Today is the day folks. Time to break out your green clothing, head down to your local parade and start drinking green beer before 10 a.m. in the morning, because it is St. Patrick’s Day.
On top of the usual parade and celebratory festivities many of you are going to partake in, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament “March Madness” officially begins the field of 64 today. Put simply, today is probably going to be the most non-productive day of work of the year.
For those of you like myself who are working today and missing all of the fun, I feel your pain—adulting, as the kids are calling it these days, is not always fun. However, someone has to keep the masses informed about how they can get ahead in their job search. Today, that someone is me!
With this in mind and in the spirit of St. Patrick’s Day, our “Three for Thursday” this week will focus on three job search tips to help keep you motivated on the holiday. Sure, many of you are drinking this morning after taking the day off work—but you can still take advantage of these three tips once you get home from celebrating your Irish (or fake Irish) heritage today.
Keep the St. Patrick’s Day Social Media Pictures to a Minimum
For those of you who have been reading for a while, you are probably realizing a theme—I tend to harp on social media usage a lot. I am a social media power user, especially when it comes to the world of sports. If you head over to my Twitter handle at any point of the day, you will probably find an engaging interaction with another spirited Cleveland sports fan going on. This is what we call healthy social media use, because at the end of the day the only thing a potential hiring manager can see is that I am passionate about sports and love to engage with my followers.
On days like today though, social media can play a major role in your future job searches—or even whether or not you keep your current job. Think about it for a second, if you called off work today for that “doctor’s appointment” or woke up with a “24-hour flu bug,” you probably should not be posting pictures of yourself with your buddies taking a shot of Jameson or holding a green beer. Just because you think your boss is a dinosaur who does not use social media, does not mean someone in the company is not monitoring it.
When it comes to your job search, my favorite phrase in the world applies. “Something is never really deleted on the Internet.”
So, those tweets and Facebook posts you put up today with you drinking, wearing outlandish clothing and doing who knows what out and about—just because you delete them when you sober up, does not mean someone out there is not going to find them. We live in a day and age of quick screenshots and Google Indexing, so do yourself a favor today and avoid hitting send when you create that drunken post.
Take Advantage of the Day Off by Signing Up for Career eNewsletters
Chances are if you are like me, you receive 100-plus emails a day on your personal account. These emails range from stores sending you offers to articles from your favorite websites, basically we are an on-the-go society so being able to get things delivered right to our phones is perfect to stay informed.
Between all of the online shopping and the articles, I am sure you get other types of emails sent to you—so why not add a Career eNewsletter to the mix? In fact, NexGoal just launched their first ever “Career Essentials” eNewsletter this week, so if you could go sign-up for that one today we would greatly appreciate it!
Sign-up for NexGoal’s Career Essentials Newsletter Here
Are You a Company Looking to Hire Candidates? We Have an eNewsletter for That Too!
Alright, shameless Career Essentials plug aside (but seriously, you should sign-up for it) Career eNewsletters offer a lot of value. Many provide job search tips, success stories and potential job opportunities right in the palm of your hand. Basically, these become a one-stop shop of sorts to jump start your job search. No more procrastinating and putting off your new career efforts—because these eNewsletters have it all.
Network and Talk Shop While You Are Out
I know what you are thinking, who talks work while they are out celebrating St. Patrick’s Day and the beginning of March Madness? Well, more people than you think to be honest.
Last year, yours truly spent St. Patrick’s Day just like many of you are today. In between the adult beverages and the great conversation, somehow I left downtown Cleveland with three business cards for potential business opportunities in the future. There was no forcing of conversation, work just came up naturally in conversation and we exchanged business cards to talk at a later time. Out of those three business cards, one of them turned into an opportunity for some freelance work—a 33.3 percent conversion rate is not bad for a day off work.
Listen, I’m not telling you to spend your entire day networking instead of celebrating. What I am saying is throw a couple business cards in your wallet or back pocket because you never know who you may run into or what kind of conversation may spark up. If nothing comes of it, at least you were prepared for the opportunity and still got to enjoy your holiday.
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