T2 Proactivity

What do I mean by this?  Well… putting yourself out there, I suppose.  I’d like to categorise this into two elements:

1. professional associations
2. social networks presence

So, taking each in turn, all of you, individually, will need to address the following:

Professional associations

Just as you can safely miss your Brevet off your cv .. and probably even now your Bac… in your future career your educational qualifications will take on a secondary importance (OK. you’ll still need the MA MSc certificate, but employers will be far more interested in how you are keeping yourself up to date, professionally developed, participating in networks etc….  That is where the Professional Association comes in.   But…

• What are such bodies?
• What do they do?
• Who are they for?
• What value for money do they represent: cost v benefits?
• Are there any that cover my areas of interest?
• How exactly can they help me get a job as an MA/MSc graduate?
  • do I get a list of fellow members with contact details?
  • do they hold meeting / seminars I can get to?
  • are job offers posted exclusively for members?
  • will they host my cv?
• Can they help me throughout my career?
• Are they recognised globally, in  Europe, in France
• What sort of people and organisations are members?

First I would advise you to look to the cross-hairs of your professional interests:

• vertical: what sector of business?  (high street retailing perhaps)
• horizontal: what business function (ICT perhaps)

For example when in the Tourism Industry and teaching Tourism Management I was interested in ICT and Tourism: my Fac became a member of IFITT – the International Federation for IT Travel and Tourism.  Sometimes you will find them called Institutes, Associations, Federations or Organisations.  There is almost certainly going to be one to suit you… now go and find it/them!

Then try to seek such associations that cover exactly the target you have identified and review them until you find one which is made for you by answering the questions above (inter-alia).

Bring your research to class and be prepared to present and discuss it with us and to contribute this to a master list of association reviews that you can keep on your Facebook page.  If you are convinced (as I hope you will be): become a member now!

So, if you become a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing you can say on the top of your cv and business card that you are:

A.N. Other. BA, MSc MCIM

We call these ‘the letters after your name’.  Get some!  It proves you have stopped viewing yourself as a student but rather as a young professional, fully engaged.  Increasingly it is the last set of letters – the highest level that people will look for.

Social networks’ presence

As part of the selection procedures nowadays, a lot of employers (85% seems the accepted figure currently) look to find your social networks’ presence(s).  This seems to suggest two things at least:

1. Take a very long look at your Facebook and other ‘fun’ pages – there may be things that send the wrong message to employers.  I am trying not to say ‘sanitise’ everything, but to some degree you might need to.

2. Think long and hard about the content, currency and look and feel of your LinkdIn and other professional pages.  At least one student in my classes last year was contacted by an employer to offer her a job because of the quality of her LinkdIn presence.  There are so many of them out there though, you are going to have to work hard to differentiate your pages from the competition.  Perhaps developing excellent CVs and covering letters in English and having them in a downloadable format might help.  That said… I have seen students copy verbatim other LinkdIn letters and CVs and if you put huge amounts of detail in and make it openly accessible, might there be a possibility of identity theft?

So, your task is to address the above yourself….. I am not asking to see anything or even to mark this: I would just like to know that you are at least addressing the issue.