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TweetIf I had been thinking clearly, my first reaction when my CEO boss informed me in late November that I was I being placed on a “90-day furlough,” would have been ‘Everything happens for a reason’.  However, the surprise of immediately losing my income along with finding out I would receive no severance or access [...]

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Tweet Way back in the dark ages of the 1980s, my employer at the time, Eli Lilly and Company gave me a big, boxy computer and asked me to stop using my coveted IBM Selectric II typewriter. At the time, I seriously questioned the need, but I eventually grew to enjoy that innovative device. Today [...]

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Tweet  Last week, I talked with an enterprising college senior who managed to wrangle five agency interviews during his 24-hour visit to Chicago.  That feat alone is impressive and merits kudos, but his final question at each interview is the subject of this post. His question: “What percentage of interns move into full-time positions here?”   Answers to [...]

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Tweet Allison Bradley I’m going to be honest here:  I’m thrilled my professional title no longer includes the word “intern.”  After completing five PR internships in the past few years, I was recently hired as an AAE at Olson in Chicago. It’s tempting to ditch my identity as an intern as quickly as I updated [...]

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Tweet As a PR student or young professional, it is critically important for you to understand the impact social media can have in a tight job market.  One of the easiest ways to differentiate yourself from your job-seeking peers is to effectively use Twitter. Creative job seekers increasingly are using Twitter to land their dream jobs.  For college students working [...]

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Tweet With a glut of talent searching for opportunities to differentiate their resumes from peers, some organizations take advantage of the situation by “hiring” unpaid interns to do work that used to be performed by entry-level employees.  This is wrong on many levels, and might even be illegal. During my class last week, a student raised the issue [...]

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Tweet A former colleague last week told me she is leaving her current company, and she showed me a rough draft of her letter of resignation.  My jaw dropped as I read a litany of complaints, many of them superficial.  I asked her if she was excited about the new position, and she confirmed that it’s the perfect job.  ”Then,” I asked, “Why do you [...]

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TweetQ.  I have had a few interviews with an agency that now wants names of references, including one or two co-workers who could talk about my teamwork.  No one at my current agency knows I’m interviewing and I’m uneasy about letting them know anything when I’m not sure I’m getting a job offer.  What should I do?  -TS [...]

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Tweet  As pending graduates begin planning for their 2012 job searches, the question I hear most is:  “What’s the best starting point for a career–agency or corporate?”  I weighed in on a LinkedIn discussion about this topic today, and decided to add some points here. Although most of my career has been spent in corporate [...]

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Tweet I stopped making new year resolutions several years ago after realizing most were null and void by the second week in January.  Instead of lofty, unrealistic goals, I committed to shorter lists of things I might actually be able to achieve.  As they came to mind, I jot them down on Post-It notes and [...]

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