Have some extra time? Find the Volunteer Center…

For the fortunate ones of us, work or school is enough to keep us busy on a daily basis.  For many of us though, due to the ever increasing market insecurity, we may have only part-time work or no job at all.  While you may be out job searching or enhancing your career options with higher education, there is a constructive activity and networking opportunity that you may not have already considered…

Volunteering to aid both your community, upgrade your resume and the value of contacts you will make within your community.

Performing volunteer work, depending on the depth of the experience, may enhance your resume if you don’t have much work experience.  This is a common concern of high school and college students who feel overwhelmed by the resume creation process, feeling that they do not have much to put down in terms of work experience.  It is also a great opportunity if you are currently out of work and have extra time.   Taking on a charitable activity, or performing your regular job function for free in some way shows both strong initiative and compassion. 

Volunteering opportunities, depending on their level of professionalism and relation to the job you are applying for, may be addition to a somewhat short resume.  Additionally, you may list the accomplishments and tasks performed in the volunteer position much like you would for past work experience on a resume.

In addition to resume building advantages, building contacts is essential when knowing what work opportunities are available to you locally.  By aiding your community with various projects ranging from food pantry help, building maintenance, tutoring, special event help, and even yard work you are giving yourself the chance to meet new people whom you will volunteer with that may have important connections that you didn’t realize.

Recently, the United Way of Rock River Valley has upgraded their Volunteer Center with a new webpage and method of coordinating volunteers with charitable opportunities within the community.  If you have ever considered volunteer work as a meaningful and even career enhancing option, the Volunteer Center is an excellent and easy-to-use resource at your fingertips.  Anyone may register at their website www.wevolunteer.org  and begin searching volunteering opportunities easily; and can also be contacted at 815.986.4806.  You may search by days of the week, times of day, types of opportunities and particular organizations that may fit your desired goal and availability. 

Please take advantage of this resource as it is an excellent way to raise awareness not only of the needs of the community, but to enhance your career and character goals as well…

Using Social Media to Help in Your Job Search

There are many strategies people use to find jobs or internships. Some of these are searching online for job postings, networking and reaching out to your contacts, but a newer method is using social media sites to help you search for your next career or internship. Whether you like the social media trend or not, it is growing in popularity and we want to help you understand how to use it properly.

The following slideshow is a great presentation of how to use social media to help you find a job, but also gives tips on cleaning up your profile. More and more employers are “Googling” your name to see what comes up and checking you out on Facebook or LinkedIn. So even if you don’t plan to use these sites to look for your next job, make sure the content is clean and up-to date.
Check out the presentation here:
http://www.slideshare.net/tomcarbonaro/social-media-deck-final.

A few other tips:

• Just because your profile is set to “private” doesn’t mean an employer can’t see your posts or pictures. If you have a Mutual Friend, and have content on their page, a potential employer may be able to see this information.
• Google yourself! Try to control your online image and delete any information that could hurt you during your job search. If it can’t be removed, be prepared to discuss during an interview.
• Use a professional email address. Sounds like common sense, but still many people use unprofessional email addresses. Your email address is part of the whole first impression you give to a potential employer

How to Hire An Intern

A recent article titled “How to Hire An Intern” at smartlife.com is an excellent summary of how to get the best candidate for your internship.

Having an intern at your company means more than cheap or free labor and getting new ideas on how to run your company. Many of the best company sponsored internship programs realize that the intern is providing value to the company and offer some form of compensation. Also the education and the experience an intern gains is the most important factor of an internship.  Therefore, it requires a lot of dedication to training and working with an intern.

I highly recommend any employer that has an internship program or is considering an internship to read this article first  to ensure your program is the most effective for both you and the intern.

http://smartlifeblog.com/how-to-hire-an-intern/

Internships are key to retaining graduates

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/dayton-news/internships-key-to-retaining-graduates-local-officials-say-165274.html?cxtype=rss_local-news

Why Attracting and Retaining Our College Educated is So Important

By Sarah Petrovich on June 15, 2009

There has been all of this talk lately about attracting and retaining talent and the economic impact of doing so. In the Rockford Area only 20% of people over the age 25 have a Bachelor’s degree compared to the national average of 27%.  When we increase that percentage by one only point, it can mean $230 million more in wealth for the community each year.

That extra money comes from multiple sources. Educated people make more money.  Companies look at the educated population of the area when choosing where to expand; IBM is a prime example of this. Check out this article http://www.businessrockford.com/archive/x679400865/IBM-snub-can-guide-Rockford-s-rebirth. This will in turn create more jobs and attract more educated people. Once we begin to grow in the right direction, the results will be exponential.

About The Rockford Area Career Clearninghouse

Helping young professionals connect with employers in the Rockford Area

Rockford Area Career Clearinghouse (RACC) is an organization which helps to attract and retain young talent to the Rockford Region. RACC works to link recent graduates to area companies for their first professional employment position. The RACC also helps to fill internship openings and create or re-establish internship programs.

Thanks to funding from the Rockforward! Leadership Council’s Emerging Opportunities Fund, the Rockford Area Career Clearinghouse has been formed to connect regional employers to recent college graduates. In the Rockford Region, only 20% of the current population over age 25 has a college degree (well below the national average of 27%). This higher education deficit has a direct impact on the region’s wealth. A recent study for the Federal Reserve Bank on the economic value of education illustrates the impact on the Rockford Region. If we were at the national average of 27% four-year degrees, we would have over $2 Billion more in Gross Metropolitan Product, which is 15% more wealth annually. (Source: www.rockfordil.com)