Is it May already?

Where has the time gone? Graduation is a week and a day away. While I am looking forward to the NACE Conference coming up at the end of the month, I confess I have hardly looked at the materials yet. I have another trip scheduled two weeks before and I haven't even had time to review that one yet either. I'm sure I could become more efficient in some areas but I also think there is just more to do. Hmmm, maybe there is a good session on that. I'll have to look, when I get the time.

Seriously, glancing through the schedule again I am reminded of the excellent topics and the difficult decisions I will have to make. Certainly a large area of interest revolves around marketing to students and I believe (along with many others) one key component is our effective use of technology. The only problem is that it keeps changing. There are several sessions within the technology track that look like they will provide some up-to-date information on what types of technology students are using now and how we might channel this power for our own purposes. I hope to also have the opportunity to discuss new technology in an attempt to be prepared instead of always playing catch-up.

Fads and Trends

Whether we are planning, presenting, or simply attending, conferences offer us the chance to play the prognosticator. What is hot right now? What will become the next need-to-know thing, and what will be a flash in the pan? Technology continues to garner a bit of attention, mostly with a focus on particular tools that are top-of-mind. As always, though, there are too many offerings to take in everything of interest.

This year Facebook gets some more facetime (will the Beacon debacle be mentioned?), there are updates from the demographic front, we can hear echoes of the 2004 Chevron winner from a new campus and perspective, and YouTube seems to have replaced podcasting as the tech du jour. Are you planning your sessions out yet? Or do you wait until you are on the ground to decide?

At some point a retrospective on conference topics would be an interesting piece of research - track the true content trends and forces that have shaped our professions and have piqued our collective interest. What stories do you think it would tell?

Is Dolly Parton still right on?

In “9 to 5”, Dolly Parton sings about being “just a step on the boss man’s ladder” and how the work world is “all taking and no giving.” In Joni B. Cole and B.K. Rakhra’s new book, “Water Cooler Diaries,” the reader gets a glimpse at a day-in-the-life of 35 women whose jobs range from “orthopedic surgeon” to “voice-over actor.” These 9 to 5 chronicles present a diverse perspective on a variety of professional experiences, and I loved not only reading about the range of responsibilities and roles, but hearing such different and revealing views on careers. While there are plenty of disgruntled employees, there are also many who truly thrive in their work environments.

While reading these accounts, it’s hard not to imagine what kind of day you might jot down if given the opportunity. Like many people, my days vary so much that there’s never a ‘typical’ day (that was even more true when I was a middle school teacher—adolescents have a wonderful way of defying expectations!). In my current role, I’m neither a career counselor nor a recruiter, so I love hearing how people who are in those professions spend their time.

If you’ve time and inclination, jot down a snippet about an hour in your day. Hopefully your account won’t include the dripping-with-sarcasm line: “working 9 to 5, what a way to make a living...!?”

New hires want more than a paycheck!

According to a survey by Experience.com “It’s Time for a Job Description Makeover," 70% of job seekers value company reputation and ethics in a new employer. This often translates to finding a career where employers demonstrate a commitment to improve the local, national, and international community. There is no one model for how employers should do this, but with the increasing altruistic tendencies of this younger generation (volunteering is up 20% among college seniors), it seems like this is one generational trend that will carry well beyond just this group of students.

How do you see this in your line of work? Are students on your campus asking about how to find a job that is more than just a paycheck or making it a priority in their job search? Do you field questions about your corporate ethics and social responsibility from recruits or their parents?

How and Whether to Make a 22 Year Old Your Leader

Ryan Healy at Employee Evolution just posted a very thought provoking blog article for Gen Y employees about how they can become leaders in their organizations. Healy offers four tips:

1. Demonstrate that you're able and willing to make the decisions because leaders need to decide even when they don't have all of the information available.
   
2. Try new things. "Being comfortable and competent in unfamiliar situations is a sign of true leadership ability. So whenever you have the opportunity to do something new, try it!"
   
3. Surround yourself with people smarter than you. You don't need to lead them at every opportunity or even occasionally. But interact with smart people and learn "to hold your own in complex or thoughtful conversations."
   
4. Learn to work well alone. Leaders often have to make decisions by themselves and work through issues without the assistance from others.
   
   

That all said, what should organizations be doing to help 22 year old, recent college graduates and other Gen Y'ers learn how to become leaders within their organizations? College recruiting is strategic because it is used by organizations to recruit their next generation of leaders. But if those organizations don't teach their future leaders how to lead, then their college recruiting programs are doomed to failure.

So folks, how do you teach your Gen Y employees how to lead?

Going Green In New Orleans.......and in your everyday life........

As you may know, one of the NACE initiatives for the upcoming conference in New Orleans includes a focus on being "green". This concept of looking for ways to make an impact on the environment include a number of initatives at the conference including reducing plastic waste by eliminating individual bottled water, using post-consumer recycled materials such as an eco-friendly tote (51% recycled materials), badge holders that are made of 51% recycled material, having recycle bins in place of traditional trash cans at the conference, using post-consumer recycled paper for any printed materials including the conference notebook, and overall limiting the amount of printed materials by providing session handouts electronically. In addition, excess food from the conference will be donated to a local food rescue program.

These types of initiatives may seem small on the surface, but if we all make a commitment to small changes in our work and personal lives, we can make a difference.

As one of the largest recruiter of college grads, Enterprise has seen college students asking more questions about a company’s environmental and social practices. Employers who want to connect with the socially and environmentally conscious students are making their "green intiatives" a part of their recruiting efforts and marketing to college students as part of the company’s environmental or social platform. We are als seeing more employers are using the recycle logo on their career fair giveaways or using giveaways made from recycled materials.

At Enterprise Rent-A-Car, having been in business for more than half a century, we know that leadership is not a short-term proposition. For us, environmental stewardship is a long-term approach to addressing those parts of the world that we touch with our business, and involving ourselves with those issues over which we have some influence. It's an approach built upon a commitment to ensure the sustainability of our business, as well as the sustainability of the world we all share. Our environmental platform includes the following intiatives:

• Empowering our customers to offset the CO2 of their rental by funding projects that work to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
• Operating the world’s largest fleet of fuel-efficient cars, including more than 440,000 vehicles that achieve 28 mpg highway or better.
• Embracing New Clean Technologies by taking advantage of existing alternative technologies, such as FlexFuel and hybrid vehicles, and helping expand the availability and use of alternative fuels, such as E85.
• Funding the search for renewable fuels by donating $25 million to one of the world's leading plant science centers to develop renewable, reliable fuels from plant sources.
• Funding the planting of 50 million trees over the next 50 years with The National Arbor Day Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service.

Sharing our environmental platform is important to our college recruiting efforts because it ties to our corporate values and ethics. With a fleet of more than one million vehicles, we understand that we have an impact on the environment. This initiative allows us to demonstrate that we're positively impacting change and we highlight our initiatives on our careers website and through our new website highlighting our environmental platform keystogreen.com.

I'd love to hear what others are doing either from an organizational level or a personal level to make a positive impact on our environment. Does your university or company have any formal "green" initiatives? What tips to you have for NACE members to support this cause?

Student attendance at Career Center Programs

Has anyone else noticed this trend? It seems like there are fewer and fewer students attending programs or workshops that Career Services offices offer. Is your campus experiencing this too? Perhaps your campus is noticing it not only with Career Services programs, but many other programs as well?

Any ideas as to why? Maybe students are just too busy. Maybe they'd rather look up the same information on the internet? Maybe they don't see it as valuable at that moment. Maybe they just don't even know about these programs?

Obviously there are a lot of factors that contribute to student attendance (or non attendance). But what do we do with the fact that this is a reality? Do we not offer low-attended programs anymore? Do we go to on-line only career centers? How can we market programs more effectively? How do we plan around students' schedules?

I'll be looking for ideas in the sessions in New Orleans. I know there are a lot of sessions that highlight great programs going on in Career Centers, and I'm sure they've confronted the student attendance issue to make their programs successful!! I'm ready to soak up all these ideas!