My day at The Mass Conference for Women

Image courtesy of Mass Conference for Women

I'm home from the Mass Conference for Women which was held at the Convention Center today in downtown Boston. I went in early this morning, as many mass women did, not knowing exactly what I would get out of it. I left satisfied and with a renewed sense of optimism and confidence in myself, my life and my career. Now I just hope that elated feeling lasts!

The Highlights from my point of view:

1) Tory Johnson: A NYT best-selling author, CEO and GAM contributor, her career advice is up there with Oprah in my opinion. I found her inspirational, yet down to earth and reachable at the same time. When she was done speaking, she wasn't whisked away in some limo, but I was actually able to talk with Tory at her booth later on in the day, letting her know how in awe she left me. She asked her audience "When was the last time you felt like a rock star?" You can do what you love and you should. So many women, myself included, get down and out about our achievements and feel that we'll never make our dreams come true. If anything, we'll settle for a life that is just ok. But we don't have to. Find what makes you happy and go do it! If you don't know of her or her organization Women for Hire, go look her up! She is a great motivator.

2) Suze Orman: I didn't go in being a huge fan of the financial genius, and to be honest, all I could think of when her name was thrown out was the SNL parody they do on her (which is quite funny) I must say I was a bit star struck when she spoke and I found her to be quite inspirational as well. Not just in the money field, but she encouraged us as women to reach for our dreams and told us the "only thing stopping you is you".

3) Marcus Buckingham: Oprah's career guru was only so many feet from me today as I listened to his awesome speech on life and "living your strongest life" He's got great data to back up his claims, so definitely check him out and his book!

4) Brittany Bergquist: Haven't heard of her? That's probably because she's only 19 years old yet has done more for the world than most women twice her age. When she was 13, she and her younger brother saw a news segment about a solider in Afghanistan who rang up a cell phone bill that equaled about $18,000. He was trying to keep in touch with his family and lent his phone to fellow soldiers for the same reason. She felt for the soldier and consequently created the non-profit Cell Phones for Soldiers which has now received over $2 million dollars in donations and over 500,000 prepaid calling cards to soldiers overseas. You go girl!

All in all, I may not have left with good concrete job interviews or contacts, but I feel inspired and sometimes that's all you need. Looking forward to next year!

Are you ever done working on your resume?

How many of you would say you are continually working on perfecting your resume? Do you ever find a point where you think it's perfect?

I've found in the last few years that while looking for a job, my resume goes through so many revisions and not only do I end up with several different versions, but after sending it to employers, I continually update and re-work. The work of making it better is never done!

I've also found that asking for help from family, friends and professionals can sometimes be more than I hoped for. In the end, even if it's perfect, there will always be someone who has a different idea of how it should look. The same is true with employers. No matter how hard you work, there will always be some hiring manager who feels it isn't presented in the way they'd like.

To prevent yourself from over-dosing on resume advice, start with a few people, maybe one friend and one professional. Then put it down for a few days and look back when you have a fresh set of eyes. You can only work so hard, and if you allow an opinion from everyone, you will be glued to your desk forever!

What do we think about this?

Oprah's leaving us!

Photo above courtesy of Harpo Inc.

I came home last night and upon checking my email, I noticed the headline "Oprah Ending her Talk Show"....whaaaaat? I immediately clicked on the link with the sub-caption "see her end date". Ugh, my heart sank.

Yup, it looks like she will make the big announcement on today's show at 4 p.m. Man, only Oprah needs to make an announcement that she's going to make an announcement. Who else can do that?

What is she going to do next? Where will her loyal viewers of 25 years go? Is there truth to the rumor that she is starting her own network called "The Oprah Winfrey Network". What would that be like? Ok, obviously we all have burning questions, but we can only hope that whatever her decision to do next may be, she'll continue her wonderful work of helping so many people every day and inspiring them to live better lives.

As a twenty-something, I know that her advice is wonderful and inspiring. She's always encouraging us to live our best lives, and that's so pertinent to us twenty-something's who are looking to make our way in the world, make a living and enjoy it at the same time. Seriously, if you don't currently follow her advice, you should start!

Well, I suppose if anyone knows what they're doing, it's Oprah. For more info, go to www.oprah.com

Let's chat after the show today and share thoughts!

How I use Facebook

Above image courtesy of instructional.com

With the ever evolving use of social media platforms for business and personal, I find the two ways to use them are overlapping and becoming more blurred. When I started out with Facebook how ever many years ago, it was strictly for myself and my friends to connect. I don't think I was even out of college, so using it for business contacts, wasn't my main goal at that point. I continue to use facebook to keep up with my personal friends, but as my professional life is becoming more marketing oriented, I'm finding the pull to start using it for professional networking as well. I wouldn't normally have a problem with this, but there really are some areas that I want to keep "for friends only". I typically use LinkedIn and Twitter for my professional networking. Can I keep it this way? If I want to evolve with social media (as it's evolving every few hours practically)should I ditch the media platform as a "friends only" form? Social media experts, what do you think?

Hey Ladies!

I just stumbled across a cool career website, targeted just for women! I found it while I was "googling" career fairs in Boston. It's a cool site with great resources and there are some great career fairs (a bit pricey but check them out!)

http://www.womenforhire.com

Is it wrong to ask for feedback?

When you get a job rejection (which are a plenty right now if you can even get an interview)do you ever want to flat out ask "So what did I do wrong?" Of course! However, there are usually more diplomatic ways of approaching this. Hiring Managers would much rather give you the blanket answer that you were not chosen and move on. However for me, I always feel I could learn from the process and want to know why I wasn't picked, mainly so I can either work on the skills I don't have or stop blaming myself when I find out it had nothing to do with my qualifications. Maybe the manager would say "well, you had great experience but we found someone who had more." Or, they could say "you really didn't match our qualifications, here's what we're looking for" That would be great! If Hiring Managers gave that kind of feedback, I feel that I'd be all the more knowledgeable to go into the next interview. So, what's the best way to approach this? Thoughts? Best of luck to all those out there looking....

In need of some clarity...

Well, I’ve been away a long time. I know, I know. Trust me, I feel badly about it. Why did I leave for so long you ask? Well, there may not be an easy answer. I could say that between April and the present, things have been crazy. Sure, that could be true. But, is it? In a way, yes. There have been circumstances in my life recently that have made it a tough time. Maybe I’ll decide to write about this in a future post. Mostly, I have been confused. I have been confused about what I want to continue writing about, what I want to do with my own career, hence have good material with which to write and whether or not this blog will help me get anywhere I want to be. In the midst of this befuddlement I have decided to put it on hold. As any blogger knows, it takes a great amount of time and effort to keep a blog successful. We all know that actual posting is only half of the work needed to keep up a great blog. Unfortunately too many new bloggers decide to abandon their baby blogs on this reasoning. I certainly don’t want to be one of those people. This is why I have decided to return today, maybe in hopes that my readers can help me find some clarity. Maybe they can help me find a path to continue writing that will both satisfy my needs and the needs of the readers.

I have been writing about careers and life during our twenties. It isn’t that I have completely lost material. I mean, I live life every day as a twenty something and there is always something that could be interesting. Maybe the problem is that I don’t think it’s interesting, so I doubt my readers will think so either. Maybe I have to make it interesting no matter what. I have always known that I do my best writing when I am writing from my heart. Perhaps I feel I haven’t been writing from my heart here, thus not keeping myself engaged.

I don’t think I want to change the topic of my blog. I just want to figure out the best way to keep writing and keep both myself and readers engaged. I’ll keep thinking and be sure to get back to you. In the mean time, let me know your thoughts as well.

xoxo
Roaring Twenty Something