Chris Perry, of Career Rocketeer, shares some ways to build your resume:

1. Summer Internships: Summer employment is essential to most Gen Yers. We need the money, and it gives us a little structure to our vacation. However, an internship may be much more valuable to you and your career than a traditional hourly gig. Summer internships often have full-time hours, last multiple weeks and/or months and provide you real accomplishments, professional contacts, references and opportunities for full-time employment. If your financial situation allows it, do consider unpaid internship opportunities, for there may be more of them in this job market than usual. No one will ever ask you if your internship was paid or unpaid, and unpaid internships can offer just as valuable experience and can also lead to full-time paid opportunities.

To find internships of interest to you in this tough economy, I recommend using job aggregators, like Indeed,SimplyHired and LinkUp. Indeed and SimplyHired collect listings from across hundreds of job boards online, including Monsterand CareerBuilder, and LinkUp uniquely collects listings directly from company websites, often revealing opportunities that weren’t externally advertised. Craigslist is also a great place to search local opportunities, so check out the internship listings under each city or area of interest or proximity to where you live or go to school. Lastly, never forget the power of the almighty Google. Try Googling specific companies or types of internships. You might be surprised by how much you find.

2. School-Year Internships: Companies and organizations are always in need of interns even after the end of the summer, so if your academic schedule allows some flexibility, consider using the search tips listed above and also checking with your career center for opportunities. This again gives you some valuable experience, references and contacts — and potentially can count for academic credit if unpaid. Also, an unpaid internship may be more acceptable during the school year for students who wouldn’t have enough time to hold a traditional part-time job otherwise.

3. Volunteer Work & Mission Trips: Community service of all types, including domestic and international service trips through church and school groups, offers you a way to give back. It also provides you leadership opportunities and looks really good to employers, especially as more companies develop their corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives and efforts. You find these opportunities by asking friends how they get involved, calling up and volunteering for a local animal shelter, serving as a tutor for local students, or joining service fraternities, charitable organizations and churches in your area. You can also search online. Idealist is the global directory of volunteer opportunities and other resources and is a great place to start.

4. Extracurricular Clubs & Activities: Whether you’re in college, grad school or just launching your career, get involved with as many extracurricular groups, organizations and activities of personal interest or relevance to your career as is manageable for your lifestyle. These are often more fun than work, but also help you build up your resume and provide you valuable leadership experience. Invest yourself in your clubs and activities, and pursue more responsibility and leadership positions when opportunities arise.

5. Entrepreneurial Ventures: If you are creative, entrepreneurially-minded and have launched or will launch a business of any size, don’t forget to play up your efforts and accomplishments on your resume. Employers really value entrepreneurs as employees, for they not only find new innovative ways to grow their businesses, but also tend to have strong general business skills.

6. Social Media & Blogging: As more companies and organizations get more involved in social media channels, employers are increasingly seeking social-media-inclined employees. Become an expert on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and any other social media networks in which you are interested, especially from the business perspective. If you have the interest or the ability to blog on career-relevant topics, this is also a great way to really establish your personal brand and expertise and use it to sell yourself in your career search. Google’s Bloggerand Wordpress are two great platforms to help you get started and launch your own blog.

Jacob Share at JobMob shares some tips on using Twitter to organize job feeds.  This is a neat way to get job postings.  You can also follow funnelthru on twitterto get our feeds!

• Create an account on Twitter unless you have one already.
• Download and install a Twitter reader like TweetDeck or Seesmic Desktop. Tweetdeck uses Groups and Seesmic Desktop has Userlists which allow you to organize Twitter users for easier following. Use this categorization feature to separate the Twitter job feeds from the other Twitter users you follow so that all your Twitter job search information is kept in one convenient place that isn’t overwhelmed by other tweets.
• If you know where you’d like to work, click the corresponding country flag [on his global directory] to jump down to a local Twitter job feed list and then begin following local feeds in your industry. Then scan the International section which lists Twitter job feeds that include job openings from 3 countries or more. Or you can jump directly to it by clicking the globe icon at the end of the row of flags.
• If you have a chosen industry and are open to moving for jobs, type CTRL+F in your browser to search this article for keywords related to your profession like ‘design’, ‘accounting’, ‘developer’, etc., and then follow the Twitter job feeds that are most relevant among the results, regardless of country.

Found via Cheezhead

Is Twitter the future of recruiting?  With this job market who the hell cares - take every possible opportunity to land yourself a job.  Susan Joyce from job-hunt.org shares a list of employers recruiting on Twitter:

This list is almost as interesting for who’s NOT on it at this point.  We have Burger King, but not McDonald’s.  We have PepsiCo, but only in the UK, and Coca-Cola not at all.  We have Microsoft (sort of) but not Oracle, Sybase, Adobe, etc.  We have IBM but not Dell or HP.  We have two accounts from MTV and one for Warner Brothers but nothing for Disney, Pixar, or any of the other studios.  Intel and EMC are the only manufacturers that made the list.

None of the big pharmaceutical companies are on this list either because I couldn’t find any of them, and, even though Best Buy has thousands of jobs posted on its Website (here), they are using Twitter only for marketing, so far.  No other large retailer showed up, either.

You’ll find the U.S. Department of State is the only branch of the U.S. Federal Government or ANY U.S.A. government entity, that is recruiting on Twitter.  I very recently discovered that the city of Kingston, Ontario, Canada, also recruits using Twitter.  Interesting…

Researching this list reminded me of slogging through the Fortune 500 ten years ago, looking for the large employers that were smart enough to (1) have a corporate Website with “current” content and (2) use their corporate Website for recruiting (and not hiding the job listings).  If I remember correctly, in 1999, only about 10% of them did that.  Closer to 95% do it now.  Wonder how long it will take the majority of them to adapt to Twitter for recruiting…

I’m not really convinced that Twitter is such a great recruiting tool.  Early on, when there were fewer users and less spam it was a very honest and direct way to engage with employers.  It seems that as more people join and more “How To Make Mad $$% With Twitter” instructional books come out Twitter might lose value as a recruitment tool.  We still believe that for entry level jobs a job board is one of the top tools to use. As long as all the positions listed are authentic, and are truly entry-level, applicants have complete freedom and flexibility and employers get applications in an organized way.

The WSJ talking about blogging.  I love the opening:

“A few years ago, experts would tell you that if you didn’t have a blog, your career would self-destruct… Then, there was a backlash. The same experts said the blogosphere was too crowded and you should only be out there if you are a CEO or have already proven that thousands of people want to read your ideas.”

May require a subscription to read.

Chris Havrilla (@havrilla) at Hitachi Consulting shares how she uses social media when searching for candidates.  She talks directly to people who are only using advertised/posted positions:

It is important to note, that finding the right person (or job) may not always happen when there is a posted, open position.  It is a safe bet that there are many potential jobs that go “unadvertised”.  And that number likely grows during times like these as many companies are experiencing budget cuts and may not widely market their jobs.

She also says that these tools are great for research - either before you apply or after to try and network:

If they have a position for which you are sincerely interested and qualified, apply and then use these tools to network your way to an interview.

Chris also goes into details about how she uses LinkedIn, facebook and twitter:

1. LinkedIn - I have found the tool works best for me to facilitate more meaningful contacts with this broader network.  While it may limit the people in my “network” that I can search or view within LinkedIn, I can always use Google to search the public version of LinkedIn profiles.  This gives me access to almost anyone on LinkedIn at any time.
2. Facebook - “I use this tool to establish closer, more meaningful connections with my inner most network.  These are the people you most want to keep up to date with and on – personally and professionally.  Many people are still cautious of using this professionally so, from a direct networking standpoint, it is best to use it for the people you know best.  You can join Groups as a means for more open networking and engaging of others you may not know — and they may be more open to receive.  Lastly, search for target companies and become a “Fan”.  Many companies have created Facebook pages to provide information for or engage with candidates, customers, etc.”
3. Twitter - Give it time – start following some people, watch, lurk, get a feel for it.  Once you have a good group of people you follow that interest you – reply to a few questions or comments – start a dialogue.  “Retweet” things you find interesting, appealing, or valuable.  Then eventually you’ll feel comfortable “tweeting” your own ideas, links, content, etc.

Lindsay Olson shares some data she found on Hubspot and their State of the Twittersphere report.
The report looked at twitter account with Twitter Grader and found that:

• 79.79% failed to provide a homepage URL
• 75.86% of users have not entered a bio in their profile
• 68.68% have not specified a location
• 55.50% are not following anyone
• 54.88% have never tweeted
• 52.71% have no followers

I’m surprised that 75% of users haven’t entered a bio and almost 70% haven’t entered their location.

Seriously.  The low hanging fruit here is definitely bio and location.  It’s super simple to enter and allows people to search for you FAR more easily.  The next step after that is to start following some people. ExecTweets.com is a great place to start and allows you to have every thought of major business leaders beamed to your twitter account.  You can respond and maybe, just maybe, get noticed.  That deals with 3 of the top 4 issues on the list.  As for url link I would get myself a facebook vanity name (if you haven’t done so already) and link it up.  Just make sure your facebook account is “employer friendly”.

Social media and the web plays a huge effect on your brand - that’s why I suggest you buy a domain name for yourself as early as possible.  I just saw this great deal on buying a domain name and wanted to pass it on.  Check to see if your name or last name is available and lock it in for 1 year. Total cost is $2.19.

Disclosure: We get nothing out of this deal.

I’m not going to lie - I use the default linkedin invitation with everyone I know.  I have rarely “connected” with someone I haven’t met before in real life, so this seems to be more tailored towards anonymous linkedin connections.  Anyway, Entry Level Careers Examiner takes JibberJobber’s linkedin advice and adds one more:

1. Customize the invitation. Sending a canned invitation looks unprofessional, and you have enough issues to overcome without starting off on the wrong foot. Start by putting the relationship into perspective from the beginning (even if you already know the person).
2. Tell the person where you know them from. Whether you know them from a networking meeting, just heard their name mentioned or found them while searching on LinkedIn, it is helpful to someone who is wondering if you are a spammer or not—this needs to go in the invitation text.
3. Tell the person why you want to connect. As the recipient of invitations, just saying why you want to connect lets me know that you are a real person and there is a reason we should connect. The canned invitation doesn’t say this, and connecting “just because” doesn’t give me confidence that our LinkedIn relationship would be a mutually beneficial thing.
4. No strings attached. You are asking someone to connect to you and shouldn’t have any strings attached. If they connect, great. If they don’t, no problem. You shouldn’t use this request as an invitation to give an unwarranted recommendation, etc.

I would like to add to Alba’s list: Say thank you when appropriate. If the individual with whom you would like to connect has helped you in some way, say so! I know nothing makes me want to connect with someone more than them thanking me for the help I’ve already provided. Perhaps also include that you looko forward to returning the favor (an extension of Alba’s third point).

EmployeeScreenIQ recently released a list of 10 top background screening trends for 2010.  A few of these stand out for entry level candidates.  The first, and probably most obvious one for college grads, is the use of social networking:

Greater hiring controversies due to social networking. Social networking has exploded in popularity and changed America’s culture. A recent CareerBuilder study found one in five employers used social networks such as Twitter and Facebook to influence hiring decisions. However, many sites have no verification process and several can be edited by anyone with access to the Internet. Sites such as YouTube and MySpace have few content requirements, and nearly all sites allow users to make up a profile in someone else’s name. At risk are FCRA (Fair Credit Reporting Act) regulations and EEOC (Equal Employment Opportunity Commission) guidelines.

With tough economic times there comes increased competition for the remaining jobs. EmployeeScreenIQ sees a rise in resume falsification as well:

As job seekers become more desperate to regain employment, resume falsification and diploma mills will increase in use. As the recession triggers an increase in overall crime, employers will see sharp increases in false information from job applicants as well as applicants with criminal records. EmployeeScreenIQ’s newest verification study finds that approximately 50 percent of resumes have some kind of inconsistency. The study also found that approximately 17 percent of background checks conducted by the company identify some kind of criminal activity.

The key is to remain honest.  Although EmployeeScreenIQ thinks less companies will be able to run complete background checks due to budget cuts, but false information always has a way of getting out.  Lying doesn’t help anything.  Also covered at the site is use of credit reports and discrimination.

Originally posted on Cheezhead