I'm no internet junkie, but I am hooked on the mountains of information that can be found with one swift push of a button. Search engines like Yahoo, Altavista, Webcrawler, and Excite are the springboard for a quick dive into cyberspace waters. By searching for job opportunities on sites like Monster Board, Career Mosaic, NAB Job Clearinghouse, and TV Jobs, I have become my own online headhunter, and a pretty tenacious one at that. I have been known to surf the internet at 4:30 a.m. in the morning, aspiring to become an internet parasite by keeping myself logged on in the wee hours of the morning. Though I have run across employment opportunities in Topeka, Kansas, Albuqerque, New Mexico, and Toledo, Ohio, I keep praying that there will be equally good opportunities in cities like Chicago or New York...Not that there is anything wrong about working in a small station in El Paso, Texas, but I'm more of a city girl. Not to digress any further, but I've got to admit that looking for career in the media is especially hard when you are in Hanover, New Hampshire.
As a senior looking for a career in the media, I find that Career Services is very limited in its resources. After sifting through the Alumni Network and binders labeled "Communications," I've barely made a dent in improving my future career prospects. If you can't find what you are looking for in Career Services, then you best sit yourself in front of a computer and log on to the wonderful World Wide Web.
The media itself has become intimately linked with the internet. Practically every top market TV station, major newspaper, and journal in the country has a website. You can find hourly updated news updates and broadcasts on MSNBC and CNN. Using Real Audio, you just download and listen to broadcasts of the latest CNN and National Public Radio stories.
A trick that I've learned while honing my research skills is to enter a newsgroup appropriate to my career aspirations. Though some people post obscene messages and totally misuse these newsgroups, there are plenty of industry professionals who are involved in these newsgroups. As a "newbie" (naive beginner), I recently made a "friend," a MSNBC producer, simply by posting a message on an USENET newsgroup. He gave me some wonderful advice on how to direct my career search as well as what companies I should particularly focus my attention on when applying for jobs. He even e-mailed me a copy of their internal job listings.
Another useful tool are resume building centers which you can find on many job board sites such as Career Mosaic and Monster Board as well as specific specializing in online resumes. Many sites will allow you to post your resumes for free while others will charge you a nominal fee of about $20 for a 6 month period. You can post your online resume simply by cutting and pasting a simple text version of your resume. Many of these resume building sites will instantly format your resume, or they may ask you to fax in your resume so they can scan it. Whatever the case may be, once your resume is online, you always have the option of updating and editing it.
With the recent phenomenon of the information superhighway as a career searching tool, traditional forms of job search seem comparatively slow and time-consuming. Instead of taking copies of my resume and knocking on an employer's door, I much prefer to present myself online. Though there are definite drawbacks on becoming your own online headhunter such as the time spent staring at a computer screen and thinking that only a few people will even bother reading your newsgroup posting or online resume, you can always find solace in the fact that you are an enlightened being...
It's currently 4:00 am in the morning and my eyes have become bloodshot from fixating myself in front of the computer for several hours. Considering myself a borderline computer illiterate, I am amazed by what I can accomplish in a stationary position.
