really serious about making your way to the top of your profession is by constantly looking for ways to upgrade your knowledge and skills. This can be accomplished any number of ways. You can find a mentor on the job who is willing to coach you in certain areas. Why not take an additional course or two on a part time basis at one of the many institutions in your area be it at a college or university. For the past few years more and more opportunities have opened up with the availability of online courses, where you can work around your employment schedule.
Part 1: Locate a course catalog for a nearby school in your community that has a continuing education department. You can start with Seneca's Part Time Studies offerings. Find two courses that you think would be good for you to take to further enhance you as a valuable employee. Describe the courses and tell why these would work well for you.
Part 2: Go online and find two courses that you could take by distance education. Tell us what school is offering the courses and what you would need to do in order to register and start taking the course, how long it would last, and what you would hope to accomplish by taking them.
A colleague of mine has a consulting company called CareerSport. He has been job search coaching for a number of years. I asked him if he could tell me the most important aspect of conducting a successful job search and he emphatically stated, "networking!" He told me that you've got to make calls, get a meeting and be prepared when you get one. It's all about relationships and sourcing opportunities through your relationships.
When you get the meeting, you need to be very clear about what you want to do. If you have taken the time to do your homework, to research the person(s) you'll be speaking to, you'll have a better idea of how you might fit in, be a solution for the employment needs of that business. You'll of course need to be quite courteous - if that person can't help you, but you've made a favourable impression, they are more likely to remember you and put you forward if they hear of something that might work for you.
When you get that meeting, you need to ask good questions. Get them talking about the business and how they see things. Keep whatever you do simple. It's really about the basics. They appeal to you and you appeal to them and you want to find an opportunity to try it out in a working situation. You have to do the ground work first. What is the working atmosphere like? What do people do there all day? How do they dress, answer phones, conduct business? It may take hustle, effort and persistence to find the right fit. So, give some thought to the following three questions that will help you to network more effectively.
1. What do you know? (The
question is usually, "tell me a little about yourself"). Create a good
summary description of what you know already.
2. What do you want to learn?
What are your goals in this field - what are you aiming for?
3. What is special about
you - what can you offer that makes you appealing to hire?
A good cover letter can mean the difference between having your resume stay on top of someone's desk for consideration or having it go straight into the recycle bin. Another letter that can be critical is a follow-up letter, to determine your status. This can also be part of a thank-you letter if you are following up a meeting or interview. Another very helpful communication is a letter sent when you don't get the position you applied for. This letter thanks the interviewer(s) for their consideration and asks if they can give you some advice so that you can be more successful in your next application. You can also ask them to keep you in mind should another more appropriate opportunity arise, giving your contact information again.
E-mail is fast becoming part of the business correspondence in our lives. The problem with e-mail is that it can quickly be deleted and/or dismissed. It is also easy to make a poor impression if you have given a misleading or inappropriate subject line to your message, or if you have any typos or grammar mistakes of any sort. Except for confirmation of appointments, directions, and such, it is better to rely on hard copy documents when it comes to serious job search campaigns.
You need to develop a cover letter that you can revise and use for more than one application - likewise, letters for those other occasions - thank you, follow-up, request for advice. Choose one of those to attach to a posting telling three reasons why you feel the letter you have developed is an effective one.
When you think about the image you are presenting on the web, it may be helpful to think of what goes into making a Brand. Have a look at the following articles from Fast Company archives.
http://www.fastcompany.com/online/10/brandyou.html
The Brand Called You
http://www.fastcompany.com/guides/sales.html
Marketing Case Studies Featuring Branding
(best viewed in IE5.5 or higher)
Taken from the article, "The Brand Called You", do the following..."Start by identifying the qualities or characteristics that make you distinctive from your competitors -- or your colleagues. What have you done lately -- this week -- to make yourself stand out? What would your colleagues or your customers say is your greatest and clearest strength? Your most noteworthy (as in, worthy of note) personal trait?"
1. Design a Power Point slide show with 3 slides, thinking of it as an advertisement for the brand that is you. Attach your show to your posting where you give us a great introduction to your "brand".
2. Choose one of the 10 Marketing Case Studies featuring branding and tell how strategies used in that study could be helpful to you in developing your own image or "brand".
Each team is expected to carefully review and give valuable feedback to another team regarding their team project. Each team is also expected to reflect on their own project, what they may have gained from the experience and what else they might do to develop a better understanding of the marketing job market.
Reviews of projects can be in point form but need to be fully descriptive and thoughtful observations. A suggested guideline is to come up with at least five positive comments and five suggestions for further investigation or improvement in either the content or the presentation of the project.
Please post the following:
1. Five things that you
learned and/or that worked well for you in creating your portfolio and
eportfolio.
2. Five things you plan
to do in future to enhance or improve your portfolio and eportfolio.
There are 18 candidates competing
for a chance to apprentice to businessman extraordinaire, Donald Trump.
Who do you think will win? Let's talk about it here.
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