Career Tip: Create A Career-Research Feed!
By Jesse Wingate, Assistant Director, Dartmouth College Career Services
Are you thinking about what you're going to do for that off-term or considering what comes next in June? Consider creating a career-research feed!
One thing that we frequently hear from employers is that the candidate has fantastic experience on their résumé, but they haven't taken the time to learn about the organization and how it is different from competitors. This can be remedied by keeping tabs on the organizations that are of interest, and referencing recent news or big changes in an organization in your cover letter. In addition, it's a great way to prepare yourself for a position that is not yet available. That way when your dream job gets posted, you're fully prepared to draft a tailored cover letter for that position and organization.
While you're home on break, take the time to create your own Career-Research Feed using your preferred social networking platform (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc.).
Here are a few tips to get you started:
- If you use iGoogle as your homepage, research your organization to see if they have a blog or RSS feed capability and then navigate to "add gadgets" when logged into your iGoogle page and add the URL to their feed. Also, consider Google Reader to categorize multiple industry feeds.
- If you use Twitter, search organizations of interest and create a list to categorize the employer tweets. If you don't use Twitter, consider opening an account for the purpose of following what organizations are doing.
- Search to see if organizations of interest have a Facebook fan page. If they do, like them and make sure that their posts show up in your Facebook NewsFeed.
- If you are already following organizations through Facebook, Twitter, or through iGoogle and Google Reader, consider opening a Storify.com account. Storify aggregates your favorite feeds into one easy to read newspaper-type format.
- We, in Career Services, like to believe that this tip need not be said, but, just in case, you should also make a plan to visit us! We can show you other ways to follow and learn about organizations of interest. In addition, we also have our own Facebook page, industry-specific RSS feeds, and website with updated information!