Nonprofit Career Round-Up: 5/23/2011

Before I get into the links for today, I wanted to send out my thoughts to everyone who lost friends or family in the tornado that hit Joplin, MO last night.  This was the third deadly tornado that has struck the South/Midwest this Spring, so there has been a lot of destruction these past weeks.  Hopefully this is the last of those disasters.

• 'Handling Lunch Interviews'-Do you have a lunch interview planned with an employer?  This post has some really helpful tips to make sure you impress your host.  Interviews over a meal can be more stressful than normal interviews, so it's really important to know what you are doing.
• 'Have a Little Faith in Yourself'-Feeling down in the dumps about your career prospects?  Check out this post from Classroomtocubicle.com.  Very nice reference of a "Beach Boys" song, as well.
• 'How to Job Search on LinkedIn'-Here's a video from Alison Doyle of About.com on how to use LinkedIn to search for jobs.  If you are new to the website, this is a good video to help you get started.

Nonprofit Career Round-Up: 4/21/2011

I hope everybody enjoyed the latest webcast of The NonProfit Times TV yesterday; remember that a new one comes out every two weeks!  Now, to get back on topic, here are the links I gathered up for this nice Spring day...

• Nonprofit Tech 2.0 Blog-Occasionally, some of the links I will provide here are not a specific article, but an entire blog; this is the case right here.  This is a great resource for how to best apply social media to nonprofits.  Check it out if you are hoping to work with social media in your profession.
• Marketing for Nonprofits-Here's another great nonprofit blog, but this is one is focused on marketing.  Marketing is a big part of any industry, but the nonprofit sector relies on it a lot.  If you have even some interest in marketing, it's a career that offers a lot of opportunities in the nonprofit sector.
• '3 Ways to Be Prepared For When a Golden Career Opportunity Slaps You in the Face'-Yeah, a long title, but this is a fantastic article.  It's written by Rosetta Thurman (who I mentioned before), and it starts out with a great little story that gives you the perfect example of what you should not do when a nonprofit career opportunity presents itself.  I couldn't have written this any better. 

Think You Have Enough Career Skills? You Probably Don't

One of the things you will learn while progressing through today's job market is that the wider variety of career skills you have, the better chance you will have in getting work. This is particuarly true in the case of not for profit jobs, where you will often be required to wear multiple "hats."  So while you might think that what you studied in college gives you all the skills you need for the kind of work you want, it not always enough.

To help your career skills development in today's day and age, I would suggest one particular path: web development (and this is not just because this is the secondary path that I took).  There may be no skill that is more important to have today than some basic HTML knowledge.  Even if you aren't interested in getting into the nitty-gritty world of Javascript, you should at least consider taking some basic HTML courses.  Most local colleges offer these courses, so it shouldn't be hard for you to find one.  Like most of the business world, nonprofits are quickly taking advantage of all the things the Internet has to offer by expanding their websites, and jumping into the social media arena, so brushing up on your skills in web deveopment can do nothing but improve your chances of landing a non profit job.

If you have even just a basic knowledge of HTML, you will be even more attractive to not for profits.  Yes, it may not be what you studied in school for 4+ years, but you have to do everything you can these days to get a leg up in a compeitive job market.  Of course, this isn't the only career skill you can develop; I would recommend researching the kind of different skills that some of the top non profits are looking for, and consider taking continuing education courses in those subjects as well.

Nonprofit Career Round-Up: 4/8/2011

Happy Friday everyone!  And no, I'm not referring to that horrible Rebecca Black song.  Anyway, here are the links for today...

• '6 Ways to Rock Your Noprofit Career'-This blog post from theYoung Nonprofit Professionls Network of Detroit contains advice is essential for you recent college grads out there.  All of this information is from Rosetta Thurman, a well known nonprofit career coach, who spoke at the YNPN 2011 conference, so you should take this stuff to heart.
• Non-Profit Organizations Job Fair at UCLA-Really not much to ad to this.  If you go to UCLA or live near there, attend this nonprofit career fair on April 11th from 10 AM til 2:00 PM. 

Preparing For Networking

I just posted about the nonprofit career event at Notre Dame, so this is an ideal time to talk about some of the things you will need to do to make sure you shine brightly if you decide to go to it (or any event like it, for that matter).

For one thing, you should bring copies of your resume.  As for which resume you bring, that will be a tricky question, as you obviously aren't going to know the representatives from the various nonprofits that might be there (though if this is a career fair, you might have a better idea of that).  If I were to make a recommendation, however, I would bring the resume you base all your various revisions off of.  You should give these to any nonprofit employees you talk to.

When you start your networking, you should almost treat it like a less formal interview.  What I mean by this is that both networking and nonprofit job interviews have the following thing in common: they both give the employee the chance to get to know who you are and what your skills are.  Really, the only real difference between networking and job interviews is that you aren't necessarily going to be talking about a specific position, and it is a bit more conversational than a job interview. 

If anything, networking events can be a little more stressful than job interviews.  You are going to not only be surrounded by many nonprofit reps, but many other individuals just like you; people wanting to break into the non profit sector. It's going to be hard not to feel a little competitive.  I remember at my first networking event, I felt like I had to out-do everybody; this is the worst thing you can do.  You should definitely do your best to impress, but not at the expense of acting like someone you are not.  All this will do is add extra stress and make you come off poorly.  Trust me, if you want to get a nonprofit job, you are going to want to be genuine.

So what should you talk about at a nonprofit networking event?  Well, it's really up to you, but you should certainly mention (if applicable) any nonprofit work you have done.  You should also mention what your previous job was and what about it lead you to pursue a nonprofit career.  But perhaps the most important thing you can do is get as much information from the representative you are talking to.  Does he/she know anybody you know in the industry?  Are there any job openings at their organization?  Any type of connection you get from this person will be extremely helpful to your job search.

Finally, talk to as many people as you can.  It's natural to feel a little exhausted after a few conversations but remember, you are at this event for your nonprofit career.  And there is no such thing as having enough connections, especially in the nonprofit world.

Calling All College Students: Nonprofit Career Event Coming to Notre Dame

I talk a lot about how important nonprofit networking events are; well, now's your chance to attend one if you go to the University of Notre Dame.  Apparently, the college will be holding a nonprofit career event on April 5th from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM.  The program, called “Making a Living Making a Difference," will be held in Geddes Hall and will give students and locals the chance to learn what it takes to work in the not-for-profit-sector.

The event is free, so there really is no excuse not to attend this event if you live in the area and are interested in nonprofit jobs.  Even if the speakers end up not interesting you, it's still a great opportunity to start doing some nonprofit networking.  Read more about the event in this article if you are interested in attending.

Nonprofit Career Round-Up-3/29/2011

I'm going to start doing a link round up, starting today.  The purpose of this is fairly simple: while my articles are designed to help you with your non profit job search, there are countless of other articles out on the web that I read everyday.  When I find some that I think will be helpful to nonprofit job seekers, I will include them in this round-up.  So without further ado, here are the links for today...

• 'Tips for an Effective Nonprofit Cover Letter': I'm actually going to do a post on nonprofit cover letters pretty soon, but this is a good article to read if you simply can't wait for that.  Cover letters are as important (if not more so) than resumes, so it's important to learn how to write them effectively.
• 'Ideas to Rock Your Nonprofit Career': This article is from The Foundation Center's official blog, so you definitely should take this seriously.  It explains some of the things I have touched on in my earlier posts (mainly the importance of networking), and it also contains an interview with one of the leadin experts on non profit jobs: Trista Harris.
• 'Six Great Tips for Nonprofit Job Hunters': This is a slightly older post but it's still a great read.  It's from Forbes' Kerry Hannon, and she does a great job of presenting her points.  Point number 1 is an especially important one...
• 'Top 10 Nonprofit Job Hunting Tips foe 2011': This is from another reputable nonprofit organization: Bridgestar.  I especially recommend this article to those who are just starting to think about pursuing a non profit career, because it does a an excllent job of getting you to think about why you want to work in the nonprofit sector.